What does it cost to break a fixed rate to refinance?
A break cost is the lender recovering the money it loses if you leave a fixed rate early. Roughly, it is the difference between the wholesale rate when you fixed and the wholesale rate now, applied to your balance for the time remaining. If rates have risen since you fixed, the break cost is often small or zero. If rates have fallen, it can be large.
The only reliable number is the one your lender quotes, and they must give it to you on request. Ask for it in writing, on a specific day, because it moves daily. Then compare it with what the new rate would save over the remaining fixed period; if the saving is bigger, breaking can still make sense.
Fixed loans also usually cap extra repayments and do not have a full offset account, so if you are close to the end of the term the answer is often to wait and refinance the week the fixed period expires, when there is no break cost at all.
Want the number for your situation? The refinance check asks the same questions Joshua would and shows the working.
Run the refinance check