Net Worth Calculator
Net worth is one subtraction: everything you own at today's market value, minus everything you owe. List your assets and liabilities below — empty rows are simply skipped, and the labels are only for your own reading, not the math. A negative result is shown as exactly that, because for many households early on it is simply the truth.
Your assets and liabilities
Example: $250,000 + $40,000 + $15,000 in assets against $180,000 + $8,000 owed → $117,000 net worth.
What goes on the list — market values, not purchase prices
An asset belongs on the list at what it would fetch today: the realistic sale price of your home, the current trade-in value of a vehicle, and today's balances in checking, savings, brokerage, and retirement accounts. A liability is the payoff balance you owe right now — the remaining mortgage principal, the auto-loan balance, this month's credit-card debt, student loans. In the worked example, $250,000 of home, $40,000 of vehicles, and $15,000 of savings make $305,000 of assets; a $180,000 mortgage and an $8,000 auto loan make $188,000 of liabilities; the difference is a net worth of $117,000. Note the discipline: the car and its loan appear on opposite sides, each as a positive number — never as one netted figure, and never as a negative asset.
A snapshot, not a score
Net worth is a photograph of one day, and it can legitimately be negative: $5,000 of assets against $20,000 of student debt is a net worth of −$15,000, which describes many people in their first working years. The number also says nothing by itself about income, spending, or security — a household with a modest net worth and a large pension can be better placed than one with a bigger number tied up in an illiquid house. Resist comparing snapshots across households; the useful comparison is your own statement against your own earlier statements.
Tracking it over time
The value of the exercise is the trend. Recompute a few times a year, the same way each time, and watch the direction: every loan payment shifts a dollar from the liabilities column into equity, and every contribution adds to the assets column. To see where the asset side can go, project your savings with the Retirement Calculator or your workplace plan with the 401(k) Calculator; and once the portfolio is built, the Retirement Withdrawal Calculator turns that asset total into a sustainable income estimate. Net worth is the balance sheet those tools grow.
Frequently asked questions
Should I list what I paid for things, or what they are worth now?
What they are worth now. Net worth is a statement of current market values: what your home would realistically sell for today, the trade-in or private-sale value of your vehicles, and the current balances of your accounts. Purchase prices are history — a car bought for $35,000 four years ago might belong on the list at $18,000. For hard-to-price items, a conservative estimate beats an optimistic one.
My liabilities are larger than my assets. Is that an error?
No — the calculator shows a negative net worth as an ordinary result, because it is an ordinary situation. A recent graduate with student loans, or anyone early in a mortgage with little other savings, can easily be below zero. It is a starting point, not a verdict: each loan payment and each contribution moves the number up.
Why can’t I enter a negative value for an asset?
Because a debt is a liability, and keeping the two lists strictly non-negative is what keeps the statement readable. If you owe $8,000 on a car, the car’s market value goes in the assets column and the $8,000 loan balance goes in the liabilities column — the calculator nets them for you. Entering the car as “value minus loan” hides the loan and makes the totals impossible to check.
Do I include my home and my mortgage?
The standard net-worth statement includes both: the home’s market value as an asset and the mortgage balance as a liability, so only your equity adds to the total. Some people also track a stricter “liquid net worth” that excludes the home and mortgage entirely, since a house is slow and costly to sell. Either is fine — just be consistent from one snapshot to the next, or the trend becomes meaningless.
How often should I recalculate?
Quarterly or annually is plenty for most households. Net worth moves slowly — a monthly reading mostly shows market noise in your investment accounts. What matters is the direction over years, measured the same way each time: same accounts, same valuation habits, roughly the same date.
Not financial advice: this is a general educational arithmetic tool. It does not value your assets for you, model taxes or selling costs, or judge whether a given net worth is adequate for any goal. Confirm consequential figures with a licensed professional. Values are processed locally in your browser and never transmitted. See the methodology page.