Forex Swap Calculator: Overnight Rollover Cost Per Night

This free swap calculator shows what an overnight forex position costs or pays you, per night and over the whole hold. Enter the swap figure your broker publishes, your lot size, and the number of nights. The tool returns the money per night, the total for the period, the annualised cost as a percent of notional, and a plain verdict line. It handles the eight instruments below, applies the triple-swap Wednesday convention, and runs entirely in your browser.

How to use this swap calculator

The tool needs six numbers. Five of them come straight off your platform. Work through the steps in order.

1. Pick the instrument you hold. The tool sets the pip size and the contract size for you.
2. Choose Long or Short. This tells you which row to read in your platform, and it labels the input field to match.
3. Enter your lot size. One standard lot is 1.00, a mini lot is 0.10, a micro lot is 0.01.
4. Choose the input mode. Points mode takes the raw number MT4 displays. Money mode takes a figure already stated per lot per night.
5. Type the swap value, minus sign included. A minus means the broker charges you.
6. Enter how many nights you plan to hold, then check the current price so the annualised percent uses a realistic notional.
7. Leave the triple swap box ticked unless your broker uses a different convention. Then read the verdict line.

The result updates as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere. For sizing the trade itself, use the position size calculator first, then bring the lot size back here.

Where to find swap values in MT4 and MT5

MT4 hides these numbers two clicks deep. Open Market Watch with Ctrl+M. Right-click the symbol you trade. Choose Specification. A small window opens with the contract details. Scroll to the rows named Swap Long and Swap Short. Those are the figures this tool wants.

Check the Swap Type row in the same window. It tells you the unit. Points is the most common setting. Some brokers use money in the base or quote currency, and a few use a percent of the position value. Points feeds the first mode here. Money feeds the second.

MT5 works the same way. Right-click the symbol in Market Watch, choose Specification, and read Swap Long and Swap Short. MT5 adds one useful row that MT4 lacks: the three-day swap day, which names the weekday that carries the triple charge. It is almost always Wednesday.

Two warnings. First, demo accounts often carry a different swap table than live accounts. Check the live one before you plan a long hold. Second, brokers revise these numbers without notice, sometimes weekly. Treat any figure older than a few days as stale.

Why brokers charge swap at all

Every forex position borrows one currency and lends the other. Hold EURUSD long and you own euros funded by dollars. Overnight, the two interest rates settle against each other. You earn the rate on what you hold and pay the rate on what you borrowed. The difference is the swap.

That difference is the interest rate differential. Central bank policy rates set the base for it. Your broker then applies a markup on top, which is why both the long and the short side of a pair can show a charge. The markup is the broker's cut of the financing leg.

Here are the policy rates we track on the interest rate tracker, with the raw differential for a long position in each pair. The differential is a signpost, not the swap itself. Your broker's markup sits between the two.

Policy rates as published July 2026. Short positions flip the sign, then the broker markup eats into whichever side you take.

The math behind the swap number

Points mode does one conversion. It turns a price move into money, then multiplies by your size.

Start with the point value. One pip on a standard lot equals the pip size times the contract size.

• EURUSD: 0.0001 times 100,000, so 10 USD.
• USDJPY: pip size 0.01, so a pip is worth 1,000 JPY per lot.
• Gold: a 100-ounce contract, so a 0.01 move is worth 1 USD per lot.

The pip value calculator covers this step in more detail.

Now the swap. Money per lot per night equals the swap points times that point value. Money per night equals that figure times your lot size. Then charge nights get added: nights held, plus two extra for every full week when the triple box is ticked. Total swap is money per night times charge nights.

The annualised percent divides the nightly money by the notional value of the position, then scales by 365. In points mode the notional is lot size times contract size times price, which lands in the quote currency, the same currency the point value is in. In money mode your figure is already in account currency. So on the USD-base pairs the tool switches to the USD leg of the notional instead. That is 100,000 USD per lot on USDJPY, USDCHF and USDCAD. Both sides of the ratio then share one currency. That single percent lets you compare a gold hold against a yen hold on the same scale.

A worked example: EURUSD long for one week

Take the default case. You buy one standard lot of EURUSD at 1.0850 and plan to hold it for a week. The Specification window shows Swap Long of -7.2 points.

First the point value. EURUSD uses a 0.0001 pip on a 100,000 unit contract, so one point is worth 10 USD per lot. Multiply -7.2 by 10 and you get -72.00 USD per lot per night. Your size is exactly one lot, so the nightly figure stays at -72.00 USD.

Next the nights. Seven nights contain one Wednesday. That Wednesday charges triple, so two extra nights get added. Nine charge nights in total. Multiply -72.00 by nine and the week costs 648.00 USD.

Now the scale check. Notional is 100,000 times 1.0850, or 108,500 USD. Annualised, 72 USD a night on that notional is -24.22%. Compare that to the EURUSD differential in the table above: -1.375%. The gap is a factor of roughly eighteen, which is far too wide to be a broker markup.

That gap tells you something useful. Two point conventions exist. This tool treats one point as one pip, the four-digit convention. Many five-digit brokers quote swap in fractional points instead. There, -7.2 means -0.72 pips, or -7.20 USD per lot per night. Annualised that lands near -2.4%, just above the rate differential. So if your result dwarfs the differential, divide the terminal figure by ten. Or switch to money mode and enter the value directly.

Swap cost at common point values

This table is pre-computed for one standard lot on a USD-quote major, where a point is worth 10 USD. It uses the same triple-swap rule as the tool: two extra nights for every full week.

Scale the money columns with your size. A 0.10 lot position divides them by ten. A 5.00 lot position multiplies them by five. The last column does not move: lot size sits on both sides of the annualised ratio and cancels out, so -3.36% stays -3.36% at 0.01 lots or at 50. Feed the totals into the forex profit calculator to see what the trade needs to clear before the cost is covered.

Why Wednesday charges triple

Spot forex settles two business days after the trade. That is the T+2 value date convention, and it comes from the interbank market, not from your broker.

Work the calendar forward. A position rolled on Wednesday moves its value date from Friday to Monday. That jump spans Saturday and Sunday, so three days of interest change hands in one rollover. Brokers pass all three through in a single charge on Wednesday night. Monday and Tuesday rolls only span one day each.

The tool models this by adding two nights for each full week held. It is a fair average, not a calendar. A three-night hold from Monday to Thursday crosses one Wednesday and gets charged for five, but the tool sees fewer than seven nights and adds nothing. A hold from Thursday to the following Tuesday crosses no Wednesday at all, yet the tool would add two nights if the span reached seven. Check the actual weekdays when the cost matters.

Holidays shift value dates too. A bank holiday in the settlement centre can push the rollover an extra day and change which night carries the multiple charge. The forex bank holidays calendar shows when those fall.

Positive carry versus negative carry

Negative carry means the position costs you every night. Time works against the trade. You need the move to arrive, and to arrive soon.

Positive carry means the position credits you. Time is neutral or mildly helpful. That sounds attractive, and a whole family of strategies is built on it. Traders buy the high-rate currency, sell the low-rate one, and collect the difference night after night.

Here is the honest part. A positive swap is never, on its own, a reason to hold a losing position. The credit is small and the price risk is not. A pair paying 8% annualised in swap can drop 8% in a single session on a rate surprise. Carry trades unwind violently, and they unwind fastest exactly when several positions correlate. Check the forex correlation matrix before stacking carry positions, because AUDUSD and NZDUSD move together at +0.85 and behave like one larger trade.

Judge every position on its own thesis. If the setup has failed, close it. Collecting a few dollars a night while the position bleeds is not a plan. Log the swap separately in your trade journal so you can see which part of the result came from price and which came from financing.

Swap-free and Islamic accounts

Swap-free accounts exist so Muslim traders can avoid interest, which Sharia law forbids. Brokers offer them under the Islamic account label. No overnight interest is credited or debited.

The cost does not vanish, though. It usually moves. Most brokers apply a flat administration fee per lot, per night, after a grace period of a few days. Others widen the spread on the affected symbols, or add a fixed commission. Exotic pairs and metals often carry the largest fees, because those are the pairs where the interest differential was widest.

Read the fee schedule before you assume a long hold got cheaper. Then model it here in money mode: enter the administration fee per lot per night as a negative number and untick the triple swap box, since flat fees rarely triple. That gives you a like-for-like comparison against a standard account.

How swap quietly ruins long-hold strategies

Swap is the cost that no backtest report puts on the first page. It rarely shows up in a screenshot. It compounds anyway.

Think about a swing system with a thin edge. Say it averages 12 pips of expectancy per trade on EURUSD, which is 120 USD per standard lot. That looks workable. Now add financing at a modest -1.2 points, or -12 USD a night. Hold each trade for five nights and the swap is 60 USD, exactly half the edge. The system still clears, but on 60 USD instead of 120. Stretch the hold to two weeks and the tool charges eighteen nights, so 216 USD, which is almost twice the edge. The crossover sits at eight nights held: eight nights plus two for the Wednesday is ten charge nights, and ten times 12 USD is the whole 120 USD. Past that point the strategy hands the broker more than it makes, even when every trade works as designed.

Grid systems, martingale baskets and long-term trend followers suffer worst. They hold many positions for many nights. Each open lot is charged separately. A ten-lot basket at -5 points per lot costs 500 USD a night, whether price moves or not. That drag is why some systems look fine in a tester that ignores swap and fall apart on a live account.

Run the numbers before you commit. Estimate the average hold in nights, multiply by the nightly cost, and subtract that from your per-trade edge in the expectancy calculator. If the remaining edge is close to zero, the strategy needs shorter holds, a different pair, or a broker with tighter financing. The drawdown calculator shows what that thinner edge does to the equity path.

What this swap calculator cannot tell you

Honest limits matter more than a longer feature list. Here is what the tool does not know.

It does not know your broker. Swap tables differ between brokers, between account types, and between the demo and live servers. The tool applies your input; it does not verify it. It also assumes the swap value stays fixed for the whole hold, which is optimistic. Rates change, markups change, and a central bank meeting can reprice the whole table overnight.

Currency conversion is left to you

It does not convert currencies. In points mode the point value comes out in the quote currency of the pair. On EURUSD that is USD, so nothing changes. On USDJPY the figure is JPY, and on USDCHF it is CHF. Divide by the current rate to reach your account currency. The annualised percent still holds up in points mode, because the nightly money and the notional are both in that same quote currency and the exchange rate cancels.

Money mode is the case to watch. There your figure is already in account currency, so the tool pairs it with a notional in that same currency. On USDJPY, USDCHF and USDCAD it uses the USD leg, 100,000 USD per lot, rather than the quote-currency value. Enter -5 USD a night on one USDJPY lot and the annualised figure reads -1.82%, not the -0.01% you would get by dividing USD by yen. The assumption behind that is a USD-denominated account. If you fund in euros or pounds, treat the money-mode percent as approximate and convert your swap figure to USD first if you want it exact.

Calendar timing and the annualised year

It does not model the calendar precisely. Triple swap is applied as two extra nights per full week, so short holds and awkward start days will be off. The annualised figure is a separate matter. It uses 365 interest days, and that is the conventional swap year rather than an undercount. A normal week carries five rollovers, and the Wednesday one counts triple. Seven interest days a week, so 52 weeks give 364. Count it the other way and you land in the same place, roughly 261 rollover nights plus 104 extra days from the 52 triple Wednesdays. The weekend gap is already inside the 365, so no uplift is owed on top.

One consequence is worth knowing. The total and the annualised percent are built on slightly different books. The total applies the tool's simplified rule and charges nine nights for a seven-night hold, while the percent works from the nightly figure across a conventional 365-day year. Run the tool's rule out over a whole calendar year and it would count 469 charge nights, about 28% above the market convention. Use the total for the hold in front of you, and use the percent to compare one instrument against another.

Finally, it says nothing about whether the trade is a good idea. Swap is one line in the cost stack, alongside spread, commission and slippage. It is arithmetic on the numbers you supply, not a forecast. Check the margin calculator for what the position ties up. Browse the full set at forex tools. Every tool here is checked under our Editorial and Testing Policy.

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FAQ

What time is swap charged?

At the daily rollover, 17:00 New York time on most retail servers. Open at 16:55 and close at 17:05 and you pay a full night. Hold eight hours inside one trading day and you pay nothing. Check your server clock in the forex market hours tool.

Why is swap negative on both sides of my pair?

Because the broker markup applies to both directions. The differential sets the midpoint, then the markup pulls both figures down. With a small differential, that markup turns both sides into a charge.

Do all brokers use Wednesday for triple swap?

Almost all do for forex, because Wednesday spans the weekend value date. Some instruments differ: certain CFDs triple on Friday instead. MT5 names the day in the Specification window, so check there.

Should I enter points or money?

Use money mode when your broker states the figure per lot per night. It removes the conversion step. Use points mode for the raw MT4 number. If the two disagree by a factor of ten, your broker quotes fractional points.

Can I use positive swap as a strategy on its own?

Carry trading is a real approach. Still, it bets on price stability as much as on interest. The nightly credit is small, and one volatile session can erase months of it. Size these positions with your usual rules. Test any carry plan on a demo account first. Results are not guaranteed; past performance is not indicative of future results.