Real interest rate
The rate on paper minus inflation: it shows whether your money buys more or less.
What is the real interest rate?
The bank quotes you a nominal rate, say 6% a year. The real rate answers a different question: how much more does your money buy at the end of the year than at the start?
Roughly, the real rate is the nominal rate minus inflation. With 6% interest and 4% inflation, the real gain is about 2%. With 6% interest and 8% inflation, you lose about 2% a year even though the balance grows.
The exact formula is (1 + interest) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. For small rates the difference from simple subtraction is negligible.
A bank deposit always shows a gain on paper. Only the real rate tells you whether it was a gain at all.
A 6% deposit with 8% inflation: 1,000 lei becomes 1,060 but buys what 981 lei bought at the start.
How do I calculate the real interest rate?
Exactly: (1 + interest) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. Roughly: interest minus inflation. With 6% interest and 4% inflation, the real rate is about 1.9%.
Have Romanian deposit rates beaten inflation?
Overall, barely. A lei deposit held from January 2007 to July 2026 at the average market rate lost on average −0.2% a year in real terms, before tax.
Related terms
Sources
- INS, TEMPO-Online: consumer price indices (IPC101A, IPC102A, IPC102B, IPC102E) · statistici.insse.ro:8077
- BNR interactive database: average rates on new household time deposits in lei (N14RL_DGN) · www.bnr.ro
This page explains mechanisms and shows what happened in the past. It does not recommend products, say what to buy, or take your situation into account.