Can I pay off a personal loan early?

Mainstream lenders like SoFi, Marcus, Discover, LightStream, and most credit unions have no prepayment penalty. You can pay extra each month against principal, make lump-sum payments, or pay off the entire balance at any time without additional cost.

Watch for: how prepayments are applied. The standard is to apply extra principal payments immediately to the loan balance, which reduces total interest paid. Some lenders apply prepayments to next month's payment instead (which doesn't reduce interest); this is rare on personal loans but worth confirming.

Watch for: minimum interest charges (rare but exist on some subprime products). Phrases like 'minimum finance charge' in the loan agreement can produce a small payoff penalty even when there's no explicit 'prepayment fee'.