Safe Withdrawal Rate Calculator
↻ Updated 2026See how long your retirement portfolio could last at a chosen withdrawal rate — with inflation-adjusted spending and your expected returns. Stress-test the classic 4% rule.
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Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent to us.How this works
How to read your withdrawal-rate result
The headline is how many years the portfolio survives, and it's driven by one number the page never displays: your real return. At the defaults, 6% growth against 3% inflation is 2.9% real — and a 4% draw against a 2.9% real return is a slow bleed that takes 43 years to finish.
How long your portfolio lasts at a given withdrawal rate
A year-by-year simulation with a strict order of operations: withdraw first, then grow what's left. That order matters — it's the conservative choice, and it's what the Trinity study did.
The withdrawal itself is fixed in real terms. Your first-year income is set once, as a percentage of the starting portfolio, and every subsequent year takes that same amount grown by inflation. The percentage is never recalculated against the current balance — which is precisely what makes the 4% rule a rule rather than a policy.
year-1 income = portfolio × withdrawal rate repeat each year y, until the balance hits zero: withdrawal = year-1 income × (1 + inflation) ^ (y − 1) balance = balance − withdrawal balance = balance × (1 + return)
- portfolio
- What you're starting retirement with — sets the first-year income and nothing else
- withdrawal rate
- The share you draw in year one — applied once — later withdrawals track inflation, not the balance
- return
- Expected annual return, nominal and constant — applied after the withdrawal each year
- inflation
- The annual raise your withdrawal gets — keeps your spending power flat as prices rise
- year-1 income
- The first year's withdrawal, in today's dollars — $40,000 at the defaults — every later withdrawal is this, inflated
- balance
- What remains after each withdraw-then-grow cycle — the chart plots this; when it reaches zero the simulation stops
The arithmetic that decides everything is return minus inflation. At 6% and 3% your portfolio compounds at about 2.9% in real terms while you withdraw 4% of the original balance every year — so you're spending faster than it grows, and the only question is how long the buffer lasts. Set inflation to 0% and 4% survives indefinitely. That's why the withdrawal rate alone is a meaningless number: 4% at 2.9% real is a 43-year plan, and 4% at 1% real is a much shorter one. If you want the target rather than the drawdown, the retirement number calculator runs this rule in reverse.
Worked examples
Example: $1,000,000 at 4%, with 6% returns and 3% inflation
The calculator's defaults, over a 30-year horizon. Follow the chart bars — each one is the balance after that year's withdrawal and growth.
| Year-1 income4% of $1,000,000 — $3,333 a month | $40,000 |
| Real return6% growth against 3% inflation | 2.9% |
| Balance after year 10still above where you started | $1,159,185 |
| Peak balanceyear 19 — the turning point | $1,227,707 |
| Balance after year 30read from the chart; withdrawal that year is $94,263 | $1,056,555 |
| Money laststo age 108 if you retired at 65 | 43 years |
43 years — the 30-year horizon is cleared with room to spare. But look at what the withdrawal does: $40,000 in year one becomes $94,263 by year 30, because inflation more than doubles it while the portfolio grows only 6%. The decline that starts in year 19 is that crossover, and once it starts it never stops.
Example: the same portfolio at 5% instead of 4%
One slider. Same $1M, same 6% return, same 3% inflation, same 30-year horizon — you just decide you need $50,000 a year rather than $40,000.
| Year-1 incomeup $10,000 — 25% more spending | $50,000 |
| Balance after year 10barely above the starting $1M | $1,001,269 |
| Balance after year 20vs $1,227,021 at 4% | $731,993 |
| Balance after year 29effectively gone | $9,168 |
| Money lastsdown from 43 | 30 years |
One extra percentage point of withdrawal costs thirteen years — a 25% spending increase cuts the portfolio's life by 30%. Run the slider the other way and 3.25% never depletes at all within the 60 years the model simulates. Between 3.25% and 4% lies the entire safe-withdrawal debate, and this page shows why the argument is over a quarter of a percent.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 4% rule still valid in 2026?
It's contested, and the range of expert opinion is wide enough that anyone presenting a single answer is overselling. Morningstar's 2026 guidance puts the safe starting rate near 3.9% for a balanced portfolio; some analyses argue for 3.3% or lower. Meanwhile William Bengen, who derived the rule in 1994, raised his own figure to 4.7% in his 2025 book for a more diversified portfolio. Surveys of financial planners still find a majority using 4% as a working default.
What this calculator adds is a different kind of evidence — and a warning about its own limits. Bengen's 4% came from running historical sequences, including the worst ones; this page runs one smooth constant return. Those are not the same test. A constant-return model can never fail the way real retirements fail, so treat 43 years as arithmetic, not reassurance.
How long will my money last in retirement?
It reduces to one comparison: your withdrawal rate against your real return. At the defaults you draw 4% while the portfolio compounds at 2.9% after inflation, so the gap is covered by the buffer for 43 years and then it isn't. If your withdrawal rate is below your real return, the money never runs out — 3.25% survives the full 60 years this model simulates.
That framing is exact under constant returns and only indicative under real ones. Three things this page ignores will each shorten the answer: tax on withdrawals from traditional accounts, investment fees, and the fact that returns arrive in a sequence rather than an average. Three others lengthen it: Social Security, spending that naturally falls in later retirement, and the willingness to cut back after a bad year — which the model, drawing its inflated withdrawal regardless, never does.
What is sequence of returns risk?
The risk that a bad decade arrives first rather than last. Two retirements with identical average returns can end very differently depending on the order: withdrawing from a portfolio that's already down means selling more shares to fund the same spending, and those shares aren't there when the recovery comes. The damage is permanent and it's concentrated in the first few years, when the balance is largest.
This calculator cannot show it, and that's its single biggest blind spot. A constant 6% every year is a retirement with no sequence at all. Look at the default chart: the balance rises for 19 years before turning over, which builds an enormous cushion before the withdrawals start biting. Reverse the order — put the bad years at the front — and that cushion never forms. Historical safe-withdrawal work exists precisely because averages hide this.
Is $1 million enough to retire?
At the defaults on this page it funds $40,000 a year, inflation-adjusted, for 43 years. Whether that's enough is a question about your spending, not your portfolio — and $40,000 is before tax, before healthcare, and before whatever Social Security adds back.
The honest version of this answer is that $1M is not a threshold, it's a multiplier: it produces 4% of itself, forever-ish, and everything depends on whether 4% of it covers your life. Drop the withdrawal to 3.25% and the same $1M lasts indefinitely on $32,500 a year. Push to 5% for $50,000 and it lasts 30 years. Work out your own target with the retirement number calculator.
Why this simulation is more optimistic than a real retirement
Almost everything the model leaves out would shorten the answer. Read the year count as a ceiling, not an estimate.
- The ending-balance card can contradict the chart — At the defaults the chart shows $1,056,555 at year 30 while the "Balance at year 30" card reads $0. The card zeroes out whenever the portfolio depletes anywhere in the 60-year simulation — here that's year 43, thirteen years past the horizon you asked about. When the two disagree, the chart is showing your horizon and the card is showing the eventual end.
- No sequence of returns — A constant return every year is the assumption that makes this tractable and unrealistic. Real markets deliver the same average in an order that matters enormously to someone withdrawing, and a bad first five years can end a retirement the average said was safe.
- No tax and no fees — The $40,000 withdrawal is gross. From a traditional IRA or 401(k) it's ordinary income, so the spendable amount is less — meaning the portfolio has to fund more than $40,000 to deliver $40,000 of life. Fund fees come off the return too.
- Spending that only ever rises — The model inflates your withdrawal every year without exception, including in years the portfolio fell. No real retiree does this — most cut back after a bad year, and that flexibility is worth more to portfolio survival than any of the return assumptions on this page.
- No other income — Social Security, a pension and any annuity income are all absent. Since they're typically inflation-linked and start mid-retirement, including them would lengthen every answer here, often substantially.
- ·Trinity Study / 4% safe withdrawal rate — Bengen (1994) and the Trinity Study (1998) — basis for the 4% rule
Rates, brackets and limits here are checked against primary sources. If a number still looks off, email support@realmoneyiq.com and we'll review and fix it.
RealMoneyIQ provides free educational calculators, not financial, tax, investment or legal advice. Results are estimates based on the assumptions you enter and publicly published rates; your actual outcome will differ. Always confirm decisions with a licensed professional who knows your full situation.