Retirement Calculator
See your retirement number, updated for 2026 contribution limits and healthcare cost estimates
Social Security
Full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Claiming as early as 62 permanently reduces your benefit; delaying up to age 70 increases it. Get your personalized estimate at ssa.gov.
401(k) & IRA (2026 limits)
401(k): $24,500/year ($32,500 if 50+, $35,750 if 60–63). IRA: $7,500/year ($8,600 if 50+). Source: IRS Notice 2025-67.
Healthcare Costs
Medicare eligibility starts at 65. Fidelity’s 2026 estimate: a single 65-year-old retiree spends roughly $185,500 on healthcare over retirement; a couple, about $371,000 — not including long-term care.
Required Minimum Distributions
Under SECURE 2.0, you must start withdrawing from traditional 401(k)s/IRAs at age 73 (or 75 if born 1960 or later), whether you need the income or not. Missing an RMD carries a 25% excise tax (10% if corrected within 2 years).
How Long Will My Retirement Savings Last? A Calculator That Uses 2026 Numbers, Not 1994 Ones
Most retirement calculators answer a different question than the one you’re actually asking. They tell you how much to save. This one answers what happens after you stop saving and start spending — how many years your existing balance actually holds up once withdrawals, inflation, and market returns all start working against each other at the same time.
That’s a meaningfully different calculation, and it deserves numbers that are actually current. The famous “4% rule” behind most of these calculators is from 1994. It’s been revised twice since — including by the person who invented it.
Whether you typed in how long will my retirement savings last calculator, how long will my savings last in retirement calculator, or specifically how long will my retirement savings last with inflation calculator because you already suspect a flat withdrawal number doesn’t tell the whole story, this page — and the calculator above it — covers the same ground: how long will my money last, calculated properly.
What’s covered on this page
- Why this isn’t the same as a regular retirement calculator
- How the calculation actually works
- What withdrawal rate should you use? The 4% rule in 2026
- The risk most calculators don’t explain: sequence of returns
- Two things this calculator doesn’t automatically include
- Common mistakes people make with this number
- What this number can’t tell you
- FAQs
Why This Isn’t the Same as a Regular Retirement Calculator
A standard retirement calculator solves for accumulation: given your current savings rate, how much will you have by 65? This calculator solves the opposite problem — decumulation: given what you’ve already got, how long does it last once you start pulling money out instead of putting it in?
They use the same underlying math (compound growth), applied in opposite directions. If you’re still years from retiring, an accumulation calculator is the right tool. If you’re within a decade of retiring or already there, this is the more useful question to have answered.
How the Calculation Actually Works
Four inputs drive the whole thing: your starting balance, your first-year withdrawal, an inflation rate that grows that withdrawal every year, and an expected annual return on whatever’s left. Each year, the calculator subtracts your withdrawal, grows the remainder by your return rate, then increases next year’s withdrawal for inflation — repeating until the balance hits zero.
Worked example
$500,000 starting balance. Year-one withdrawal: $20,000 (a 4% rate). Withdrawals grow 3% annually. Return: 6% a year. Result: the balance actually keeps growing for roughly the first two decades — because 6% growth outpaces a withdrawal that’s only rising 3% — before gradually declining and running out around year 43.
That’s a real, calculated result, not a rounded guess — and it’s a useful reminder that “how long will this last” answers can be a lot longer than the 30-year horizon most retirement research defaults to, when the return assumption comfortably exceeds the withdrawal growth rate.
What Withdrawal Rate Should You Actually Use? The 4% Rule in 2026
The “4% rule” comes from financial planner William Bengen’s 1994 research, later reinforced by the Trinity Study in 1998. The idea: withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one, increase that amount for inflation every year after, and a portfolio with a meaningful stock allocation should survive roughly 30 years in the worst historical scenarios.
That number hasn’t stood still. Morningstar’s own 2026 research puts the safe starting withdrawal rate at 3.9% for a 30-year retirement with a 90% success probability — up from 3.7% the year before, but still below the original 4%. Meanwhile, Bengen himself published a 2025 book arguing that a more diversified portfolio (adding small-cap value stocks to the original large-cap-only assumption) could support a “SAFEMAX” of 4.7%, and that some current retirees could reasonably start even higher.
Here’s what that range actually does to the same $500,000 portfolio, holding return (6%) and inflation (3%) constant:
| Withdrawal Rate | Year-1 Withdrawal | Portfolio Lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Morningstar 2026 (3.9%) | $19,500 | 46 years |
| Classic 4% rule (1994) | $20,000 | 43 years |
| Bengen 2025 SAFEMAX (4.7%) | $23,500 | 33 years |
None of these numbers is “correct” for everyone — they trade off current income against long-term security, and the right choice depends on your actual asset mix, health, and how willing you are to cut spending in a rough year. But if a calculator is still quoting a flat 4% with no context, it’s using guidance that’s been publicly revised twice.
The Risk Most Calculators Don’t Explain: Sequence of Returns
Here’s something that rarely gets shown clearly: two retirees can have the exact same average return over 30 years and end up with completely different outcomes, purely based on when the bad years happen.
Take the same $500,000, 4% withdrawal, 3% inflation — but instead of a steady 6% every year, use a realistic mix: two -20% crash years and 28 years at +9%, averaging out to roughly the same long-run return either way. Only the order changes.
| When the Crashes Happen | After 30 Years |
|---|---|
| Years 1–2 of retirement | Portfolio depleted by year 27 — runs out before 30 years |
| Years 29–30 of retirement | Survives with about $1.73 million remaining |
Same average return. Same withdrawal plan. One version runs out early; the other ends with more money than it started with. The difference is entirely about timing, because withdrawing from a portfolio that’s just dropped 20% locks in a loss that a portfolio with no withdrawals would eventually recover from on its own.
Two Things This Calculator Doesn’t Automatically Include
Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
Under SECURE 2.0, if you have a traditional IRA or 401(k), you’re required to start withdrawing a minimum amount at age 73 (or 75, if you were born in 1960 or later) — whether or not you actually need the money that year. Missing an RMD carries a 25% excise tax on the amount not withdrawn, reduced to 10% if corrected within two years. If your planned withdrawal is smaller than your RMD once you reach that age, your real-world withdrawal rate will end up higher than whatever you modeled here.
Social Security
This calculator focuses purely on savings and investment withdrawals. Social Security is a separate, inflation-adjusted income stream on top of that — full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, with benefits permanently reduced for claiming as early as 62 and increased for delaying up to 70. Get your own estimate at ssa.gov and subtract it from your planned spending before entering a withdrawal figure here; it’ll make the “how long will this last” answer meaningfully more accurate.
Common Mistakes People Make With This Number
- Ignoring inflation on withdrawals. Keeping the same dollar withdrawal every year makes the money “last” longer on paper, while buying less every year you’re retired. That’s not actually lasting longer — it’s a shrinking standard of living wearing the disguise of a bigger number.
- Using an overly optimistic return assumption. A few extra percentage points of assumed return dramatically extends how long a calculator says your money lasts — but the market doesn’t know what number you typed in.
- Treating the result as a guarantee. Every figure on this page, and in the calculator above, is a projection based on assumptions you control. It’s a planning tool, not a certainty.
- Forgetting taxes. Withdrawals from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s are taxed as ordinary income. What you can actually spend is less than the raw withdrawal number this calculator shows.
What This Number Can’t Tell You
It can’t tell you what the market will actually do, and it treats returns as smooth and predictable when real markets are anything but — which is exactly why the sequence-of-returns section above matters more than the headline “years remaining” figure. It also doesn’t know your health, your housing plans, or whether you’ll want to work part-time for a few more years. Use it as a starting estimate to stress-test different withdrawal rates and return assumptions, not as a single number to build an irreversible plan around.
Frequently Asked Questions
The 4% rule turns 32 this year, and it’s already had two public updates from two different sources in the time it takes most calculators to update their footer copyright year. Whatever rate you settle on, running it against your actual numbers — with inflation and a real sequence of returns in mind — beats defaulting to a number from three decades ago.
