When can I retire?
Type your age, what you have saved, what you add every month and what you want to spend in retirement. The answer is the age your savings reach the target amount under the 4% rule.
All inputs
Your answer
With €10,000 saved and €300 a month, you reach the €360,000 target at age 58.
- 58You could retire atwhen savings reach the target
- €360,000Target amount25 × a year of spending
- 28 yearsFrom nowof saving
Savings grow at 7% a year before inflation, fees and tax; the target is 25 times a year of spending under the 4% rule, a rule of thumb from US market history, not a guarantee. An estimate, not a promise.
The full retirement calculator adds inflation, tax, a split between index funds and bonds, and shows how long the money then lasts.
Illustration only, not investment advice. Assumes a steady return; real returns vary.
How the age is found
The calculator grows your savings year by year at 7%: what you have, plus every monthly deposit, plus the interest on both. The first year the balance is at or above 25 times your yearly spending is the answer.
The 4% rule sets the target. It says a pot lasted at least 30 years in most past periods of the US market if you took 4% of it in the first year and the same amount, raised with prices, in every year after (a 1994 article in the Journal of Financial Planning and the 1998 Trinity University study); 25 years of spending is that rule turned around. It is a rule of thumb, not a guarantee.
Spending less moves the date more than saving more does, because it lowers the target and raises what you can save at the same time. Try changing both and watch the age move.
Questions and answers
How does the calculator find the age?
It grows the savings year by year at the chosen return and stops at the first year in which they reach 25 times the yearly spending, the target from the 4% rule of thumb. The age is your current age plus those years. If the savings never get there within 80 years, the page says so instead of showing an age.
What moves the age the most?
Spending, in both directions. Lower spending shrinks the target and raises the amount that can be saved at the same time, so each 100 a month less in retirement removes 30,000 from the target. Saving more works too, but only on the second half of that effect. The return matters, but it is the one input you do not control.
Is this a prediction?
No. It is arithmetic on the numbers you enter with one fixed return every year. Real returns come in uneven years, and a bad run just before the target can push the date back by years. Treat the age as a planning figure and rerun the page with a lower return to see the range. The retirement calculator adds inflation, fees and tax to the picture.
Can I retire early?
The answer the page gives is the age at which your savings reach 25 times your yearly spending, whatever that age is. An early retirement has to last longer than the 30 years the 4% rule was tested on, so many people plan a longer one with a lower rate, such as 3%, which raises the target to 33 times yearly spending. The retirement calculator lets you set the rate and see how long the pot lasts.