XIRR Calculator, with CAGR and Absolute Return
XIRR has no formula. It is found by searching, which means the answer depends on where the search stopped. This calculator reports that search alongside the number, gives you absolute return and CAGR next to it, and tells you when your cash flows have no solution instead of inventing one.
What the holding is worth on the valuation date, from your statement.
XIRR, your money's annual return
15.01%
- Total paid in
- ₹3,60,000
- Total value out
- ₹4,50,000
Absolute return, ignoring time
25.00%
- Gain
- ₹90,000
- Period
- 1096 days
How that number was reached. XIRR has no formula to plug into. It was solved by searching: 46 iterations, narrowing the rate until the discounted cash flows summed to within a hundredth of a rupee of zero. A different tool stopping at a different tolerance can print a slightly different answer from the same 37 cash flows, which is worth knowing before treating two decimal places as precision.
The CAGR most people compute here is 7.71%, and for this pattern of payments it is the wrong number. It divides the total you paid by the total you got back and spreads the difference across the whole period, as though every rupee had arrived on the first day. Money paid in last month has not been invested for 3.0 years, so treating it as though it had flatters or penalises the result depending on when you paid.
Dates are discounted on an actual/365 basis, the convention Excel and Google Sheets use for XIRR, so the figure here is comparable with the one your spreadsheet gives. The result is a measurement of what already happened and not a projection.
A fund's advertised return is a different measure again. SEBI requires performance to be advertised as CAGR for 1, 3 and 5 years and since inception, with a point-to-point return on a standard ₹10,000 beside it. Neither describes your own payment dates, which is why your statement rarely matches the advertisement.
Cite this calculator
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The Money Decoded. "XIRR Calculator with CAGR and Absolute Return." https://themoneydecoded.com/calculators/xirr
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XIRR has no formula, and that matters
XIRR is the annual rate at which every cash flow, discounted by the exact number of days from the first one, adds up to zero. That equation cannot be rearranged to isolate the rate. There is no expression to plug numbers into, which is why every implementation, including Excel's, searches for the answer instead.
The consequence is small and worth knowing. The figure you get is whatever rate the solver had reached when it decided it was close enough to zero, so two tools stopping at different tolerances print slightly different answers from identical inputs. This calculator shows the iterations it used and the residual it finished on, so you can see how settled the answer is. An XIRR quoted to two decimal places is claiming more precision than the method supplies.
Dates are discounted actual/365, the convention Excel and Google Sheets use, so the figure here should match your spreadsheet.
Why three figures and not one
Absolute return, CAGR and XIRR answer three different questions, and only two of them are ever regulated. Absolute return is the plain change between what went in and what came out, with no reference to time. CAGR is the steady annual rate connecting a start value to an end value. XIRR is the rate that fits your actual payment dates.
SEBI requires a fund to advertise its performance as CAGR for one, three and five years and since inception, with a point-to-point return on a standard 10,000 rupees beside it. Neither of those describes an investor. Your XIRR does, and no rule requires anyone to show it to you, which is the reason a statement and an advertisement rarely agree.
The CAGR most people compute here is wrong
Dividing what you got back by what you put in, then spreading it over the years, treats every rupee as though it arrived on the first day. That is true for exactly one situation, a single payment held untouched, and it is false for every SIP.
The calculator prints that number anyway, labelled for what it is, because it is the figure people arrive at on their own and omitting it explains nothing. On a three-year monthly SIP the gap is not subtle: money paid in last month has been invested for a month, not three years, so treating the whole balance as three-year money understates the rate the early instalments actually earned. When you enter a single payment instead, the naive CAGR and the XIRR converge, which is the clearest demonstration of why they usually do not.
When there is no answer at all
XIRR needs the cash flows to change sign, and a set that never does has no solution. Money has to go in and something has to come back, otherwise there is nothing for a rate to reconcile. A list of instalments with no closing value is the common case, usually because the current value was left out.
The calculator says so rather than returning a number. That matters more than it sounds: a tool that always produces an answer is not more capable, it is less honest about the one case where the honest output is nothing.
What this calculator does not do
It does not forecast. Every figure here measures money that has already moved, and past cash flows say nothing about future ones.
It does not judge your return. There is no benchmark comparison here and no view on whether a number is good, because that depends on what you held, for how long, and against what alternative. Those are questions for a SEBI-registered investment adviser.
It does not deduct tax or exit load. What you keep after capital gains tax is a different figure from what your investment earned, and the treatment turns on your holding period and asset class. That is covered in capital gains tax, short-term versus long-term.
And it does not model the fund's own costs. The expense ratio is already inside the value your statement shows, so it is inside the XIRR here too, but what the choice of plan costs over a full holding is worked out in direct versus regular mutual funds.
Pair this with the guide
The companion post works through what each of the three figures measures, why a fund's advertised return and your statement disagree, and the SEBI clauses that decide which numbers a fund must publish: XIRR vs CAGR vs Absolute Return: What Each Measures. For how instalment timing shapes the outcome in the first place, see what a SIP actually is and the SIP calculator, which projects forward where this one measures backward.
Frequently asked questions
How is XIRR calculated?
By searching for an answer rather than computing one. XIRR is the annual rate at which every cash flow, discounted by the exact number of days from the first one, sums to zero. There is no way to rearrange that equation to isolate the rate, so software guesses a rate, checks how far the discounted total lands from zero, adjusts and repeats until it is close enough. This calculator uses bisection, which halves the search range each time and cannot diverge, and it reports how many iterations it took and how close to zero it finished. Dates are discounted on an actual/365 basis, the same convention Excel and Google Sheets use, so the figure here is comparable with a spreadsheet.
Why does my XIRR differ slightly between tools?
Because each tool stops searching at its own tolerance. Since XIRR is solved by iteration rather than by formula, the answer is whatever rate the solver had reached when it decided it was close enough to zero. One tool may stop when the discounted cash flows are within a rupee, another within a hundredth of a rupee, and the two print slightly different rates from identical inputs. Neither is wrong. It does mean that quoting an XIRR to two decimal places claims more precision than the method delivers, which is why this calculator shows its residual instead of hiding it.
What is a good XIRR?
That is not a question a calculator can answer, and this one deliberately does not try. A return only means something next to a benchmark, a time period and the risk taken to earn it, and all three depend on what you were invested in. A figure that looks strong over eighteen months may say more about when you started than about the holding. What the number does tell you honestly is what your own money earned given when you paid it in, which is a fact about your cash flows rather than a verdict on a fund. Whether it suits your goals is a conversation for a SEBI-registered investment adviser.
Can I use this for a SIP with top-ups and pauses?
Yes, and that is what the custom mode is for. The SIP mode assumes a fixed amount on the same day each month, which is the simple case most calculators handle. Real investing rarely stays that tidy: instalments get paused, amounts get raised, lump sums get added in a good year, and money gets taken out for something urgent. Custom mode takes the actual date and amount of every movement, with payments in entered as negative numbers and anything received entered as positive. Because XIRR weights each cash flow by the exact days it was invested, irregular dates are the case it was designed for.
Why does the calculator sometimes say there is no solution?
Because sometimes there genuinely is not one, and saying so is more useful than printing a number anyway. XIRR needs the cash flows to change sign at least once: money has to go in and something has to come back, or there is nothing for a rate to reconcile. A list of payments with no closing value has no solution, and neither does a set where a date or an amount has been entered wrongly enough that no rate between minus 99% and 10,000% a year fits. Most calculators hide this by returning an error code or, worse, a plausible-looking figure.
Sources
- SEBI Master Circular for Mutual Funds, clause 13.3 as consolidated to 31 March 2024, for the requirement that scheme performance be advertised as CAGR for 1, 3 and 5 years and since inception, and that a point-to-point return on a standard 10,000 rupees be provided alongside it
- Microsoft, XIRR function, for the actual/365 day-count convention and the iterative solve this calculator reproduces
- Association of Mutual Funds in India, for scheme-level performance disclosure practice
- The solver here was checked against the worked example published in Microsoft's own XIRR documentation, and against the case of a single payment, where XIRR must equal CAGR exactly