XIRR calculator
Real money rarely moves in neat yearly steps. XIRR is IRR for cash flows on actual dates - the annualized return solved from exactly when each amount moved, using the same day-count convention as Excel.
When should you use XIRR instead of IRR?
Whenever the dates are uneven. Plain IRR assumes every cash flow lands exactly one period apart; if you invested in January, added more in July, and sold the following March, that assumption is simply false, and the plain IRR quietly misstates the return. XIRR discounts every amount by the actual days elapsed, so irregular timing is handled honestly. If your flows genuinely are one per year, the two agree.
Why might this differ slightly from another XIRR tool?
This page uses the same convention as Excel: exponents are days elapsed divided by 365, including in leap years. Tools that divide by 365.25, or count months instead of days, will land a few hundredths of a percent away on the same inputs. The convention is stated here so the number is checkable, not mysterious. And as with any IRR, at least one flow must be negative and one positive - a return only exists if money went in and came out.
For general information and education only. This page shows the mathematics of the numbers you enter - it does not know your circumstances, tax position, or appetite for risk, and nothing here is financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. For decisions that matter, check the figures against your own documents and talk them through with a qualified adviser.
Common questions
What is XIRR?
XIRR is the internal rate of return for cash flows on specific dates rather than neat yearly steps. It answers: what constant annual rate, compounded daily by actual days elapsed, makes these exact amounts on these exact dates break even in present value?
What is the difference between IRR and XIRR?
IRR assumes every cash flow is exactly one period apart. XIRR uses the real dates, so uneven gaps are handled honestly. If your flows genuinely are one per year, the two agree; the more irregular the timing, the more plain IRR misleads.
What day-count convention does XIRR use?
Actual/365 - each cash flow is discounted based on the exact number of calendar days between it and the first cash flow, divided by 365, rather than assuming equal monthly or yearly periods. This is the same convention Excel's XIRR function uses, which is why this page and Excel should agree on the same inputs.
What is the minimum number of cash flows XIRR needs?
Two - at least one negative (money out) and one positive (money back), on two different dates. With only one cash flow of each sign, XIRR reduces to a simple exact-day compounding calculation; the tool becomes genuinely useful once there are several flows on irregular dates.
Why might two different XIRR calculators give slightly different answers for the same cash flows?
XIRR has no closed-form solution - every implementation solves it numerically by iterating toward the answer, and different tools use different starting guesses, iteration limits, or convergence tolerances. Differences are normally in the far decimal places and immaterial, but a poorly implemented solver can occasionally converge to a visibly wrong number, which is worth a sanity check against the cash flows on unusual date patterns.