Parallel Capacitance Calculator

Capacitors in parallel

Capacitors in parallel are easy to calculate: the total is just the sum of the individual values. They all sit across the same voltage, and their stored charge adds together, so the capacitances add too.

The formula

The total capacitance C_total of capacitors in parallel is:

where:

C₁, C₂, C₃, . . ., C_n are the individual capacitor values.

Example

Take three capacitors in parallel of 4 µF, 6 µF, and 10 µF. Add them together:

Picture each capacitor's leads joined to the same two points in the circuit. The charge builds up across all of them together, so their capacitances stack straight up.

This is the mirror image of resistors, where parallel is the awkward reciprocal calculation and series is the simple sum. With capacitors it's the other way round: parallel adds up, series takes the reciprocals.