How to Remove PMI: The 80% and 78% Rules

What are the steps to remove PMI?

The dates above are rights in the statute, not a button on this site. The request goes to the servicer, in writing, and only after the conditions are met. The five steps below follow 12 U.S.C. § 4901 and 12 U.S.C. § 4902, as the CFPB’s cancellation page restates them. They apply to borrower-paid PMI on the loans the statute covers. They are not a promise that a particular servicer will cancel on the day you write.

1. Find your original value: the lesser of the sales price and the appraised value at purchase, or, on a refinance of your principal residence, the appraisal the lender relied on to approve that refinance (12 U.S.C. § 4901).
2. Find the month your balance is scheduled to reach 80 percent of that value, on your PMI disclosure or on the amortization schedule. Extra payments can move the date you are allowed to ask. They do not, by themselves, move the automatic 78 percent date on a fixed-rate loan.
3. Check that you are current and that you meet the good-payment-history test, and that there is no second mortgage or other junior lien. The statute’s history test looks back 12 months for a payment 30 days or more past due, and looks at the 12-month period that begins 24 months before the cancellation date or the request for a payment 60 days or more past due.
4. Send a written cancellation request to your servicer. Be ready to show, if asked, that the value has not fallen below the original value. The evidence has to be of a type the servicer established in advance.
5. If you do nothing, PMI generally ends when the balance is first scheduled to reach 78 percent of original value, if you are current (12 U.S.C. § 4902(b)). If you are not current that day, it waits until the first day of the first month after you are current.

When can you ask the servicer to cancel PMI?

The CFPB’s cancellation page, last reviewed August 28, 2026, says you can ask on the date the principal balance is scheduled to fall to 80 percent of the home’s original value. You can ask sooner if extra payments bring the balance to that point. The request has to be in writing. You also have to be current, have a good payment history, certify that there is no junior lien such as a second mortgage, and provide evidence, if the servicer asks, that the value has not fallen below the original value.

Section 4901 defines that good payment history with two windows, measured from the later of the cancellation date and the date of the written request. You have not had a payment 60 days or more past due during the 12-month period that begins 24 months before that later date. You also have not had a payment 30 days or more past due during the 12 months before that same later date. A single late payment inside the shorter window can block the request even when the balance is already at 80 percent.

Original value, on a purchase, is the lesser of the contract sales price and the appraised value when the loan was made. On a refinance of a principal residence, it is the appraised value the lender relied on to approve the refinance. It is not today’s listing price. A cash-out refinance is a refinance, so the original value for PMI on that new loan is the appraisal used to approve it, not the value from the loan that was paid off. The payoff calculator and the extra-payment explainer show how added principal changes a balance. They do not send the cancellation letter.

When must PMI end without a request?

Even if you never write, § 4902(b) says PMI terminates on the termination date if you are current. For a fixed-rate loan, § 4901 sets that date when the balance is first scheduled, on the initial amortization schedule, to reach 78 percent of original value. The outstanding balance that day does not change the date. Extra payments can support an earlier written request. They do not, by themselves, move this automatic date. If you are not current on the termination date, termination waits until the first day of the first month after you are current.

There is a final stop. Section 4902(c) says PMI may not be required past the first day of the month after the midpoint of the amortization period, if you are current. The CFPB says the midpoint of a 30-year loan is after 15 years. That final stop matters more for loans with an interest-only period, principal forbearance, or a balloon, which is the CFPB’s description, because those schedules may not hit 78 percent on time. An adjustable-rate loan uses the amortization schedule then in effect, not only the schedule from closing day.

If you and the lender modify the loan, § 4902(d) says the cancellation date, the termination date, and the final midpoint date are recalculated for the new terms. A recast or an extra-payment plan is not automatically that kind of modification. Ask the servicer which date is on your PMI disclosure. PMI is also not the tax and insurance money in an escrow account. The full-payment calculator can show a PMI line next to principal and interest. Removing the premium is a servicer decision, not a result the calculator can enter for you.

What does 80 and 78 percent look like in dollars?

Hypothetical illustration, not your loan. Original value $300,000. Eighty percent is $300,000 times 0.80, which is $240,000. That is the balance at which you can ask, if the other conditions are met. Seventy-eight percent is $300,000 times 0.78, which is $234,000. That is the automatic end on the original schedule for a fixed-rate loan, if you are current. The $6,000 gap between those two balances is $240,000 minus $234,000. It is the span between “you may write” and “the servicer must stop the premium on the original schedule.” It is not a premium, and it is not six months of payments.

Section 4902(f) says unearned premiums come back to you from the servicer not later than 45 days after termination or cancellation. Section 4902(e) says the servicer may not keep collecting PMI premiums more than 30 days after the later of the written request and the date you meet the evidence and certification rules, in the case of cancellation. For automatic termination, the 30 days run from the termination date, or from the date in the late-payment rule. Premiums that were already earned can still be collected. That is § 4902(h). These dollar amounts are an illustration of the percentages. They are not your loan.

Which loans do these percentages not cover?

The CFPB limits the description to many mortgages on single-family principal residences closed on or after July 29, 1999. That matches the statute’s effective date: a residential mortgage transaction consummated on or after one year after July 29, 1998. The CFPB’s cancellation page names FHA and VA loans as programs with different requirements, and it says lender-paid mortgage insurance follows different rules. It does not discuss USDA loans on that page.

USDA loans are outside this cancellation schedule because of the definition, not because of a sentence on the CFPB cancellation page. 12 U.S.C. § 4901 defines private mortgage insurance as mortgage insurance other than insurance made available under the National Housing Act, title 38, or title V of the Housing Act of 1949. Title V is the rural housing statute. A USDA loan’s mortgage insurance is not PMI under that definition, so the 80 percent and 78 percent dates are not the USDA rule. What is PMI separates those programs. Lender-paid mortgage insurance is a different exception: the CFPB says different rules apply when the lender pays for the insurance. Do not treat that sentence as the USDA exclusion.

Section 4902(g) says the borrower-request rule and the automatic 78 percent rule do not apply to certain high-risk loans. For a high-risk loan in the mortgagee’s category under that subsection, termination is instead scheduled at 77 percent of original value, and the midpoint rule still applies. Investors, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, can publish their own cancellation guidelines. The CFPB says those guidelines cannot be less favorable to the borrower than the statute. This page does not restate an investor’s current-value policy. That policy is the investor’s, and it can change.

Mortgage insurance, when the loan has it, is also not one of the four PITI letters. It is added on top of principal, interest, and escrow. What is PITI is that split. Canceling PMI does not change the tax bill or the homeowners premium. If the servicer was collecting the PMI premium inside the monthly payment, the payment can fall by that premium after cancellation. The servicer’s next statement is the record of whether it did.

Keep the written request and the servicer’s answer. Section 4902(e) gives the servicer up to 30 days after the later of the request and the evidence before it must stop collecting the premium, and section 4902(f) gives 45 days to return unearned premiums. If the answer says the value has fallen below the original value, or that a junior lien is still on the home, the statute allows the servicer to wait. Paying the second mortgage off, or showing a value that meets the test the servicer disclosed, is part of finishing the request. This page cannot tell you which evidence that servicer will accept. The disclosure it sent when you asked is the list.

Sources checked October 20, 2026

• CFPB: When can I remove private mortgage insurance (PMI)?, last reviewed August 28, 2026
• 12 U.S.C. § 4901, cancellation date, termination date, original value, and the PMI definition
• 12 U.S.C. § 4902, borrower cancellation, automatic termination, and the return of unearned premiums