Series/Parallel Capacitor Calculator

About this tool

Enter any number of capacitor values (one per line) and get both the parallel total (simple sum, capacitance's most common combination) and the series total (reciprocal sum) — the opposite pattern from resistors, since capacitance combines inversely.

Frequently asked questions

Why is parallel the sum for capacitors but series was the sum for resistors?

Capacitance and resistance combine oppositely: putting capacitors in parallel adds their plate areas (so capacitance adds directly), while putting them in series effectively increases plate separation (so it's the reciprocals that add) — the reverse of how resistors behave.

Can I mix units like nF or pF directly?

Enter everything in the same unit (typically µF) — this tool treats every number as a plain value in µF, so convert nF/pF values first (e.g. 100nF → 0.1).

What happens with a 0µF value?

It's included as-is in the parallel sum (adding nothing) but is skipped in the series calculation, since a 0µF capacitor in series would block the whole branch entirely — the hint will flag this.