Retirement calculator
Spending ₹50,000 a month today, retiring at 60, planning to 85: at 6% inflation that lifestyle costs ₹2,87,175 a month by the time you get there, needs a corpus of about ₹7.71 Cr, and takes a SIP of roughly ₹21,856 a month from age 30. Change any of those below.
Your situation
What your lifestyle costs now, not what you think it will cost later.
Planning short is the expensive mistake here. Most planners use 85–90.
Set 0 to switch the "today’s money" column off. India’s CPI has averaged close to 6% over the past decade; the RBI targets 4% with a 2-point band.
An assumption, not a promise. Equity funds are usually modelled at 10–12%; see what rate to assume.
Lower than your pre-retirement figure, because the portfolio gets more conservative.
What retirement costs
What you investWhat compounding adds
| Year | Monthly | Invested so far | Returns | Value at year end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹21,856 | ₹2,62,268 | ₹17,688 | ₹2,79,956 |
| 2 | ₹21,856 | ₹5,24,535 | ₹70,882 | ₹5,95,417 |
| 3 | ₹21,856 | ₹7,86,803 | ₹1,64,084 | ₹9,50,887 |
| 4 | ₹21,856 | ₹10,49,070 | ₹3,02,369 | ₹13,51,439 |
| 5 | ₹21,856 | ₹13,11,338 | ₹4,91,454 | ₹18,02,791 |
| 6 | ₹21,856 | ₹15,73,605 | ₹7,37,781 | ₹23,11,386 |
| 7 | ₹21,856 | ₹18,35,873 | ₹10,48,611 | ₹28,84,484 |
| 8 | ₹21,856 | ₹20,98,140 | ₹14,32,124 | ₹35,30,264 |
| 9 | ₹21,856 | ₹23,60,408 | ₹18,97,538 | ₹42,57,946 |
| 10 | ₹21,856 | ₹26,22,675 | ₹24,55,241 | ₹50,77,916 |
| 11 | ₹21,856 | ₹28,84,943 | ₹31,16,936 | ₹60,01,879 |
| 12 | ₹21,856 | ₹31,47,210 | ₹38,95,813 | ₹70,43,023 |
| 13 | ₹21,856 | ₹34,09,478 | ₹48,06,733 | ₹82,16,211 |
| 14 | ₹21,856 | ₹36,71,745 | ₹58,66,443 | ₹95,38,188 |
| 15 | ₹21,856 | ₹39,34,013 | ₹70,93,812 | ₹1,10,27,825 |
| 16 | ₹21,856 | ₹41,96,280 | ₹85,10,105 | ₹1,27,06,385 |
| 17 | ₹21,856 | ₹44,58,548 | ₹1,01,39,281 | ₹1,45,97,828 |
| 18 | ₹21,856 | ₹47,20,815 | ₹1,20,08,339 | ₹1,67,29,154 |
| 19 | ₹21,856 | ₹49,83,083 | ₹1,41,47,703 | ₹1,91,30,786 |
| 20 | ₹21,856 | ₹52,45,350 | ₹1,65,91,654 | ₹2,18,37,004 |
| 21 | ₹21,856 | ₹55,07,618 | ₹1,93,78,821 | ₹2,48,86,439 |
| 22 | ₹21,856 | ₹57,69,885 | ₹2,25,52,732 | ₹2,83,22,618 |
| 23 | ₹21,856 | ₹60,32,153 | ₹2,61,62,438 | ₹3,21,94,591 |
| 24 | ₹21,856 | ₹62,94,421 | ₹3,02,63,206 | ₹3,65,57,627 |
| 25 | ₹21,856 | ₹65,56,688 | ₹3,49,17,316 | ₹4,14,74,005 |
| 26 | ₹21,856 | ₹68,18,956 | ₹4,01,94,947 | ₹4,70,13,902 |
| 27 | ₹21,856 | ₹70,81,223 | ₹4,61,75,175 | ₹5,32,56,398 |
| 28 | ₹21,856 | ₹73,43,491 | ₹5,29,47,107 | ₹6,02,90,598 |
| 29 | ₹21,856 | ₹76,05,758 | ₹6,06,11,153 | ₹6,82,16,911 |
| 30 | ₹21,856 | ₹78,68,026 | ₹6,92,80,453 | ₹7,71,48,478 |
Retirement is two problems, not one
Most retirement calculators solve the accumulation half and quietly guess at the rest. There are two distinct stages and they need different assumptions:
- Before retirement — you are adding money and can take equity risk, so a higher return is reasonable. Your target cost is rising with inflation the whole time.
- After retirement — you are withdrawing, the portfolio gets conservative, so the return assumption drops. But your spending keeps rising with inflation for another twenty-five years.
That second stage is where naive plans break. "₹50,000 a month × 12 × 25 years = ₹1.5 crore" is wrong twice over: it ignores the inflation that raises every future withdrawal, and it ignores the returns the remaining corpus still earns.
The one number that drives everything
The corpus figure hinges on the real post-retirement return — your return minus inflation, properly divided rather than subtracted. At 7% returns and 6% inflation that is only 0.94%, which is why the required corpus comes out so large: the portfolio is barely outrunning the cost of living.
Nudge the post-retirement return to 8% and watch the corpus fall sharply. Nudge inflation to 7% and watch it climb. This is the most sensitive input on the page, and it is the one people hand-wave.
Formally, the corpus is the present value at retirement of an inflation-growing annuity, computed at the real rate — the derivation is on the methodology page.
What this deliberately does not model
Being clear about the gaps is more useful than pretending there are none:
- Sequence risk. A crash in your first two retired years does far more damage than the same crash ten years in, because you are selling units to eat. A constant-rate model cannot show this, and it is the single biggest real-world risk to a withdrawal plan.
- EPF, NPS, gratuity, property, pensions. Enter their expected value in "already saved" to net them off, but this is not a full balance sheet.
- Healthcare. Medical inflation runs well above general CPI, and late-life costs are lumpy. General inflation understates it.
- Tax on withdrawals, and any legacy you want to leave.
Treat the output as a floor to plan against, not a finish line.
Before you rely on this
An estimate, not a forecast
This is arithmetic applied to assumptions you chose. Mutual funds carry market risk, returns are not guaranteed, and past performance does not indicate future results. Nothing here is personalised advice — for decisions of any size, speak to a SEBI-registered investment adviser.
Questions people actually ask
How much do I need to retire in India?
There is no single figure, because it depends entirely on what you spend. The calculator's default case — ₹50,000 a month today, retiring at 60, planning to 85 — comes out around ₹7.71 Cr.
Rules of thumb like "25× annual expenses" are built on Western inflation assumptions and understate the requirement at 6% inflation. Put your own spending in instead.
Is the 4% withdrawal rule valid in India?
Treat it with caution. The 4% rule came from US historical data with lower inflation and different asset returns. At 6% inflation, a 4% initial withdrawal rising with prices is more aggressive in India than the same rule is in the US.
Rather than adopt a rule, use the SWP calculator with your own corpus and see when it runs dry.
Should I count my EPF and NPS in this?
Yes — put their projected value at retirement into "already saved for this", and the calculator will grow it at your pre-retirement rate and subtract it from the corpus needed.
Note that NPS forces at least 40% of its corpus into an annuity at exit, so that portion becomes income rather than a drawable balance. The NPS calculator models that split.
Why does planning to 85 instead of 75 change the answer so much?
Because you are adding ten years of inflation-adjusted spending on the far end, where each year costs the most in nominal terms. Ten extra years is not 40% more corpus — it is considerably more.
Planning short is the expensive error here. Outliving the plan has no recovery path, whereas over-saving does.