No Cost EMI Calculator

Why "no cost" is never zero cost

The RBI settled this in 2013: genuine 0% interest lending is not permitted in India. So when a checkout page offers No Cost EMI, the interest has not vanished — someone is paying it. Usually that is the merchant, who gives the bank a discount equal to the interest so your instalment works out to exactly the price divided by the tenure.

That part really is free to you. Three things are not.

The three costs the label hides

1. GST on the interest — you pay this, always

The merchant's discount covers the interest. It does not cover the 18% GST levied on that interest, which is billed to you. On a ₹60,000 purchase over six months at 16%, the bank's interest is about ₹2,832 — so you are charged roughly ₹510 of GST on interest you were told you would not pay.

This is the charge that surprises people, because it appears on the statement after the purchase rather than at checkout.

2. The processing fee, plus GST on the fee

Most card EMI conversions carry a one-off fee, commonly ₹199–₹599, and GST applies to that too. A ₹199 fee costs ₹234.82. Small in isolation, but on a short tenure it can exceed the GST on the interest itself.

3. The upfront discount you gave up — usually the big one

This is the cost nobody lists, and it is normally the largest. Many sellers offer an instant discount for paying in full that is not available with No Cost EMI. If that discount is ₹3,000 and you choose EMI instead, the real cost of the deal is not ₹744 — it is ₹3,744, and the annualised cost jumps from about 2.5% to over 12%.

Enter that figure in the calculator above. It usually changes the answer completely, and it is the one number the checkout page will never show you.

Longer tenures cost more, not less

A longer tenure lowers the monthly instalment, which is exactly why it is offered. But more months means more interest underneath, and 18% of a bigger number is a bigger number. The same ₹60,000 purchase costs about ₹510 of GST over six months and roughly ₹959 over twelve.

The annualised cost column in the table cuts through this. It is the total extra divided by the price, scaled to a year — a flat rate on the full purchase price, not a reducing-balance APR, so do not read it against a bank's quoted p.a. figure. Its job is to put every tenure of the same deal on one basis so you can see which is cheapest.

When No Cost EMI is genuinely a good deal

Often it is. If there is no competing upfront discount, the total cost is just GST on interest plus a small fee — frequently under 3% annualised, which is far below any personal loan or revolving card balance. Spreading a large purchase at that price is reasonable.

The decision rule is simple: ask what the price is if you pay in full today. If the answer is "the same", No Cost EMI is cheap credit and worth taking. If the answer is a discount, put that number into the calculator before deciding — you are comparing a discount you can have now against interest-free instalments, and the discount usually wins.

What this calculator assumes

• The merchant's discount exactly offsets the bank's interest, so the advertised instalment is price ÷ tenure. That is the standard structure, but a few schemes inflate the product price instead — compare against the cash price to catch that.
• GST is charged at 18% on the interest component and on the processing fee.
• The bank's underlying rate is the one you enter. Card EMI conversions typically run 13–16%; the exact figure is in your card's schedule of charges.
• No prepayment or foreclosure charge is modelled. Many card EMI plans levy one, so closing early may cost more than the interest it saves.