4% Rule Calculator

It's a rule of thumb stating that withdrawing 4% of your retirement corpus in the first year (adjusted for inflation thereafter) has historically had a good chance of lasting roughly 30 years — this calculator applies it as corpus = 25 × your annual expenses.

No — the core 25x corpus calculation is based only on your annual expenses. The inflation rate you enter is used just to show an illustrative projection of what your expenses might cost in 10 years, as context.

No. It's a historical rule of thumb based on a roughly 30-year retirement with a 60/40 equity-bond portfolio. Longer retirements, high-inflation environments, or more conservative portfolios may need a larger corpus than the plain 25x figure.

This tool applies the fixed 25x rule of thumb directly. The Retirement Corpus Calculator instead computes the corpus from your own specific assumed return and inflation rates, which can differ meaningfully from the flat 25x estimate.

It originated from U.S. retirement research; in India's typically higher-inflation environment, many planners suggest a more conservative withdrawal rate or larger corpus than the plain 4% figure — treat this as a starting benchmark, not a fixed target.