FD interest compounds by A = P × (1 + r/n)^n×t, where P is the principal, r the nominal annual rate, n how many times a year it compounds, and t the tenure in years. Plug in your numbers — P ≈ ₹5,00,000, r ≈ 6%, n = 1, t = 10 years — and the exponent works out to the ₹8,95,424 maturity used throughout this page, with interest simply maturity minus principal: ₹3,95,424.

Compounding more often — quarterly instead of annually, say — nudges maturity up slightly for the same headline rate, because interest starts earning its own interest sooner. The tenure and principal tables further down show how much that effect, and the bigger levers of rate and time, actually move your number.

One quirk worth knowing: most Indian banks quote FD rates as an annual percentage but compound quarterly as a matter of convention, so the yield you actually earn can run a touch above the rate printed on the card. Check the compounding frequency stated on your specific FD receipt rather than assuming annual.

This calculator models a cumulative FD — interest compounds inside the deposit and everything, principal plus interest, pays out at maturity as the ₹8,95,424 figure above. The alternative is a non-cumulative FD, which pays interest out on a schedule (monthly, quarterly, or annually) instead of letting it compound.

For an identical rate and tenure, cumulative usually edges out the total from a non-cumulative FD's payouts added together, since compounding keeps working on interest that would otherwise have already left the deposit. Pick non-cumulative only when you actually need the periodic cash.

Most banks let you close an FD before maturity, usually at a cost: a reduction of 0.5–1 percentage point off the rate that applied to however long you actually held the deposit, not the original quoted rate. Five-year tax-saver FDs are the exception — the 5-year lock-in tied to the Section 80C deduction (old regime only) is real, with withdrawal allowed only in specific circumstances such as the depositor's death.

At maturity you can withdraw everything, renew principal and interest together, or take the interest out and roll over just the principal — worth deciding based on where rates have moved since you booked, rather than defaulting to auto-renewal. Some banks also allow a partial withdrawal on a cumulative FD, pulling out part of the deposit while the rest keeps earning at the original rate, which is worth asking about when the real issue is a smaller, one-off cash need rather than needing the whole sum back.

Interest on a fixed deposit is added to your income and taxed at your slab rate — there is no separate, lower rate the way there is for some market-linked long-term gains. Banks deduct TDS once your interest from that bank crosses the threshold for the financial year (senior citizens get a higher threshold), but that deduction is only provisional: you still declare the full interest as income and square up the difference — pay more, or claim a refund — when you file, since your slab may sit above or below the rate the bank withheld.

If your total income will not be taxable that year, Form 15G (or Form 15H if you are a senior citizen) tells the bank to skip TDS altogether. It is only appropriate when you are genuinely confident you owe no tax — submitting it does not change what you actually owe if your income turns out to cross the threshold after all.

FDs turn up most often in three places: as the core holding for retirees who want predictable income over growth, as the parking spot for an emergency fund that should beat a savings account without touching equity risk, and as the default choice for money earmarked for something specific in the next one to five years — a wedding, a down payment, a fee due on a known date. They are a weaker fit as the only vehicle for a decade-plus goal, where a purely fixed rate quietly loses ground to inflation over time.

Opening one is straightforward at almost any bank or NBFC: compare rate cards for your exact tenure rather than assuming one institution wins across the board, decide cumulative or non-cumulative before you book, and note that most banks let existing customers open an FD instantly online with no extra paperwork. If you are booking for a parent or senior relative, ask specifically for the senior citizen rate card — most banks pay 0.25–0.75 percentage points more than the general public rate, with a further step-up at some banks for "super senior" citizens (typically 80+), but it is rarely applied automatically without age proof on file. And set a reminder before maturity — an FD left to auto-renew unchecked can sit at a rate the bank has since improved on for new deposits.

The two tables below hold two of the three levers — principal, rate, tenure — fixed at what you entered and vary the third, so you can see which one actually moves your maturity the most, rather than relying on a generic rule of thumb.

Different tenures

Different principal amounts (±15–25%)

For a sense of scale only — not a prediction — a monthly SIP near ₹4,167 at an illustrative 12% could land near ₹9,68,157 over the same 10 years. The gap between that figure and this page's FD maturity is not really the point: an FD guarantees ₹8,95,424, while an equity SIP guarantees nothing and can sit below what you put in for stretches along the way. Pick based on the job the money has to do — near-term certainty or long-run growth — not which number looks bigger today.

If the real question is "what do I need to deposit to hit a specific number" rather than "what will ₹5,00,000 become," it helps to flip the calculation around. At the same 6% rate, 10-year tenure, and 1-times-yearly compounding used elsewhere on this page, a round target near ₹18,00,000 needs a principal of roughly ₹10,05,000.

That is the more useful order of operations for a known future expense — a wedding, a down payment, a child's college fee due in 10 years. Start from the rupee amount you actually need on that date, then size the deposit (or a set of deposits) to reach it, rather than picking a deposit size first and hoping it lands close.

A fixed deposit is one of several fixed-income options open to Indian savers. Roughly, here is where it sits against the others:

FDs sit in the middle for flexibility — shorter and more liquid than PPF, though without PPF's tax-exempt interest. If monthly income matters more than a lump sum at the end, compare this page against EasyCal's Post Office MIS calculator using a similar principal.

Rather than parking ₹5,00,000 in one 10-year FD, many savers split it across several FDs with staggered maturities — a quarter maturing each year for four years, say, with each maturing slice reinvested into a fresh long-tenure deposit. Laddering gives you periodic access to part of your money without ever breaking a deposit early, while most of the corpus still earns the longer-tenure rate, and it smooths reinvestment risk since only a fraction resets into whatever rate environment exists at any given time.

It is also worth knowing that DICGC deposit insurance covers FDs only up to a fixed limit per depositor per bank, combining every deposit account you hold there — not per account, and not unlimited. That cap is one practical reason large sums often get split across a few banks rather than concentrated at one, quite apart from the rate-shopping benefit of doing so.

• Locking the full amount into one FD instead of laddering, which limits access to cash without breaking the whole deposit.
• Ignoring TDS and slab tax, then being surprised the return you actually keep is lower than the quoted rate.
• Skipping small finance banks and NBFCs (within safe deposit-insurance limits) when comparing rates — differences of 0.5–1.5 percentage points against large banks are common.
• Forgetting Form 15G/15H when genuinely eligible, and then having to claim back TDS that never needed to be deducted.
• Assuming longer tenure always means a better rate — it does not always hold; some mid-length tenures occasionally carry the best card rate.
• Letting an FD auto-renew year after year without checking whether a better rate is now on offer elsewhere.

None of that makes FDs a weak choice for the job they are actually built for: money that has to be a specific number on a specific date, with zero tolerance for drawdown. The trade-off is simply that certainty costs something — you give up the higher long-run growth potential of market-linked options for knowing exactly what you will have at maturity.