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A $1,850.00 deposit, $150.00 withheld, $1,700.00 back. Enter the rent, the deposit, the lease term and each item deducted. This security deposit calculator prints the deposit in months of rent, any interest it earns, every deduction and the exact refund - no account, nothing stored.
Deposit returned after a 12-month lease
$1,850.00 deposit - $150.00 withheld (8.11%)
1.00 month of rent at $1,850.00.
Interest is optional. Enter the rate your lease names, or leave it at 0 and no interest is counted.
Deductions - one line eachCleaning, damage, unpaid rent, other. A line stays out of the sum while it is blank.
Interest is simple: the deposit times the yearly rate times the months of the term, divided by twelve. Every figure is carried at full precision and rounded once, to the nearest cent.
One deposit, two halves: what stays with the landlord and what comes back. The bar is the whole deposit, so the two pieces always add up to it.
The arithmetic is one line long: refund = deposit + interest - deductions. With $1,850.00 held, $0.00 of interest over twelve months and $150.00 kept for cleaning, the refund is $1,700.00, and 8.11% of the deposit was withheld. Every figure under the calculator comes from that one line, so a deduction typed in twice shows up twice - the page adds what you give it and does not decide what is fair.
Leases quote a deposit as a number of months, tenants think in dollars, and the two have to meet somewhere. This page meets them at the rent: enter the dollar figure and the line under it converts back to months, so a lease written either way lands on the same number.
| Deposit as | Deposit | Move-in cash |
|---|---|---|
| Half a month | $925.001,850.00 x 0.5 | $2,775.00+ first month 1,850.00 |
| One month - the common benchmark | $1,850.001,850.00 x 1 | $3,700.00+ first month 1,850.00 |
| One and a half months | $2,775.001,850.00 x 1.5 | $4,625.00+ first month 1,850.00 |
| Two months | $3,700.001,850.00 x 2 | $5,550.00+ first month 1,850.00 |
| Three months | $5,550.001,850.00 x 3 | $7,400.00+ first month 1,850.00 |
The second column is the one that catches people out. A two-month deposit is not a bigger monthly cost - it is the same rent with more cash locked up, and that cash has to be on hand on day one, together with the first month. The move-in line in the calculator adds the two so the figure matches what leaves the account, not what the rent costs.
A deposit is only ever reduced by itemized amounts. The table below runs the same $1,850.00 deposit against five deduction totals, and the percentage is the withheld amount divided by the deposit - the number to compare when two landlords quote different deposits.
| Deducted | Returned | Withheld |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing | $1,850.001,850.00 - 0.00 | 0.00% |
| $150.00 - cleaning | $1,700.001,850.00 - 150.00 | 8.11% |
| $400.00 - cleaning and a repair | $1,450.001,850.00 - 400.00 | 21.62% |
| $900.00 - cleaning, repair, part of a month | $950.001,850.00 - 900.00 | 48.65% |
| $1,850.00 - the whole deposit | $0.001,850.00 - 1,850.00 | 100.00% |
Each line of that table is one entry in the calculator. Splitting a single $400.00 figure into $150.00 cleaning and $250.00 repair changes nothing in the total, but it changes everything in a dispute: a line you can check against a receipt is a line that can be argued with, and a lump sum cannot. That is the reason the page asks for four separate fields instead of one.
The interest field starts at zero, and at zero the page counts no interest at all. That is deliberate: whether a deposit earns anything depends on the lease and on where the property is, and this page does not assume either. When a lease does name a rate, the arithmetic is simple interest - deposit times rate times months, divided by twelve - rounded once at the end.
| Term | Interest | Working |
|---|---|---|
| 6 months | $18.50 | 1,850.00 x 0.02 x 6 / 12 |
| 12 months | $37.00 | 1,850.00 x 0.02 x 12 / 12 |
| 18 months | $55.50 | 1,850.00 x 0.02 x 18 / 12 |
| 24 months | $74.00 | 1,850.00 x 0.02 x 24 / 12 |
The term field is the length of the lease you type, and nothing else. It is not a deadline, and the page does not count days: how long a landlord has to send the money back is a separate question with a separate answer in each place. If the term is wrong, the interest is wrong; if the rate is wrong, the interest is wrong. Both are inputs, not assumptions.
Three things are deliberately absent. It does not say how large a deposit may be, it does not say how many days a landlord has to return it, and it does not say which deductions are allowed. Those are set by state law and by the lease, they differ from one place to the next, and quoting a number for them without reading the statute would be a guess wearing a figure's clothes.
What the page does instead is the part that is the same everywhere: it adds what was held, subtracts what was kept, and shows the difference to the cent. If a deduction pushes past the deposit, the page says so and shows the balance that runs the other way, instead of quietly clamping the refund at zero.
A common benchmark is one month's rent, and many leases ask for exactly that: on a rent of $1,850.00 a month the deposit is $1,850.00, and with the first month the cash needed on move-in day is $3,700.00. Caps on the amount are set by state law, and this page does not quote them - enter the deposit your lease names and it works from that figure.
No. Rent is money spent for the month; a deposit is money held and normally returned when the lease ends, minus any itemized deductions. That is why the calculator keeps them apart: the deposit appears in the move-in cash line and in the refund line, never in a monthly cost. On a $1,850.00 rent with a $1,850.00 deposit, the monthly cost stays $1,850.00 while the cash at move-in is $3,700.00.
Yes - two names for the same money. Some leases call it a rental deposit, some a security deposit, some a damage deposit; the figure held and the itemized list at the end are what matter, not the label. This page uses both names because both are what people type into a search box.
Sometimes. Whether it does depends on the lease and on where the property is, so the interest field starts at 0 and stays out of the sum until you type a rate. When there is one, the arithmetic is simple interest: $1,850.00 at 2.00% a year for twelve months is $37.00, and for six months it is $18.50.
Unpaid rent, cleaning beyond ordinary wear, and damage are the usual three, and a lease may name others. This page does not judge any of them: it subtracts the four numbers you enter. The useful habit is to ask for the list line by line, because a $400.00 total that splits into $150.00 cleaning and $250.00 repair can be checked against receipts, while a lump sum cannot.
The refund stops at zero and the calculator prints a warning with the amount that runs past the deposit. On a $1,850.00 deposit with $1,950.00 of deductions, $100.00 is owed the other way, on top of the deposit - the page shows it rather than hiding it inside a zero.