Retirement Corpus Calculator

It's the total pool of savings and investments you need to build up by the time you retire, enough to cover your living costs after you stop working.

The 25x rule (also called the 4% rule) assumes you grow your withdrawal with inflation each year. This calculator raises your yearly expense base for future prices, then multiplies, so the savings figure you see is sized to fund a real lifestyle, not one frozen at today's prices.

Longevity risk is the chance you live longer than your savings were planned to last. Many people underestimate their lifespan, and running out of money at 90 is a far worse outcome than leaving some behind. The fix is to plan for a long retirement (often to age 95 or 100) and lean toward a lower withdrawal rate. In this calculator, raising the years-in-retirement figure directly increases the corpus you need.

An annuity converts a lump sum into a guaranteed income for life, which removes longevity and market risk but usually offers less flexibility and may not fully keep up with inflation unless it's an inflation-linked product. Managing the corpus yourself (drawing it down from investments) keeps flexibility and any leftover for heirs, but leaves you exposed to markets and the discipline of not over-spending. Many retirees blend the two. This is a significant decision best made with a licensed adviser.

A poor run of returns in the first few years of retirement can permanently shrink a corpus, because you're withdrawing while the balance is down and there are fewer assets left to recover. The same average return in a different order can leave you comfortably ahead. This calculator uses a steady real return, so treat its figure as a central estimate and build in a buffer, such as a slightly larger corpus or a cash reserve, to absorb a bad early sequence.