Retirement calculator

Free retirement withdrawal calculator

See how long your retirement savings will last. Enter a portfolio balance, the amount you withdraw each year, and an expected return — the calculator returns the years until the money runs out, a year-by-year depletion timeline, and the sustainable withdrawal for a target horizon — updated live, as you type.

On this page12 sections

InputsLive

What do you want to find?

Starting balance

Annual withdrawal

Expected return

Result

Your money lasts

23 yr 9 mo

Withdrawing $40,000 a year from $500,000 at 6%, the balance reaches zero in about 23.8 years.

First-year interest$30,000

Total withdrawn$951,844

Withdrawal rate8%

Depletion timeline

Year	Start balance	+ Growth	− Withdrawal	End balance
1	$500,000	$30,000	$40,000	$490,000
2	$490,000	$29,400	$40,000	$479,400
4	$468,164	$28,090	$40,000	$456,254
7	$430,247	$25,815	$40,000	$416,062
10	$385,087	$23,105	$40,000	$368,192
13	$331,301	$19,878	$40,000	$311,179
16	$267,240	$16,034	$40,000	$243,275
19	$190,943	$11,457	$40,000	$162,400
22	$100,073	$6,004	$40,000	$66,077
24	$30,042	$1,803	$31,844	$0

Estimates only, on a constant return and fixed withdrawal. Not financial advice.

Results are estimates. Consult a professional.

Definition

What the retirement withdrawal calculator answers

A retirement withdrawal calculator answers the decumulation question — the one that matters once you stop saving and start spending. You enter a portfolio balance, the fixed amount you plan to withdraw each year, and an expected return, and it tells you how long the money lasts before it runs out. Flip the mode and it does the inverse: given a target horizon — say, a 30-year retirement — it tells you the largest level withdrawal the balance can support without running dry early.

This is a different question from the one a retirement income calculator answers. That tool applies a fixed withdrawal rate — multiply the portfolio by 4% and report the income. This calculator works the other direction: you choose the dollar withdrawal, and it solves for longevity. The depletion timeline below the result shows the balance falling year by year, so you can see exactly when — and how fast — the portfolio empties.

Pre-retirees pressure-testing whether a nest egg can fund the spending they have in mind.
Retirees who want to know how a planned withdrawal — a mortgage-style $40,000 a year, say — plays out over a long retirement.
Anyone weighing a bridge — drawing a portfolio down for a few years before a pension or Social Security starts.

Formula

Retirement withdrawal formula

Each year the balance earns a return and then the withdrawal is removed. Written as a recurrence, with balance B, withdrawal W, and periodic return r:

balance(next) = balance(now) × (1 + r) − W

Years until depletion:

n = ln( W / (W − B·r) ) / ln(1 + r)

Sustainable withdrawal for n years:

W = B × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n)

There is a threshold that surprises people: if your withdrawal is at or below the interest the balance earns in a year — that is, W ≤ B × r — the money never runs out. A $1,000,000 portfolio earning 5% throws off $50,000 a year, so a $50,000 withdrawal is funded entirely by growth and the balance holds flat forever. The calculator returns “never runs out” in that case rather than a finite number of years.

When the return is exactly 0%, both formulas collapse to simple division: the money lasts B ÷ W years, and the sustainable withdrawal is B ÷ n. The sustainable-withdrawal formula is the standard present-value annuity payment — the same amortisation math a loan uses, run in reverse.

Inputs

The three inputs and how to set them

The total investable portfolio you will draw from — the combined value of your IRAs, 401(k)s, and taxable brokerage accounts at the moment drawdown begins.

The fixed dollar amount you take out each year. Enter what you actually plan to spend from the portfolio, net of any pension or Social Security that covers part of your budget.

The average annual return after fees. Use a nominal return for a flat-dollar plan; use a real (inflation-adjusted) return — roughly nominal minus inflation — if you intend to raise your withdrawal with inflation.

In sustainable-withdrawal mode, how many years the portfolio must last. A retirement at 65 with a plan to age 95 is a 30-year horizon.

The single most consequential choice is the return assumption. A balanced portfolio has historically returned about 7–8% nominal and 4–5% after inflation, but the future is not the past. Lower the return by a point or two and watch how sharply the longevity drops — that sensitivity is the honest takeaway of the whole exercise.

Worked example

A worked example: how long does $500,000 last?

Example: $500,000, withdrawing $40,000 a year, 6% return

Maria retires with a $500,000 portfolio and plans to withdraw $40,000 a year — her spending gap after Social Security. She expects a 6% average annual return. How long will the money last?

Step 1 — Check the never-runs-out threshold

First-year interest is $500,000 × 6% = $30,000. Her $40,000 withdrawal is larger than that, so the balance shrinks every year and the portfolio will eventually deplete. (Had she withdrawn $30,000 or less, it would never run out.)

Step 2 — Apply the depletion formula

n = ln( 40,000 / (40,000 − 500,000 × 0.06) ) / ln(1.06)

n = ln( 40,000 / 10,000 ) / ln(1.06)

n = ln(4) / ln(1.06)

n = 23.79 years

Step 3 — Read the depletion timeline

The money lasts about 23.8 years

Maria's $500,000 funds $40,000 a year for nearly 24 years. If she needs the portfolio to cover a 30-year retirement, $40,000 is too much — the next section shows the sustainable figure for that horizon.

Year	Start balance	+ Growth (6%)	− Withdrawal	End balance
1	$500,000	$30,000	$40,000	$490,000
5	$456,254	$27,375	$40,000	$443,629
10	$385,087	$23,105	$40,000	$368,192
15	$289,849	$17,391	$40,000	$267,240
20	$162,400	$9,744	$40,000	$132,144
23	$66,077	$3,965	$40,000	$30,042
24	$30,042	$1,803	$31,844	$0

$500,000, $40,000/yr withdrawals, 6% return. Figures computed by this calculator; the final year's withdrawal is capped to the remaining balance.

Notice how the drawdown accelerates. Early on, growth offsets most of the withdrawal and the balance barely moves; by year 20 the balance is small, growth is small, and each $40,000 withdrawal takes a much bigger bite. That back-loaded collapse is why retirees who are “fine for the first 15 years” can still run out — and why the return in the early years matters so much.

Reference

Sustainable withdrawal by horizon and the 4% rule

Run the calculator in safe-withdrawal mode and it solves for the level annual amount that depletes the balance in exactly the horizon you set. The table below shows that figure for a $500,000 portfolio at a 6% return across common horizons, with the implied withdrawal rate beside it.

Horizon	Sustainable withdrawal	As % of $500k
20 years	$43,592	8.7%
25 years	$39,113	7.8%
30 years	$36,324	7.3%
35 years	$34,487	6.9%
40 years	$33,231	6.6%

$500,000 starting balance at a constant 6% return. Longer horizons require a smaller withdrawal. Figures computed by this calculator.

These percentages look higher than the famous 4% rule — and that difference is the most important thing to understand here. The 4% rule comes from William Bengen's 1994 study and the 1998 Trinity Study, and it describes a withdrawal that rises with inflation every year: 4% of the starting balance in year one, then the same dollar amount bumped up by CPI each year after. Because those withdrawals grow, the portfolio drains faster than a flat-dollar plan of the same starting size. The 4% rule also assumed a far lower real return and demanded a high historical success rate, not a single average path. Our percentages are higher precisely because this model holds the withdrawal flat in nominal dollars and uses one constant return.

Want this calculator to approximate the inflation-adjusted 4% rule? Enter a real (inflation-adjusted) return — roughly your nominal return minus expected inflation. At a real return near 1–2%, a 30-year horizon lands close to a 4% sustainable withdrawal, which is exactly what the Trinity Study found.

Bengen, “Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data,” Journal of Financial Planning, October 1994 — the original 4% safe-withdrawal-rate study.Cooley, Hubbard & Walz, “Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable,” AAII Journal, February 1998 — the Trinity Study.

Scenarios

How longevity changes with each input

Small changes to any input move the answer a lot. Holding the $500,000 balance and 6% return fixed, here is how the withdrawal alone reshapes longevity:

Annual withdrawal	Withdrawal rate	Money lasts
$30,000	6.0%	Never runs out
$35,000	7.0%	33.4 years
$40,000	8.0%	23.8 years
$45,000	9.0%	18.9 years
$50,000	10.0%	15.7 years

$500,000 at a 6% return. At $30,000 the withdrawal exactly equals the interest, so the balance never depletes. Figures computed by this calculator.

The relationship is steeply non-linear. Raising the withdrawal from $35,000 to $50,000 — a 43% increase — more than halves how long the money lasts, from 33 years to under 16. The lesson is that the last few thousand dollars of annual spending are the most expensive: they come almost entirely out of principal that would otherwise compound.

Gotchas

Sequence-of-returns risk and other limitations

This calculator uses a single, constant return — which makes the math clean but hides the biggest real-world danger in retirement: sequence-of-returns risk. Two retirees can earn the exact same average return over 30 years and end up in completely different places, purely because of the order in which the good and bad years arrive.

Why? When you are drawing down, a market drop in your first few years forces you to sell more shares to fund the same withdrawal, leaving fewer assets to recover when prices rebound. A retiree who hits a bear market in year one can run out years earlier than this constant-return model predicts, even with an identical long-run average. Charles Schwab and Vanguard call the five years on either side of retirement the “fragile decade” for exactly this reason.

Charles Schwab — “Timing Matters: Understanding Sequence-of-Returns Risk.”

It assumes a fixed nominal withdrawal. Real spending usually rises with inflation. Use a real return (nominal minus inflation) to model that.
It assumes one constant return. Markets vary year to year; sequence-of-returns risk can shorten longevity well below the figure shown.
It ignores taxes and fees. Withdrawals from a traditional IRA or 401(k) are taxed as income, and required minimum distributions begin at age 73 — both reduce what you keep.
It excludes Social Security and pensions. Enter only the spending the portfolio must cover after guaranteed income.

Treat the result as a planning baseline, not a guarantee. For mid-retirement, building in a margin — a slightly lower return, a slightly smaller withdrawal, or a willingness to cut spending in down years — is what turns a paper plan into a resilient one.

Questions

Frequently asked questions about the free retirement withdrawal calculator

A retirement withdrawal calculator is a free online tool that helps you find how long retirement savings last given a balance, withdrawal, and return — or the sustainable withdrawal for a target horizon. Each year the balance earns a return, then the withdrawal is removed. Solve the recurrence for the number of years until the balance hits zero, or for the level withdrawal that depletes it over a chosen horizon. It runs entirely in your browser with instant results and no sign-up.

It depends entirely on your withdrawal and return. At a 6% return, $500,000 funds $40,000 a year for about 24 years, or $30,000 a year indefinitely (because $30,000 equals the interest the balance earns). Drop the return to 4% and the same $40,000 withdrawal lasts only about 16 years. Enter your own numbers above to see the exact depletion timeline.

The 4% rule, from Bengen's 1994 study and the 1998 Trinity Study, says you can withdraw 4% of your starting balance in year one and then raise that dollar amount with inflation every year, with a high chance of lasting 30 years. This calculator instead withdraws a flat amount you choose, so its sustainable percentages look higher. To approximate the 4% rule here, enter a real (inflation-adjusted) return rather than a nominal one.

Your money never runs out when the annual withdrawal is at or below the interest the balance earns — that is, when the withdrawal is no more than the balance times the return rate. A $1,000,000 portfolio earning 5% throws off $50,000 a year, so withdrawing $50,000 or less keeps the balance flat or growing indefinitely. The calculator returns 'never runs out' in that case.

It is the risk that the order of your returns — not just their average — determines how long your money lasts. A market drop in the first few years of retirement forces you to sell more to fund the same withdrawal, leaving less to recover. Two retirees with identical average returns can end up years apart purely because of timing, which is why this constant-return result is a planning baseline, not a guarantee.

No. It models the portfolio in isolation, so enter only the spending the portfolio must cover after Social Security, a pension, or other guaranteed income. Withdrawals from a traditional IRA or 401(k) are taxed as income and required minimum distributions begin at age 73, both of which reduce what you actually keep — factor those in separately.

About

About this retirement withdrawal calculator

This retirement withdrawal calculator runs entirely in your browser. Every figure you enter stays on your device — nothing is sent to a server, logged, or shared. It applies the closed-form drawdown formula n = ln(W / (W − B·r)) / ln(1 + r) for longevity and the annuity-payment formula for the sustainable withdrawal, builds the year-by-year depletion schedule, and updates instantly as you type.

Calculators Cloud offers 400+ free tools with no sign-up. The Retirement calculators shelf includes Retirement income, Retirement nest egg, and RMD tools alongside this one. Or browse the full calculator directory.