Net Worth Calculator
Total your assets minus liabilities.
Details
Assets
Liabilities
Net worth
$132,000
Everything you own minus everything you owe
Total assets
$385,000
Total liabilities
$253,000
This works out your net worth: everything you own minus everything you owe.
Enter your assets and debts and it returns the figure, along with the totals for each side, so you can see which one is actually driving the result.
What net worth measures
Net worth is one subtraction: everything you own, minus everything you owe. Own $250,000 of things and owe $180,000, and your net worth is $70,000.
It is the single clearest measure of financial position, because it captures both sides at once. Income tells you what is coming in; net worth tells you what you have actually kept.
A negative figure is common and not a crisis in itself. A recent graduate with student loans and a new car will often be well below zero, and that is a normal starting point rather than a verdict.
Both sides use today's values. A house counts at what it would sell for now, and its mortgage at the balance remaining, not the amount originally borrowed.
What to enter
- Total assets
- Everything you own that has real resale or cash value: property at current market value, savings, investments, retirement accounts, vehicles.
- Total liabilities
- Everything you owe: mortgage balance, student loans, car loans, credit cards, personal loans, unpaid tax.
What counts, and what people wrongly include
- Include: property
- At what it would realistically sell for today, not what you paid or what you hope.
- Include: retirement accounts
- At the current balance. They are yours, even if you cannot touch them yet.
- Include: vehicles
- At trade-in value, which is usually well below what it feels like it is worth.
- Exclude: your salary
- Income is not an asset. It builds net worth over time but is not part of it.
- Exclude: most household goods
- Furniture, clothes and electronics have almost no resale value. Listing them inflates the figure and helps nobody.
- Careful with: business equity
- Only include a value you could genuinely realise, not an optimistic valuation.
What this assumes
All figures are current values, not purchase prices or projections.
Assets are counted at what you would actually receive on sale, before any tax on the gain.
How to calculate your net worth
List both sides honestly. The arithmetic is trivial; the honesty is the work.
- assets
- What you own, at today's realistic value
- liabilities
- What you owe, at today's balance
Add up what you own. Property, savings, investments, retirement accounts, vehicles. Use current values.
Add up what you owe. Every outstanding balance, not the monthly payments.
Subtract. Assets minus liabilities. Negative is a valid answer and a common one early in a career.
Repeat every few months. The direction of travel is what matters. A single figure means very little on its own.
See a worked example: a typical homeowner's position
- House
- $320,000 current value
- Retirement and savings
- $95,000
- Car
- $14,000 trade-in value
- Mortgage
- $248,000 remaining
- Car loan and cards
- $21,000
Assets: $320,000 + $95,000 + $14,000 = $429,000.
Liabilities: $248,000 + $21,000 = $269,000.
Net worth: $429,000 − $269,000 = $160,000.
Note how much of it is the house. That is normal, but it is also illiquid — you cannot spend it without selling or borrowing against it.
$160,000
Frequently asked questions
Not on its own, and it is very common. Student loans, a car loan and little saved will put most people under zero in their twenties.
What matters is the trend. Moving from −$40,000 to −$25,000 over a year is genuine progress, even though the number is still negative.
Yes, at what it would realistically sell for now, with the outstanding mortgage on the other side. The difference is your equity.
Be honest about the value. Using an optimistic estimate makes the number look better and tells you nothing useful, which defeats the purpose.
Yes. A 401(k) or IRA balance is genuinely yours even though you cannot access it freely yet.
It is worth noting separately though, because net worth that is mostly locked in retirement accounts and home equity is very different from the same figure held in cash.
Yes, but at trade-in value rather than what you paid or what it feels like it is worth. Cars lose value quickly.
If there is a loan on it, the balance goes on the liabilities side. Owing more than the car is worth is common in the first couple of years and worth seeing clearly.
Quarterly is plenty, and annually is fine. Checking too often invites reacting to normal market movement in your investments.
Keeping the figures in the same place each time makes the comparison meaningful. The trend across a few years is the useful output.
Problems people actually run into
Padding the asset side with things you would never sell
Listing furniture, electronics, clothes and a record collection at anything near what they cost makes the number look better and destroys its usefulness. Second-hand household goods typically fetch a small fraction of their price.
If you would not actually sell it, or it would fetch very little, leave it out. An honest smaller number tracked over time is worth far more than a flattering one.
Confusing net worth with money you can spend
A net worth of $300,000 that is almost entirely home equity and retirement accounts does not mean $300,000 is available. Very little of it is.
This is why an emergency fund is a separate question from net worth. People with strong net worth still get caught out by a $2,000 repair, because none of it was liquid.
Results are estimates for general information only and are not professional financial, medical, or legal advice. Read our full disclaimer.
Last updated: September 4, 2026