Overnight Swap Drag Calculator
Swap is the tax you pay just for keeping a leveraged FX or metals position open past 5pm. Over a swing trade it can quietly eat 20–60% of your expected profit. This shows the exact number before you enter.
Your position, your hold
Every night held is a fixed cost that comes out of your target.
The formula is boring on purpose: total swap = swap-per-lot-per-night × lots × nights held. What matters is what it means for the trade. If the swap is $3.50/night against you on 1 lot, a 14-day swing pays $49 in rollover fees whether the trade wins or loses. On a 100-pip target ($1,000 gross) that's a 5% drag. On a 25-pip target, it's 20%. On a 10-pip target, the swap alone exceeds the target and the setup is unviable.
The tool also computes break-even pips — how far the price must move in your favor purely to cover accumulated swap before you make any actual profit. On negative-carry pairs held for weeks, this can quietly become half your R.
Positive carry works the other way: on rare pairs (typically short JPY vs a high-rate currency) the broker pays YOU nightly. The tool shows the credit but does not glorify it — carry trades sit under leverage risk, and a single rate surprise can wipe out months of accrued carry.
Frequently asked questions
What is a swap / rollover fee?
When you hold a leveraged FX or metal position past the broker's daily cutoff (usually 5pm New York), the broker rolls the position to the next value date and charges (or credits) you the interest-rate differential between the two currencies, plus their own markup. Some pairs have positive carry — you earn — but on most retail accounts most pairs pay negative.
Are the preset swap rates my broker's actual numbers?
No — they are approximate typical values for a normal rate cycle, seeded to give a starting shape. Swap rates re-price constantly when central banks move. Pull your broker's live "swap long / swap short" figures from their instrument spec page and paste them in.
Why does the broker charge triple on Wednesday?
Spot FX settles T+2. A Wednesday rollover pushes the value date across the weekend to Monday, so the broker charges three days of swap in one hit. Some brokers do it Friday. Our math just multiplies by holding-days on the assumption that the triple already sits inside the quoted swap when averaged over a week; if you know your broker's exact convention, adjust the "holding period" input up by 1 for every weekend crossed.
What is "break-even pips"?
The number of pips your trade must move in your favor purely to cover the accumulated swap cost — before you start making any actual profit. When you see it climbing above 15–20 pips on a swing trade, the swap is a serious tax on your edge; above your entire target, the setup isn't viable at that hold.