IRR Calculator
Find the Internal Rate of Return for any project or investment from a stream of annual cash flows. Enter your upfront cost and each year's inflow, and the solver locates the discount rate that drives net present value to zero — the standard yardstick for judging whether a deal clears your hurdle rate.
How to Use
- Enter one cash flow per line, in chronological order by period.
- Make the first line your initial investment as a negative number (money out).
- Enter each subsequent year's net cash flow — positive for inflows, negative for additional outlays.
- The solver uses Newton-Raphson iteration to find the rate where net present value equals zero.
- Read the resulting IRR and compare it against your required return, or use a preset to load a sample project.
Show Work
Notes
About the IRR Calculator
Use the IRR Calculator — a free, easy tool for personal-finance and money decisions. Nothing is uploaded, and you do not need an account. Find the Internal Rate of Return for any project or investment from a stream of annual cash flows. Enter your upfront cost and each year's inflow, and the solver locates the discount rate that drives net present value to zero — the standard yardstick for judging whether a deal clears your hurdle rate.
How it works
Put each value in its box and read the answer as you go. Because it recalculates live, you can play with the inputs to see how each one moves the result — handy for checking your own working or planning ahead. Everything happens on your device, so it is fast and private.
Want the deeper story? The Knowledge Base explains the ideas behind the tools in more detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is IRR in plain terms?
The Internal Rate of Return is the annual percentage rate at which an investment's discounted future cash flows exactly offset its upfront cost — the rate that makes net present value zero. Conceptually it is the effective compound return the project earns on the money tied up in it.
How do I use IRR to make a decision?
Compare the IRR to your hurdle rate (your required return or cost of capital). If IRR exceeds the hurdle rate, the project is expected to create value; if it falls short, it does not clear the bar. Between competing projects, a higher IRR is generally more attractive, though it should not be the only factor.
What is the difference between IRR and NPV?
NPV gives you a dollar amount of value created at a chosen discount rate; IRR gives a percentage and finds the break-even discount rate itself. They usually agree, but for projects with unusual timing or scale, NPV is generally the more reliable tie-breaker because IRR can be misleading.
Can IRR give a wrong or missing answer?
Yes. Cash-flow streams that switch between negative and positive more than once can have multiple IRRs or none at all, and the solver may not converge. A conventional pattern — one upfront outflow followed by inflows — produces a single clean IRR.
Does IRR assume reinvestment of cash flows?
Standard IRR implicitly assumes interim cash flows are reinvested at the IRR itself, which can overstate returns for very high-IRR projects. When that assumption is unrealistic, analysts use a modified IRR (MIRR) with an explicit reinvestment rate.
How do I use the IRR Calculator?
Just type your numbers. The answer shows up right away — there is no button to press. Change anything and it updates by itself.
Do I need to install or sign up for anything?
Not at all — it runs in the browser with nothing to install and no account. After it loads once, it even works without an internet connection.
Is my information private?
Yes. Everything happens in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server or saved anywhere.
Common Use Cases
Evaluating a capital project
Test whether a piece of equipment or expansion clears your company's cost of capital before committing funds.
Real estate investment analysis
Model a purchase, several years of net rental income, and a sale to find the annualized return on the deal.
Comparing two opportunities
Put competing projects with different timing and scale on the same percentage footing.
Private equity or startup returns
Estimate the return on a back-loaded investment where most cash arrives at an exit event years later.
Setting a go/no-go threshold
Check a project's IRR against a fixed hurdle rate to make a quick accept-or-reject call.
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