Nifty 50 returns calculator: lumpsum and SIP on real closes

What the Nifty 50 returns calculator answers

Every other calculator on this site asks you for a return. The Nifty 50 returns calculator does not. It takes the Nifty 50's actual daily closing levels and shows what a lumpsum, or a monthly SIP, did between the start of one year and the end of another. The answer is a record of what happened, not a projection.

The figures below are as of the close on 15 October 2026, the latest in our data. If you are reading later, the page will show slightly different numbers for any window that ends in 2026.

The inputs

A switch at the top chooses Lumpsum or Monthly SIP.

A lumpsum buys at the first close on or after 1 January of the start year. A SIP buys on the same day of every month, counted back from the last close in the window, so a window ending on 15 October has instalments on the 15th. The footnote states the first and last close the page is using.

What the results show

• Invested, with the buy and end dates underneath.
• Value at the last close in the window.
• CAGR for a lumpsum or XIRR for a SIP, with the plain percentage gain beneath it.

Under the cards, one line counts the positive calendar years and names the strongest and weakest. A table, Calendar-year returns, lists every year in the window, marking an unfinished year as "(partial)".

Worked example: the default window

Leave the defaults: ₹1,00,000, from the start of 2016 to the end of 2026.

• Invested ₹1.00L, 2016-01-04 → 2026-10-15
• Value ₹2.95L
• CAGR +10.56%, +195.17% absolute

The summary line reads: 10 of 11 calendar years were positive; best 2017 (+28.65%), worst 2026 (−11.99%). The year-by-year table:

A 10.56% average sat on top of years ranging from −12% to +29%. Only 2025, at +10.51%, landed within a point of it.

Switch to Monthly SIP with ₹10,000. The first instalment is on 15 January 2016:

• Invested ₹13.00L
• Value ₹21.90L
• XIRR +9.39%, +68.44% absolute

The SIP's annual return is lower than the lumpsum's here. Its money was invested for less time on average, and the instalments bought in 2024 and 2025 met this year's fall with little time to recover. End the SIP window at 2025 instead and its XIRR is 13.20%. Why SIP returns differ from fund returns explains the timing effect.

The window decides the answer

Change only the years and the lumpsum result moves a long way:

Ending at December 2025 instead of October 2026 adds more than two points a year to the same start. Starting in January 2008, just before the index fell 51.79% that year, drags a nearly nineteen-year lumpsum down to 7.28%. A SIP over that same 2008-to-2026 window fared better, at an XIRR of 10.01% on ₹22.60 lakh invested (worth ₹63.01 lakh), because it kept buying through the 2008 fall and the 2009 recovery of 75.76%.

This is why one headline return says little on its own. Rolling vs trailing returns explains how to look at every window rather than one, and ten-year Nifty 50 SIPs for every start month does exactly that for SIPs.

A window shorter than a year

Set both sliders to 2026. The lumpsum card shows an absolute return of −12.04% but a dash for CAGR, because a part-year window is not annualised. That avoids turning nine and a half months into a misleading yearly rate.

What the calculator leaves out

1. Dividends. This is the price index. Dividends added roughly 1–1.5% a year, which a total-return index would include. Nifty 50 returns over 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 years shows both, about 10.14% on price and 11.5% with dividends over the ten years to 30 September 2026.
2. Fund costs. An index fund deducts its expense ratio and has some tracking difference. The cheapest Nifty 50 index funds compares them.
3. Tax. Nothing is deducted for capital gains.
4. Your actual dates. A real SIP buys at its own transaction date's NAV.

To replay the same plan against a real index fund's NAVs, which include dividends and costs, use the MF calculator. For what tracking the index involves, see index funds and ETFs.

Where it fits

Use the Nifty 50 returns calculator to check a claim about "what the market returned" against the actual years it covers, or to see how a bad starting year shaped a long holding. For how long the index has taken to recover from its falls, see how long the Nifty 50 took to regain each peak. Past index returns are a record, not a forecast, and none of this is a recommendation to invest.