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Finance

Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) Calculator

The Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) is the first number a commercial-property or small-business lender will run when sizing a loan: how many times over does the property's (or business's) net operating income cover the actual annual principal-plus-interest payment. This tool returns DSCR, cash-flow surplus and the break-even NOI, then grades the result against the commercial-real-estate 1.25× benchmark.

DSCR

1.50

Strong (≥ 1.25)

Lender acceptance scale

Insufficient (< 1.00) Borderline (1.00–1.15) Acceptable (1.15–1.25) Strong (≥ 1.25)

Cash-flow surplus (NOI − debt service)

NOI break-even

Max debt service to keep DSCR ≥ 1.25

Bands use the commercial-RE / small-business underwriting convention (Fannie Mae DUS, Freddie Mac SBL, typical bank lenders). Residential mortgages, agricultural and specialty loans use different thresholds.

Formula

DSCR = NOI / Annual Debt Service (principal + interest)

Frequently asked

Why is the standard DSCR threshold 1.25 rather than just 1.0?

DSCR = 1.0 means NOI only just covers debt — assuming zero vacancy, zero unexpected CapEx, zero rate rise and zero late rents for the full year. In reality vacancy of 5–10% is typical, capital items (HVAC, roof) hit every few years, and floating-rate loans expose you to rate cycles. The 25% cushion at 1.25× corresponds roughly to "the loan still pays even after a 20% revenue drop or a 25% interest-cost rise" — the safety margin Fannie Mae DUS, Freddie Mac SBL and most banks have settled on after stress-testing real portfolios. Higher-volatility asset classes (hotels, certain retail) typically want 1.30–1.40×.

Should I use NOI or EBITDA as the numerator?

It depends on the loan: (1) pure commercial/investment property — use NOI, defined as "rents and other property income minus property-level operating expenses (management, maintenance, insurance, property tax)", BEFORE interest, depreciation, income tax and CapEx; (2) small-business operating loans — use EBITDA (or EBITDAR, adding back rent) as the numerator to reflect the firm's overall cash generation. Both are "pre-financing cash flow" in spirit, but the operating-expense set differs, so the two are not interchangeable. For hybrid assets such as restaurants and hotels, lenders typically run both versions of DSCR side-by-side.

How does interest-only loan DSCR differ — and what should I watch out for?

The formula is identical, but during the interest-only period the "annual debt service" equals interest only — so the headline DSCR looks materially better because the principal component is missing from the denominator. The catch: when the interest-only period ends the loan either starts amortising or balloons, and the DSCR can drop below 1.0 overnight. The disciplined approach is to also compute "fully-amortising DSCR" (debt service spread over 25–30 years) and treat it as a stress test. Fannie Mae DUS explicitly reports both "Amortizing DSCR" and "Interest-only DSCR" and requires both to clear the threshold before approving the loan.

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