When Can I Cancel PMI? The Thresholds, and Estimating Your Loan-to-Value

The short answer

Private mortgage insurance on a conventional loan ends in one of four ways. You can ask in writing once your balance is scheduled to reach 80% of the home’s original value. Your servicer must end it when the balance is scheduled to reach 78%. It must end it in any case the month after the midpoint of the loan term. And, separately, Fannie Mae’s servicing rules let you ask based on the home’s current value once the loan is at least two years old. The first three depend only on your loan schedule. The fourth depends on what the home is worth now, which is where an index estimate can tell you whether an appraisal is worth ordering.

The federal thresholds

The Homeowners Protection Act, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes it, sets three points. All three use original value, the lesser of the purchase price and the appraised value at closing, and all three assume you are current on payments.

• 80%: you may request cancellation. On the date the principal balance is scheduled to fall to 80% of original value, you can ask the servicer in writing. You need a good payment history, no junior liens, and evidence that the value has not fallen below the original.
• 78%: automatic termination. On the date the balance is scheduled to reach 78% of original value, the servicer must end PMI without being asked.
• Midpoint: final termination. The month after the midpoint of the amortization schedule, PMI ends regardless of the balance. On a 30-year loan that is after payment 180.

“Scheduled” is the operative word. The dates come from the original amortization schedule, so the home rising in value does not move them, and neither does a fall, except that a fall can block the 80% request.

The current-value route

Fannie Mae Servicing Guide B-8.1-04 allows a borrower to request termination based on the home’s current value, for a one-unit principal residence or second home, when the loan-to-value is 75% or less and the loan is seasoned two to five years, or 80% or less and the loan is seasoned more than five years. The value comes from an appraisal the servicer orders, at your cost. Freddie Mac has similar provisions; portfolio lenders set their own. This is the route appreciation opens, and the only one where an estimate of today’s value matters.

Estimating your loan-to-value

Loan-to-value on original = scheduled balance ÷ price paid

Loan-to-value on current = scheduled balance ÷ (price × index now ÷ index at purchase)

The scheduled balance is the standard fixed-rate amortization formula applied to your loan amount, rate and term for the payments due so far (the equity guide shows it). The value side scales what you paid by the change in the FHFA House Price Index for your ZIP, county, metro or state since you bought (the index method, step by step). The can you cancel PMI yet tool computes both ratios, prints the month each original-value threshold is reached, and names which rule your inputs clear.

A worked example

You bought in June 2019 for $310,000 in ZIP 78704, in Austin, Texas, with $31,000 down and a 30-year fixed loan of $279,000 at 4.00%.

Against original value

1. After the 87 payments due through September 2026, the scheduled balance is $238,506.
2. $238,506 ÷ $310,000 = 76.9% of original value.
3. The balance first reached 80% of the price with payment 69, in March 2025: the request date.
4. It reached 78% with payment 81, in March 2026: the automatic termination date.
5. The midpoint is payment 180, in June 2034: the latest PMI can run.

On this schedule PMI should already have ended automatically, and could have been cancelled on request a year earlier. Neither date needed the home to be worth anything in particular.

Against current value

1. FHFA’s annual index for ZIP 78704 was 2156.38 in 2019 and 2984.51 in 2025.
2. $310,000 × (2984.51 ÷ 2156.38) = $429,052 estimated value today.
3. $238,506 ÷ $429,052 = 55.6% loan-to-value on current value.

The loan is more than five years old, so the current-value threshold is 80%, and 55.6% is well under it. Had this borrower asked two years after closing, the threshold would have been 75% and the question would have been whether an appraisal would confirm what the index suggests. The gap between 76.9% and 55.6% is the whole reason the current-value route exists.

What the estimate cannot know

• Your house. The value tracks the area’s average. Renovations, condition and lot are invisible to it; an appraiser sees them, which is why the servicer orders one.
• Sales the index never sees. The FHFA index is built from mortgages bought or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so cash, jumbo, FHA and VA purchases are not in it (FHFA HPI FAQ).
• Your real balance and record. Extra payments bring every date forward; a refinance restarts the clock; a late payment or a second lien can block a request. Your statement, not a schedule, is what the servicer reads.
• Your appraised value at closing. If it was below the price, original value is lower and every threshold arrives later than shown.
• FHA loans. FHA mortgage insurance follows FHA’s own rules and for most loans since 2013 lasts for the life of the loan. None of the above applies.

It is an estimate of where you stand, not an appraisal and not a determination by anyone who can cancel your PMI.

Sources

• CFPB: When can I remove private mortgage insurance (PMI) from my loan?, the Homeowners Protection Act thresholds.
• Fannie Mae Servicing Guide B-8.1-04, Termination of Conventional Mortgage Insurance, the current-value rule.
• FHFA House Price Index datasets, the annual ZIP file used for the value.

This guide is for informational purposes only. It is not an appraisal, and not financial, tax, lending or real-estate advice. Every estimate on this site tracks an area’s average, never a particular house. Confirm anything that matters with a licensed appraiser or your lender.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against the Homeowners Protection Act as CFPB states it, Fannie Mae Servicing Guide B-8.1-04, and the FHFA House Price Index (annual ZIP file dated March 31, 2026).