SIP of ₹5,000 for 20 Years: What It Becomes in 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 Years

Hetal is 27, works in the accounts room of a diamond unit in Surat, and takes home ₹32,000 a month. In October she set up her first SIP, ₹5,000 on the 5th of every month, and the same evening typed the question half the country types: "sip 5000 for 20 years kitna milega". The answers she got ranged from ₹38 lakh to over ₹1 crore, depending on who was selling what.

All of those numbers can be right, because they use different return rates and different numbers of years. So here is the whole thing in one place: what ₹5,000 a month becomes after 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years at 10%, 12% and 14%, what ₹10,000 does, and then the three questions people skip. What will that money buy in 2046, how much tax goes when you sell, and what a small yearly increase does to the end figure. Every rupee below comes from the SIP calculator, so you can change any input and check.

New to SIPs? What a SIP is, how units and NAV work and how to start one are in SIP kya hai and how to start.

₹5,000 a month: the full table, 5 to 25 years

The calculator assumes each ₹5,000 goes in at the start of the month, grows at the yearly rate divided by twelve, and that you never pause, skip or increase it. Values are before tax and before any exit load.

Read the 20-year row first, since that is the one people search for. Over 20 years you hand over ₹12 lakh in 240 instalments. At 12% it becomes about ₹49.96 lakh, so ₹37.96 lakh of the final amount is growth, more than three times what you paid in. At 10% it is ₹38.28 lakh, at 14% ₹65.82 lakh. The gap between the 10% and 14% columns on the same ₹12 lakh is ₹27.53 lakh, which is why the rate you assume matters more than almost anything else on this page.

Now read the 25-year row. Five more years of ₹5,000, which is ₹3 lakh more of your money, take the 12% figure from ₹49.96 lakh to ₹94.88 lakh. Those five extra years add about ₹45 lakh. The first five years, at the top of the table, added ₹4.12 lakh. Same instalment, same rate, eleven times the result, only because of where in the timeline those years sit.

What ₹10,000 a month does

A SIP scales in a straight line. Double the instalment and every number doubles, nothing more, nothing less. So this table is the first one multiplied by two, but it is worth seeing on its own because ₹10,000 is where many salaried people land after a couple of increments.

Because it scales, you can read any amount off these two tables. ₹3,000 a month is 0.6 of the ₹5,000 row, so 20 years at 12% gives about ₹29.97 lakh. ₹7,000 gives ₹69.94 lakh. ₹2,000 gives ₹19.98 lakh.

The more useful comparison is across the two tables. ₹5,000 for 25 years costs you ₹15 lakh and ends at ₹94.88 lakh. ₹10,000 for 20 years costs ₹24 lakh and ends at ₹99.91 lakh. Starting five years earlier with half the money gets you almost the same place as starting later with double. If you are 25 and can only manage ₹5,000, that is the case for starting now rather than waiting till you can afford ₹10,000.

Where the money comes from, year by year

The table above hides how lopsided the growth is. Here is the ₹5,000 SIP at 12%, checked at a few points along the way.

In the first year the SIP earns ₹4,047, less than one instalment. After ten years the money has not even doubled. Then it starts to run. In year 20 alone the value rises by ₹6.19 lakh, and only ₹60,000 of that is the instalments you paid that year. The other ₹5.59 lakh is growth on growth, on a pile that is by then over ₹43 lakh.

This is the part that makes people quit. Someone who checks the app after three years sees ₹2.17 lakh against ₹1.80 lakh paid in and thinks the whole thing is slow. It is slow. It is meant to be slow at the start. The post on SIP returns and XIRR explains why the early years can even show red, and why that says nothing about the next fifteen.

10%, 12% or 14%: which column to trust

None of them is promised. Equity mutual funds hold shares, and shares go up and down with the market. A fund can give 25% in one year and lose 15% in the next, and over 20 years the average lands somewhere nobody can name in advance. The rate you type into a calculator is a planning assumption, not a forecast.

That said, the three columns are not random. 10% is the cautious number for broad, large-company and index-style equity funds over long periods. 12% is what most planners and this site's articles use as a middle case. 14% is on the hopeful side and has mostly come from mid- and small-company funds, which also fall harder. If a large part of the money is in debt or hybrid funds, the right column is not on the table at all: at 8%, ₹5,000 a month for 20 years gives about ₹29.65 lakh.

A sensible way to use the table: plan your goal on the 10% column, hope for the 12% one, and treat anything above that as a bonus you do not count on. If the goal only works at 14%, the plan is too thin and needs a bigger instalment or more years.

You are not alone in making this bet. As of September 2026, AMFI's SIP data shows ₹32,490 crore coming in through SIPs in a single month, from about 10.06 crore contributing SIP accounts. That is a lot of households making the same monthly decision Hetal just made.

The one change that nearly doubles the result

Every table above keeps the instalment fixed at ₹5,000 for 20 years. Nobody's salary stays fixed for 20 years, so the instalment should not either. Raise it by 10% a year, which is ₹500 more in the second year, ₹550 more in the third and so on, and the 20-year figure at 12% goes from ₹49.96 lakh to about ₹99.44 lakh. You pay in ₹34.37 lakh in total instead of ₹12 lakh, but the extra is spread over years when you are earning more. Even a 5% yearly bump takes it to ₹68.69 lakh on ₹19.84 lakh paid in.

The full working, including what to do in the year the increment does not come, is in the step-up SIP post. The short version: most fund houses let you add a yearly top-up to an existing SIP without stopping it, and the best day to do it is the day after the increment letter.

What ₹49.96 lakh will actually buy in 2046

Here is the question the ₹49.96 lakh headline never answers. Retail inflation was 5.54% in September 2026, as per the MoSPI CPI release dated 12 October 2026, up from 4.83% in August. For a 20-year plan, 5% to 6% a year is the usual range to assume, and school fees, rent and hospital bills often run ahead of the official figure.

At 6% inflation, what costs ₹5,000 today costs about ₹16,036 in 20 years. So the full corpus has to be read in today's money. This is the 12% column of the first table, deflated.

So Hetal's ₹49.96 lakh in 2046 buys roughly what ₹15.58 lakh to ₹18.83 lakh buys today. Still far more than the ₹12 lakh she paid in, and far more than any FD would leave her after tax, but not a retirement. If she wants the buying power of ₹49.96 lakh today, she needs about ₹1.60 crore in 2046 at 6% inflation, which at 12% means a flat SIP of about ₹16,036 a month. Notice that it is the same number as the inflated cost of ₹5,000. That is not a coincidence, it is the whole argument for a SIP that rises with prices rather than one that stays flat. The retirement calculator does this inflation step for you if the goal is retirement.

Tax when you finally sell

While the SIP runs there is no tax and no TDS, unlike an FD, where interest is taxed every year. Tax comes only when you redeem, and only on the gain. The Income-tax Act, 2025 has been in force since 1 April 2026, and for equity funds it keeps the rates most people already know, as of October 2026:

• Units held more than 12 months: long-term gains, taxed at 12.5% on the part above ₹1.25 lakh in a financial year (section 198, the old section 112A).
• Units held 12 months or less: short-term gains, taxed at 20% (section 196, the old section 111A).
• 4% health and education cess on top of both.

A SIP has a twist: every instalment is its own purchase with its own date. If Hetal sells everything in one go after 20 years, the last 12 instalments are under a year old and count as short-term. Here is her bill at 12%.

• Total value ₹49,95,740, total gain ₹37,95,740.
• Short-term part (the last 12 instalments): ₹60,000 paid in, worth ₹64,047, gain ₹4,047. Tax at 20% plus cess: about ₹842.
• Long-term gain: ₹37,91,693. Minus the ₹1.25 lakh exemption, taxed at 12.5% plus cess: about ₹4,76,670.
• Total tax about ₹4,77,512, which is 9.6% of the corpus. In hand: about ₹45,18,228.

Two things make it lighter. The ₹1.25 lakh exemption is per financial year, so selling in parts across two or three years, or drawing the money monthly through an SWP, uses it more than once. And the shorter the SIP, the smaller the bill: the 5-year gain of ₹1,12,432 is under the exemption, so sold in one financial year with no other equity gains it pays nothing. The 10-year gain of ₹5,61,695 pays about ₹56,770 if sold at once. Tax rules do change, so check what is in force in the year you redeem.

Hetal's plan, 27 to 47

Back to Surat. ₹5,000 is 15.6% of Hetal's ₹32,000 salary, which is a solid start. Here is how a plain ₹5,000 SIP can be turned into something closer to a real goal without stretching her.

1. Years 1 to 3: leave it alone. By the end of year 3 she will have paid in ₹1.80 lakh and the app will show around ₹2.17 lakh at 12%, or less in a bad year. Nothing to do except not stop.
2. Every increment: step up. With a 10% yearly top-up her SIP crosses ₹10,000 in year 9 and the 20-year figure heads towards ₹99.44 lakh instead of ₹49.96 lakh.
3. Diwali bonus: a one-time top-up. A ₹20,000 bonus put in as a lumpsum in year 1 grows to about ₹1,92,926 by year 20 at 12%. The lumpsum calculator shows what any bonus does if left alone.
4. If life interrupts at year 10. Say she has to stop the SIP after 10 years for a home loan or a family expense. The ₹11.62 lakh already built, left untouched at 12% for 10 more years, becomes about ₹36.08 lakh. Stopping the SIP is not the same as withdrawing it.
5. At 47: do not sell it all at once. Spread the redemption over financial years, or switch to an SWP, to use the ₹1.25 lakh exemption more than once.

If her real target is ₹1 crore rather than "whatever ₹5,000 makes", the SIP for ₹1 crore post works that backwards: about ₹10,009 a month flat for 20 years at 12%, or ₹5,000 with a step-up.

Four things the tables do not show

The path is not a line. The calculator applies 12% evenly every month. Real funds do not. Over 20 years there will be two or three stretches where the value falls 20% to 30% from its peak and the app shows your ₹12 lakh worth less than you paid in. The table's end figure assumes you kept paying through those stretches. Historically those were the months that bought the most units, and stopping then is the single most expensive mistake a SIP investor makes. AMFI's own numbers show the scale of it: in September 2026 alone, 49.68 lakh SIPs were stopped or ran out their term.

The SIP date barely matters. 1st, 5th, 15th or 25th, over 20 years the difference is noise. Pick the date just after salary lands so the mandate never bounces.

Costs are already inside the rate. A fund's return is reported after its expense ratio, so 12% means 12% to you. But a regular plan carries a higher expense ratio than a direct plan of the same fund, usually by 0.5% to 1% a year, and over 20 years that gap is the difference between the 12% and the 11% column you do not see here.

₹5,000 is a start, not a plan. It is more than most people manage at 27, and it beats waiting. But at 6% inflation a flat ₹5,000 is worth about ₹1,559 of today's money by the twentieth instalment year. Decide what the money is for, size the goal in future rupees, and let the instalment grow with your salary. Then the table becomes a floor, not a ceiling.

For general information, not as investment or tax advice. Rates and rules change, so check the latest before you decide. Tell us if something here is out of date. Editorial policy · Contact