Insights

The Amortisation Table, Explained

Your instalment is the same every month — but how much of it pays down the loan versus the bank changes completely over time. The Amortisation Table shows where every dollar of every payment actually goes.

By TRIBE Editorial · 28 June 2026 · 3 min read

A home loan instalment feels like one fixed number, but inside it two things are happening that move in opposite directions: part pays the bank its interest, and part pays down your actual debt. Early on, most of your payment is interest; years later, most of it is principal. The Amortisation Table opens that black box and shows, month by month, exactly where every dollar of every instalment goes — and what the loan costs you in total.

level

Your monthly instalment

same each month, split shifts

interest-heavy

The early years

little principal paid down early

total interest

What the table reveals

the real cost of the loan

What it computes

Enter three things — the loan amount, the annual interest rate, and the tenure in years — and the table returns your level monthly instalment, the total paid and total interest over the life of the loan, and a row for every year (or every month) showing that period's interest, principal, and the falling balance. It's a standard reducing-balance loan: the full principal is borrowed on day one, and the instalment is sized so the loan clears exactly at the end of the tenure.

Why early payments barely dent the loan

Interest each month is charged on the outstanding balance, which is largest at the start. So in the early years a big share of your fixed instalment goes to interest and only a little to principal; as the balance falls, the interest portion shrinks and the principal portion grows, accelerating toward the end. This is why paying off a loan "feels slow" for the first several years, and why the total interest on a long tenure can be a large fraction of the amount borrowed. Seeing the split is the point: it makes the true cost of a longer tenure, or a higher rate, concrete rather than abstract.

What it's good for

Three practical uses. First, comparing tenures: a longer tenure lowers the monthly instalment but raises total interest — the table quantifies the trade. Second, comparing rates: drop the rate by half a percent and watch the total-interest line move. Third, understanding a partial prepayment: because early principal is small, a lump sum in the early years removes future interest disproportionately — the table shows how much of the balance you're really clearing.

How to read it

Open the Amortisation Table, enter your loan, rate and tenure, and look first at total interest — that's the number a glossy "low monthly instalment" pitch never shows you. Then scan the principal-versus-interest split in year one versus a later year to see how slowly equity builds at the start. This tool is for a normal loan on a completed or resale property; a new launch under construction draws down in stages, so its instalment climbs — that's the New Sale Amortisation Table.

See where your instalments go at tribesg.com/tools/amortisation-calculator.

Sources: TRIBE Amortisation Table; standard reducing-balance amortisation, as at June 2026. Informational only; not financial advice.

Silas Tan is a District Director at Huttons Asia and co-founder of TRIBE. This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial or investment advice. CEA Registration R000303I.