Net Worth Calculator

Net worth = (cash + investments + real estate + vehicles + other assets) − (mortgage + car loan + student loan + credit cards + other liabilities), and after a fall of d in asset values: net worth = total assets × (1 − d) − total liabilities.

A

Total assets: the five asset lines added together, before any liability is subtracted

L

Total liabilities: everything you owe today, at the balance on the statement rather than the original amount borrowed

N

Net worth, which is what is left of A after L is taken out, and which can be negative

d

The fall in asset values used by the reference table: 10%, applied to every asset at once and leaving liabilities untouched

Use it once a year, and use it again whenever a lender asks what you are worth: the same ten lines answer both. It is also the fastest way to see why a balance sheet that looks large can be fragile. Put the current balance of every debt in, not the amount you first borrowed, and count a house or a car at what it would sell for today rather than what you paid.

1. A typical household: 25,000 in the bank, 60,000 invested, a 320,000 house, an 18,000 car and 5,000 of other assets, against a 195,000 mortgage, a 12,000 car loan, an 18,000 student loan, 3,500 of credit card balances and 1,500 of other debts

   1. Total assets: 25,000 + 60,000 + 320,000 + 18,000 + 5,000 = 428,000
   2. Total liabilities: 195,000 + 12,000 + 18,000 + 3,500 + 1,500 = 230,000
   3. Net worth: 428,000 − 230,000 = 198,000
   4. The house alone is 320,000 of the 428,000, so almost three quarters of this balance sheet is one asset

   This is the same household the reference table is built around, scaled down: 230,000 of debt against 428,000 of assets is a little over half, near the reference table's 60% row.

2. A clean sheet: 50,000 in the bank and nothing else

   1. Total assets: 50,000
   2. Total liabilities: 0
   3. Net worth: 50,000 − 0 = 50,000, so net worth equals total assets
   4. A 10% drop in asset values would take this to 45,000 — a 10% drop in net worth, the smallest possible for a given fall

   With no debt at all, net worth and total assets are the same number, and every fall in asset values lands one for one on net worth. This is the upper bound of what the ratio can be.

3. A first house: 10,000 in the bank, 20,000 invested and a 300,000 house, against a 240,000 mortgage

   1. Total assets: 10,000 + 20,000 + 300,000 = 330,000
   2. Total liabilities: 240,000
   3. Net worth: 330,000 − 240,000 = 90,000
   4. Debt is 240,000 of 330,000, so 73% of this balance sheet is financed; the reference table's 60% row and 80% row bracket it

   The usual shape of a first house: net worth is positive, but only a fifth of the assets are yours outright, so an asset fall bites far harder here than the 90,000 suggests.

4. A car worth less than the loan on it: 3,000 in the bank and a 15,000 car against a 22,000 car loan

   1. Total assets: 3,000 + 15,000 = 18,000
   2. Total liabilities: 22,000
   3. Net worth: 18,000 − 22,000 = −4,000
   4. The minus sign is the whole point: this balance sheet owes 4,000 more than it owns

   A negative net worth is a real and ordinary state, not an error. The calculator prints it with the minus sign rather than stopping at zero, and nothing on the page treats it as invalid.

5. A large balance sheet: 80,000 in the bank, 600,000 invested, 1,200,000 of property, 45,000 of vehicles and 25,000 of other assets, against a 700,000 mortgage, an 18,000 car loan and 2,000 of other debts

   1. Total assets: 80,000 + 600,000 + 1,200,000 + 45,000 + 25,000 = 1,950,000
   2. Total liabilities: 700,000 + 18,000 + 2,000 = 720,000
   3. Net worth: 1,950,000 − 720,000 = 1,230,000
   4. Debt is 720,000 of 1,950,000, about 37%; a 10% asset fall would cost 195,000, which is 16% of net worth

   The same 10% fall that costs the clean sheet 10% of its net worth costs this one about 16%, because a third of these assets are financed.

Ten lines cannot hold a whole financial life. A defined-benefit pension, the cash value of a life insurance policy, a business you own but have never had valued, and the present value of future Social Security or state pension payments are all assets that this page has nowhere to put, and for many households they are the largest ones; if you need them counted, they belong in other assets at a figure you can defend. Crypto, jewellery and collectibles have the same problem from the other side, since their value is whatever a buyer says it is. On the liability side the page records balances and not terms: an interest rate, a remaining term and a minimum payment change what a debt costs you, but not what it takes off your net worth today. Personal net worth is also not a tax figure — no capital gains tax is deducted from the investments line, so a sale of everything on the page would leave you with less than the number shown, and a retirement account withdrawn early would be less still. The page works in one currency and does not convert: if your assets and your debts are in different currencies, convert them at one rate before you enter them. Finally, one balance sheet is a snapshot and two of them a year apart say much more than either one alone, because net worth rises and falls with markets you do not control; a single large drop in the investments line is a market move, not a mistake in your arithmetic.

How much am I worth?

Add the five asset lines, add the five liability lines, and subtract the second total from the first. That is the whole calculation, and it is the same definition a lender, a divorce court or a financial adviser would use, though each of them may insist on different valuations for the house and the pension. The number is only as good as the valuations you put in: a house is worth what it would sell for today, not what you paid, and a car is worth what a dealer would give you, not what the listing says.

What does a negative net worth mean?

It means your debts are larger than your assets, and the calculator prints the minus sign rather than stopping at zero. It is common and often temporary: a student early in a career, anyone with a car loan larger than the car, and most first-time homeowners in the first years of a mortgage can all be here without anything being wrong. What matters is the direction and the size of the debt behind it, not the sign — two households at minus 4,000 are in different positions depending on whether the debts are a mortgage against an appreciating house or credit cards at a high rate.

Should I count my house at what I paid for it?

No. Net worth is a present-tense figure, so the house goes in at what it would sell for today, minus nothing for the mortgage because the mortgage is already a liability line of its own. Counting both the purchase price and the full mortgage would date the page to the day you bought. If you have a recent appraisal or a reliable estimate from comparable sales, use that; otherwise use a conservative figure, because an inflated house value produces a net worth you cannot spend.

What happens to net worth after a market drop?

It falls, and it falls by more than the drop when you have debt. A 10% fall in asset values takes 10% off net worth only if you owe nothing; with assets of 500,000 and debts of 400,000, the same fall takes 50,000 out of assets and leaves the 400,000 untouched, which is half of a 100,000 net worth. The reference table on this page prints that arithmetic for five levels of debt, and it is worth reading the last row: at 80% debt, a 10% asset fall halves net worth.

Does the order of the ten lines matter?

No. Addition is addition, and the two totals and the difference are the same whether you enter the bank balance first or the mortgage first. The order only matters for reading the result: keeping cash, investments and property in fixed places makes it obvious at a glance which line moved since last year, which is the reason to compute this yearly rather than once.

Is net worth the same as my income?

No, and confusing them is the most common mistake this page sees. Income is a flow — what arrives each month — and net worth is a stock: what you have accumulated by the end of it. A high earner who spends everything can have a net worth near zero, and someone on a modest salary who saves steadily for twenty years can have a large one. The related calculators below cover the flow side: a budget works out what is left over each month, and that leftover is what moves the stock.

• Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) — the triennial Federal Reserve survey that measures what US families own and owe, and the source of the published net worth distributions this page's ten lines are built to resemble — Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (United States)
• Net worth — the definition used here: the value of assets minus the value of liabilities, with the same five-to-five structure this page lays out — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov (United States)
• Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1) — the quarterly household balance sheet, which reports the same assets-and-liabilities split in aggregate and is the closest official equivalent of a national version of this page — Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (United States)