SWP calculator
A ₹50 lakh corpus earning 10% a year can pay out about ₹41,322 a month indefinitely without shrinking in rupee terms. Withdraw more than that and it starts eating capital — this calculator shows exactly when it runs out, year by year.
Your corpus and your withdrawal
An assumption, not a promise. Equity funds are usually modelled at 10–12%; see what rate to assume.
How long it lasts
Withdrawn so farBalance plus withdrawals
| Year | Withdrawn so far | Balance left |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹3,60,000 | ₹51,43,457 |
| 2 | ₹7,20,000 | ₹53,01,936 |
| 3 | ₹10,80,000 | ₹54,77,009 |
| 4 | ₹14,40,000 | ₹56,70,415 |
| 5 | ₹18,00,000 | ₹58,84,073 |
| 6 | ₹21,60,000 | ₹61,20,104 |
| 7 | ₹25,20,000 | ₹63,80,851 |
| 8 | ₹28,80,000 | ₹66,68,901 |
| 9 | ₹32,40,000 | ₹69,87,113 |
| 10 | ₹36,00,000 | ₹73,38,647 |
| 11 | ₹39,60,000 | ₹77,26,991 |
| 12 | ₹43,20,000 | ₹81,55,999 |
| 13 | ₹46,80,000 | ₹86,29,930 |
| 14 | ₹50,40,000 | ₹91,53,488 |
| 15 | ₹54,00,000 | ₹97,31,870 |
| 16 | ₹57,60,000 | ₹1,03,70,815 |
| 17 | ₹61,20,000 | ₹1,10,76,667 |
| 18 | ₹64,80,000 | ₹1,18,56,430 |
| 19 | ₹68,40,000 | ₹1,27,17,845 |
| 20 | ₹72,00,000 | ₹1,36,69,461 |
| 21 | ₹75,60,000 | ₹1,47,20,724 |
| 22 | ₹79,20,000 | ₹1,58,82,067 |
| 23 | ₹82,80,000 | ₹1,71,65,019 |
| 24 | ₹86,40,000 | ₹1,85,82,312 |
| 25 | ₹90,00,000 | ₹2,01,48,015 |
The number that decides everything
There is a withdrawal rate at which your corpus earns exactly what you take out, so the balance never moves. Above it you are consuming capital; below it the corpus keeps growing.
In rupee terms that break-even is corpus × r ÷ (1 + r), where r is the monthly rate.
At 10% a year on ₹50 lakh it is about ₹41,322 a month.
The catch — and it is a big one — is that this holds the balance flat in rupees, not in purchasing power. A fixed ₹41,000 a month buys steadily less every year. To keep your real income constant you must withdraw less than the break-even and let the corpus grow with inflation, which is why sustainable real withdrawal rates are much lower than the nominal figure suggests.
The risk this model cannot show
Sequence risk
This calculator applies one steady return. Real markets do not, and for a withdrawal plan the order of returns matters enormously — far more than it does while you are accumulating.
A 30% fall in your first two retired years forces you to sell units cheaply to fund living costs, permanently shrinking the base that has to recover. The same 30% fall fifteen years in is survivable. Two retirees with identical average returns can get completely different outcomes purely from the order those returns arrived in.
The practical answer is to keep two to three years of withdrawals in something stable so you are never forced to sell equity in a bad year. No calculator substitutes for that.
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
What is an SWP?
A Systematic Withdrawal Plan is the mirror image of a SIP: a standing instruction to redeem a fixed amount from a fund at a fixed interval, normally monthly. The rest stays invested and keeps earning.
It is the standard way to convert a corpus into an income, and it is more tax-efficient than holding cash because only the redeemed portion realises a gain.
How is an SWP taxed?
Each withdrawal is a partial redemption, so each one realises capital gains on the units sold — and only on the gain, not the whole amount. Units are normally sold first-in-first-out, so the oldest units go first and are more likely to qualify as long-term.
That is why an SWP usually beats a dividend option on tax: you control the amount and only part of each withdrawal is taxable gain. Current rates are in SIP taxation in India.
What return should I assume during withdrawal?
Lower than while you were accumulating. A retiree's portfolio is usually more conservative, and you cannot afford a long recovery. 7–9% is a common assumption for a balanced portfolio; using your accumulation-phase equity figure here is optimistic.
Is 4% a safe withdrawal rate?
The 4% rule comes from US historical data and lower inflation. At 6% Indian inflation the same rule is more aggressive than it appears, because every future withdrawal has to rise faster to hold its value.
Rather than trusting a rule, put your corpus and your actual spending in above and see which year the balance hits zero. Then plan for a worse case than that.