Retirement Calculator

This page holds four calculators that answer the four questions retirement planning comes down to. How much will you need? What do you have to save to get there? Once you stop working, how much can you take out each month? And if you already have a balance, how long will it last? Each one runs on its own inputs, so you can work through them in order or jump to the one you need.

What retirement means

To retire is to step out of working life, and for most people it lasts the rest of their lives. In practice it happens somewhere between 55 and 70, though nothing stops it happening earlier or later. Plenty of people ease into it, cutting their hours over a few years rather than stopping on a single date, and a fair number retire, discover they miss the work or need the income, and go back.

In the United States, full retirement age for Social Security is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, which is why 67 is the default in the first calculator. That age is a Social Security milestone, not a rule about when you have to stop working.

Why people retire when they do

Health drives a lot of these decisions. A job that the body or the mind can no longer handle is a reason to stop, or at least to move to work that fits better. So is accumulated stress: when the satisfaction drains out of a job, the case for staying gets thin.

The binding constraint, though, is usually money. It is possible to retire on Social Security alone, and a significant number of Americans do, but it is a hard landing for most. Social Security was designed to replace roughly 40% of an average worker's pre-retirement earnings, so relying on it alone means living on well under half of what you used to earn. When nobody is forcing the timing, most people go when the numbers work and they feel ready.

How much to save

There is no single answer, because it depends on the income you want, what Social Security will pay you, your health and how long you expect to live, and whether you care about leaving anything behind. A few rules of thumb get you close enough to start.

• The 10% rule: put away 10% to 15% of pre-tax income every working year. On $50,000 that is $5,000 to $7,500 a year. Start at 25 and keep it up, and a seven-figure balance by retirement is a realistic outcome.
• The 70–80% rule: most people can hold their standard of living on 70% to 80% of their pre-retirement income, since commuting costs, payroll taxes, and retirement contributions all stop. Someone earning $100,000 plans on $70,000 to $80,000. The right figure moves a long way depending on whether your retirement involves travel or a quiet house with a paid-off mortgage.
• The 4% rule: divide the income you want by 4% to get the balance you need. Want $100,000 a year, and the target is $100,000 ÷ 0.04 = $2.5 million. The same arithmetic is the 25x rule: 25 times the annual income you plan to spend.

The 4% rule deserves a footnote, because it is quoted far more often than it is understood. It comes from work published by financial adviser William Bengen in 1994, later reinforced by the Trinity study, testing historical U.S. market data to find the highest starting withdrawal that survived every 30-year stretch on record with inflation adjustments each year. It is a floor derived from history, not a law, and it assumes a 30-year retirement, a stock-and-bond portfolio, and no allowance for fees. Retire at 55 expecting 40 years, and 4% is too aggressive. Retire at 70, and it is probably conservative.

Working through the four calculators

The defaults tell a coherent story worth following. Someone aged 35 earning $70,000, with $30,000 saved, putting away 10% of pay, expecting 6% returns and 3% inflation, aiming to retire at 67 and plan through age 85.

The first calculator says they need about $1.88 million at 67 and are on track for about $1.10 million, roughly 58% of the target. That $1.88 million is not an arbitrary number: their income will have grown to about $180,000 by 67 at 3% raises, and 75% of that is $135,000 a year, or $11,266 a month. In today's money that is $4,375 a month, which is the figure worth holding on to, because it is the one you can actually picture. Closing the gap takes about $1,510 a month, or 18.7% of income rather than the 10% currently planned.

The second calculator takes a target and shows three ways to reach it. The third builds a balance from a savings plan and turns it into monthly income two ways: a fixed amount, or a smaller starting amount that rises with inflation so your purchasing power holds. The fourth answers the bluntest question of all, which is how long a pot lasts at a given withdrawal.

Inflation, and why it is the quiet problem

Inflation is the steady rise in prices that erodes what money buys. U.S. inflation has averaged roughly 2.6% a year over the past three decades, which sounds mild until you compound it: a dollar from 30 years ago buys less than 50 cents of what it did. Over a 30-year working life followed by a 20-year retirement, prices can roughly double twice.

This is the single biggest reason people underestimate what they need. A retirement income that looks generous in today's terms can be uncomfortable two decades in if it never rises. Inflation is also largely outside your control and hard to forecast, so most planning focuses on earning a solid total return rather than trying to predict it. If you want direct protection, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities adjust their principal with the consumer price index, and other countries issue similar bonds. Gold and other commodities are traditional hedges, as are dividend-paying stocks compared with short-term bonds. Our Inflation Calculator shows the effect on its own.

Sequence-of-returns risk

Two retirees can earn the same average return over 20 years and end up in completely different places, purely because of the order the returns arrived. A bad run in the first few years of retirement, while you are also drawing money out, permanently shrinks the base that has to recover. The same bad run at the end does far less damage.

This is why the years either side of your retirement date matter more than any other period, and why many people shift toward bonds and cash as that date approaches. It is also an argument for flexibility: trimming withdrawals during a poor year protects the portfolio in a way that no fixed rule does. No calculator that assumes a steady return, including this one, can show this risk, so treat a smooth projection as the central case rather than a promise.

Social Security

Social Security is government-run insurance against poverty, old age, and disability. If you have paid FICA tax out of your payroll, you have built an entitlement to benefits in retirement. It is designed to replace about 40% of a typical worker's earnings, yet around a third of workers and half of retirees expect it to be their main income source, which is a wide gap between design and expectation.

Benefits track past earnings, but not proportionally. Someone who earned $20,000 a year receives roughly $800 a month; someone who earned $100,000 receives roughly $2,000. Earn five times as much and you collect about two and a half times the benefit, because the formula deliberately replaces a larger share of a low earner's income.

Timing matters as much as earnings. Claim at 62, the earliest age, and the benefit is cut by around 30% for life. Wait past full retirement age and it grows by about 8% a year until 70, which makes delaying one of the few guaranteed, inflation-linked returns available to a retiree. Whatever you expect, enter it as monthly other income in the first calculator so the target adjusts.

401(k), 403(b), and 457 plans

Workplace plans are the backbone of American retirement saving. The 401(k) covers most private employers, the 403(b) covers non-profits, schools, and religious organisations, and the 457 covers state and local government staff.

The feature that matters most is the employer match. A common formula is 50% of your contribution up to 6% of pay, or dollar-for-dollar up to 3%. On a $60,000 salary, a 3% full match is $1,800 a year of free money. The overwhelming majority of employers offering a 401(k) contribute something, and contributing at least enough to collect the full match is the closest thing to a free lunch in personal finance. Check the vesting schedule too: matched money often belongs to you only after a few years of service.

Contributions come out pre-tax, the balance grows untaxed, and only withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income, usually at a lower rate in retirement than during your working years. Limits are set annually and indexed for inflation. For 2025 the employee deferral limit was $23,500, with a $7,500 catch-up from age 50 and a larger $11,250 catch-up for ages 60 to 63 introduced by SECURE 2.0. Check the current year's figures before planning around them. Our 401(k) Calculator models the match directly.

IRAs and Roth IRAs

Individual retirement accounts do a similar job without an employer. The difference between the two main types is purely about when the tax lands. A traditional IRA takes pre-tax money and taxes the withdrawals. A Roth IRA takes money you have already paid tax on and charges nothing on qualified withdrawals in retirement.

The choice comes down to a bet on tax rates: pay now at your current rate, or later at whatever rate applies then. Roth accounts favour anyone who expects to be in a similar or higher bracket later, which describes most people early in a career. Traditional accounts favour high earners in their peak years. The 2025 contribution limit for both was $7,000, with a $1,000 catch-up from 50, and Roth eligibility phases out above certain incomes.

One more difference worth knowing: traditional IRAs and 401(k)s force you to start taking required minimum distributions, currently from age 73 and rising to 75 in 2033 under SECURE 2.0. Roth IRAs have no such requirement during the owner's lifetime, which makes them useful for money you would rather leave untouched. See the Roth IRA Calculator and IRA Calculator.

Health savings accounts

An HSA, available alongside a qualifying high-deductible health plan, is the only account with three tax breaks at once: contributions are deductible, growth is untaxed, and withdrawals for medical costs are untaxed. Since healthcare is one of the largest and least avoidable expenses in retirement, an HSA invested rather than spent each year is an underused retirement vehicle. After 65 you can withdraw for anything, paying ordinary income tax as you would from a traditional IRA.

Pensions

A pension plan is money your employer pools and manages on your behalf until you retire, then pays out as a fixed income for life or as a lump sum you can convert into an annuity. Most U.S. public servants are covered by a pension rather than Social Security, and some traditional corporations still run them.

In the private sector they have largely disappeared, replaced by 401(k)s. The reason is that people live longer and there are fewer workers supporting each retiree, which shifted a very expensive open-ended promise from employers to employees. If you have one, it is valuable precisely because someone else carries the risk.

Investments and CDs

Tax-advantaged accounts all have annual limits, so anyone saving heavily eventually fills them and needs somewhere else to put money. Ordinary taxable investing takes over from there: index funds, mutual funds, individual shares, property, bonds, commodities such as gold, and certificates of deposit.

They behave very differently. Broad funds grind upward reasonably steadily, individual shares swing hard, gold and property move with economic conditions, and CDs and other fixed-income holdings pay modestly but predictably, which is what makes them suitable close to and during retirement. The same investments sit inside 401(k)s and IRAs, with the tax treatment layered on top. The Investment Calculator and CD Calculator cover these.

Personal savings

Cash in a checking or savings account is where spare money lands first, and it is a poor long-term retirement vehicle. Ordinary deposits pay little, and once income tax is taken the return rarely keeps pace with inflation, so the balance quietly loses purchasing power year after year.

That is not an argument against holding cash. An emergency fund covering several months of expenses is what stops an unexpected bill from becoming a raid on your retirement accounts, and money that is never needed for an emergency can be moved into the retirement pot later.

Other sources of retirement income

• Home equity: a reverse mortgage lets homeowners aged 62 or over convert equity into income while continuing to live in the house, with the loan settled from the property afterwards. It is the mortgage running backwards, and it costs more than most people expect, so it suits a specific situation rather than being a general answer.
• Annuities: a contract that pays a fixed sum periodically, usually for life. Immediate annuities start paying within about a month of the premium. Deferred annuities have an accumulation phase where you pay in, then an annuitisation phase where payments run until death. They transfer longevity risk to an insurer, which is worth something, at the cost of flexibility and fees. See the Annuity Calculator.
• Passive income: rent, business profits, dividends, and royalties keep arriving after you stop working, and they carry no contribution limits. Our Rental Property Calculator handles the property version.
• Inheritance: assets passed on can fund a retirement, though estates may face federal or state tax, several states levy a separate inheritance tax, and selling inherited property or valuables can trigger capital gains. Values also move, so it is a weak foundation to build a plan on.

Reading your results

Treat the output as a direction, not a forecast. Every figure rests on assumptions about returns, inflation, how long you work, and how long you live, and all four will be wrong to some degree. The useful habit is to run the numbers again whenever something real changes, a raise, a new job, a house, a child, and to watch which way the gap moves rather than fixating on the exact total.

Two things do more than any refinement of the assumptions: starting earlier and saving more. In the default example, going from 10% of income to 18.7% is the entire difference between falling 42% short and arriving on target. That is a decision available today, unlike the return the market happens to deliver.