PDURATION Function in Excel: Years Needed to Reach a Target

PDURATION Function in Excel: Years Needed to Reach a Target featured illustration

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min readUpdated 5 October 2026

FinancialLevel: IntermediateAvailable in: Excel 2013+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. PDURATION in practice
  5. Where you will use it
  6. Worked example
  7. Mistakes people make
  8. Related functions
  9. Continue learning

PDURATION returns how many periods an investment needs to grow to a target at a given rate (lump sum, no regular payments).

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Syntax

=PDURATION(rate, pv, fv)
Argument What it means
rate Rate per period.

Examples

Example 1

=PDURATION(8%, 500000, 1000000)

About 9 years to double at 8% — close to the Rule of 72 (72/8 = 9).

PDURATION in practice

Where you will use it

  • Years for an FD to double
  • How long until savings reach a goal
  • Compare investment growth

Worked example

Years to reach the goal at a fixed annual rate.

RateNowGoalFormulaResult
0.07100000200000=ROUND(PDURATION(A2,B2,C2),1)10.2
0.1250000100000=ROUND(PDURATION(A3,B3,C3),1)6.1
0.08100000500000=ROUND(PDURATION(A4,B4,C4),1)20.9

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

MistakeWhat to do instead
Monthly rate with yearly answerUse the rate per period that matches the answer you want
No regular depositsPDURATION is lump-sum only; use NPER for SIPs

NPER · RRI

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📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice workbook: Financial: EMI, SIP, NPV, IRR, depreciation23 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
    ⬇ XLSX · 35 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

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