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Safe Withdrawal Rate Calculator

How much you could draw each year, and how long the money would last.

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A real return. Historic long-run figures for a mixed portfolio often sit between 3% and 5%.

years

Results update as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Annual income —
Monthly income —
Money runs out after —
Covers your horizon? —
Left at the end of the horizon —
Rate that would exactly last the horizon —

How this is worked out

Each year you take out a fixed amount, and whatever remains grows. The calculator repeats that until the money runs out or two centuries pass, whichever comes first.

Because the return you enter is after inflation, the withdrawal keeps its purchasing power. Every figure stays in today's money.

The output most people overlook is the rate that would exactly last the horizon. It answers the question in reverse: instead of "will 4% survive 30 years", it tells you the largest rate that does. If that number comes out below the rate you entered, you are drawing too much for your own assumptions.

Where the withdrawal rate sits relative to the return decides everything. Draw less than you earn and the portfolio grows forever. Draw more and it declines, slowly at first and then, once the balance is small, very fast.

A worked example

A 750,000 portfolio, drawing 4%, earning 4% after inflation:

  • Annual income: 30,000
  • Monthly: 2,500
  • The pot lasts about 44 years

Now drop the return to 2% — a perfectly plausible outcome for a conservative portfolio, or an unlucky sequence:

  • The same 30,000 a year now empties the pot after about 28 years

The withdrawal did not change. Sixteen years of retirement disappeared because of a two-point difference in return. This is why a single confident-looking number is a bad basis for a retirement plan, and why the flexibility to spend less in poor years is worth more than any amount of precision here.

What this doesn't cover

  • This is a constant return every year, which is the single biggest simplification. Real markets deliver good and bad years in an order nobody can predict, and for someone withdrawing, a bad first few years does disproportionate damage. That effect is called sequence-of-returns risk and this calculator cannot show it.
  • Tax on withdrawals is not deducted, and the treatment differs enormously between countries and account types.
  • It assumes you never adjust. Real retirees cut back in bad years, which substantially improves survival compared with any fixed-withdrawal model.
  • State and workplace pensions starting later are not included, and they reduce how much the portfolio has to carry.

Common questions

Where does the 4% figure come from?

From studies of historical US market data asking what a retiree could have withdrawn, rising with inflation, without exhausting a portfolio over 30 years. It was a finding about one market's past, not a guarantee about any future. It is a reasonable place to begin a conversation and a poor place to end one.

Should I use a lower rate if I retire early?

Many people do, precisely because a 50-year retirement is a much harder test than a 30-year one. Running the calculation with your actual horizon rather than a default 30 years shows the difference directly.

What if I keep working part-time?

Any income reduces what the portfolio must provide, and in the early years that matters far more than later, because it protects the pot during the period when a market fall would do the most damage. Try reducing the withdrawal rate to reflect that and watch how much longer the money lasts.

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