How long will my money last in retirement?

It depends on three numbers: your savings, what you withdraw each year, and what the savings earn after inflation. A yearly withdrawal of 4% of the starting balance lasts 25 years with no growth above inflation and 34 years at an assumed 2%. These figures are arithmetic, not forecasts.

How long will $1 million last in retirement?

At $100,000 a year, 10 to 12 years at assumed returns of 0% to 4% above inflation. At $50,000 a year, 20 to 37 years. The balance alone does not answer the question. Social Security or a pension lowers what you have to withdraw and lengthens every figure.

How long will $2 million last in retirement?

At $100,000 a year, 20 years with no growth above inflation, 25 years at an assumed 2% and 37 years at an assumed 4%. At $150,000 a year, 13 to 18 years. Income from Social Security or a pension lowers the withdrawal and lengthens every figure.

Is there a calculator for how long my money will last?

Yes. Our Will my money last? calculator takes your balance, your spending, your other income, and the return and inflation you assume. It shows the balance at each age and the year the money runs short, if it does. The result depends on the assumptions you enter.

Retirement & Income Planning

How long will your savings last in retirement?

The arithmetic behind how long savings will last in retirement, shown at three assumed returns: what the 4 percent rule is, what it leaves out, and which of your own numbers changes the answer most.

By Joshua Mangoubi, CFA, MBAPublished November 20267 min read

A long reservoir in a wooded valley at low water in late summer, morning light

The short answer

How long your savings will last in retirement depends on three numbers: what you have, what you take out each year, and what the savings earn after inflation. As one illustration, taking 4% of the starting balance each year lasts 25 years with no growth above inflation and 34 years at an assumed 2%. Neither figure is a forecast.

On this page

You are close to retirement, or already in it, and you want to know whether the money will outlast you. How long your savings will last in retirement depends on three numbers: what you have, what you take out each year, and what the savings earn after inflation. You know the first number. You choose most of the second. No one knows the third in advance.

This page shows the arithmetic for those three numbers, explains the 4 percent rule, and says what changes the answer most. None of it is a forecast, and none of it is advice about your accounts. The formula and the year-by-year figures are in the detailed version below.

What decides how long your savings will last?

What you have. Count the savings in every account you will spend from. A dollar in a traditional IRA or a 401(k) is generally worth less to you than a dollar in a bank account, because income tax comes out when you withdraw it.¹

What you take out each year. This is your spending, less whatever arrives from somewhere else: Social Security, a pension, rent. If you spend $120,000 a year and Social Security pays $50,000 of it, your savings have to supply $70,000. This is the number you have the most say over.

What you take out each year decides more than what you start with.

What you take out each year decides more than what you start with.

What the savings earn after inflation. Prices rise, so the same life costs more each year. What counts is what your savings earn above inflation. That return is different every year, and no one knows it ahead of time.

How long will my money last at different withdrawal amounts?

The table shows how many years a fixed yearly withdrawal lasts. The withdrawal is a share of the balance you start with, and it stays the same in today's dollars. Each column assumes one return above inflation, the same every year. Those returns are assumptions for the arithmetic. They are not forecasts.²

How many years a yearly withdrawal lasts

3% of the balance

No growth: 33 years
2% above inflation: 53 years
4% above inflation: More than 60 years

4% of the balance

No growth: 25 years
2% above inflation: 34 years
4% above inflation: More than 60 years

5% of the balance

No growth: 20 years
2% above inflation: 25 years
4% above inflation: 37 years

6% of the balance

No growth: 16 years
2% above inflation: 19 years
4% above inflation: 26 years

8% of the balance

No growth: 12 years
2% above inflation: 14 years
4% above inflation: 16 years

The withdrawal is a share of the starting balance, fixed in today's dollars, taken at the start of each year, before income tax. Each column is an assumed yearly return above inflation, the same every year, which no market delivers. Not a prediction of any account's value. Source: note 2.

If you take 4% of your starting balance each year, the money lasts 25 years with no growth above inflation and 34 years at an assumed 2%. If you take 6%, it lasts 16 to 26 years. Two percentage points of spending change the answer by nine years or more.

No real portfolio earns the same return every year. Two retirements with the same average return can end very differently, depending on whether the bad years come early or late. The order of your returns matters more than the average explains why.³

How long will $1 million, $2 million or $3 million last in retirement?

The same arithmetic answers the question for any balance. This table takes $100,000 a year from each one.

How long each balance lasts at $100,000 a year

$1,000,000

No growth: 10 years
2% above inflation: 11 years
4% above inflation: 12 years

$2,000,000

No growth: 20 years
2% above inflation: 25 years
4% above inflation: 37 years

$3,000,000

No growth: 30 years
2% above inflation: 44 years
4% above inflation: More than 60 years

$4,000,000

No growth: 40 years
2% above inflation: More than 60 years
4% above inflation: More than 60 years

$5,000,000

No growth: 50 years
2% above inflation: More than 60 years
4% above inflation: More than 60 years

$100,000 a year in today's dollars, taken at the start of each year, before income tax, with no other income. Each column is an assumed yearly return above inflation, the same every year. Not a prediction of any account's value. Source: note 2.

The balance is only one of the three numbers. At $150,000 a year, $2,000,000 lasts 13 to 18 years and $3,000,000 lasts 20 to 37. If Social Security or a pension pays part of your spending, you withdraw less, and every figure in the table gets longer.

Three of our essays each take one balance and work through the rest of the question: Can you retire at 60 with $2 million?, Can you retire at 60 with $3 million? and Can you retire at 55 with $5 million?.

What is the 4 percent rule?

The 4 percent rule is a guideline from research on past market returns. You withdraw 4% of your savings in the first year of retirement. Each year after that, you take the same dollar amount, raised for inflation. The research asked how large the first withdrawal could be and still last through a 30-year retirement.⁴

Researchers call the result a safe withdrawal rate. The word safe describes how the rate held up in past or simulated markets. It is not a promise about the next thirty years.

The rule is a starting point, and it assumes things that may not be true for you. It assumes a retirement of about 30 years. It assumes you raise your spending with inflation every year and do not cut back in a bad year. It leaves out your taxes, your Social Security and any pension. A recent study that used forward-looking assumptions put the starting rate slightly lower, and found that a shorter retirement supports a higher rate.⁴

Social Security. Every dollar that arrives from Social Security is a dollar you do not withdraw. You can start benefits as early as 62 or as late as 70, and the monthly amount is larger the longer you wait.⁵ If you wait, you withdraw more from savings in the early years and less for the rest of your life. Our Social Security claiming calculator shows the benefit at each age.

Taxes. The tables are before income tax. If most of your savings are in a traditional IRA or a 401(k), each withdrawal is generally taxed, so you have to take out more than you spend.¹ The order you draw from your accounts covers which account to take from first.

Required withdrawals. From age 73 or 75, depending on your birth year, the law requires a withdrawal from your pre-tax accounts every year, whether or not you need the money.¹ A required withdrawal that you do not spend is not lost. After the tax, you can save it again outside the account. Can you avoid taxes on RMDs? shows how much tax it can add.

What changes the answer most?

Your spending. Here is a hypothetical example. Suppose you are 65 with $2,000,000, and you spend $120,000 a year. Social Security will pay $50,000 of that from age 67, in today's dollars. For two years you withdraw $120,000. After that you withdraw $70,000. With no growth above inflation, the savings run short at 92. At an assumed 2% above inflation, $486,338 is left at 95. In that same case, spending about $131,000 a year would leave nothing at 95.² An extra $11,000 a year is the difference between a margin and none.

The early years of returns. A bad stretch in the first years, while you are withdrawing, does more harm than the same stretch later, because you sell more of the portfolio to pay for the same life. In one study's simulations, the plans that ran out of money were far more often the ones with poor returns in the first five years.³

How long you live. The savings have to last as long as you do, and you do not know that number. In the Social Security Administration's life table, about one in four men and one in three women who reach 65 live to 90.⁶ If you are married, the savings have to last for whichever of you lives longer.

The arithmetic can show which of the three numbers your plan leans on most. It cannot tell you what the next thirty years of returns will be. Our Will my money last? calculator runs it with your own balance, spending, other income and assumptions, and shows the year the money runs short, if it does.

What goes wrong when people ask how long their savings will last?

These are the mistakes we see most often.

People know their balance to the dollar and have never added up what they spend in a year.

People take the 4 percent rule as a promise, and apply it to a retirement that will run forty years.

People plan to an average life expectancy, and one of them lives ten years past it.

People keep their spending the same through a bad stretch in the first years, when a small cut would have done the most good.

People forget that withdrawals from a traditional IRA are taxed, and plan to spend the whole amount they take out.

People leave Social Security out of the arithmetic, or count it from the wrong age.

People who could spend more do not, because no one has shown them the arithmetic.

Where we fit in. We integrate tax considerations into your investment strategy and collaborate with estate attorneys and CPAs to ensure your plan is coordinated. We are not a law firm or accounting firm, so we do not provide legal or tax advice. Everything in this material is for educational purposes, based on primary sources. Before taking any action, please consult the appropriate professionals to apply these ideas to your situation.

How long your savings last is a question you answer again every few years, as your spending, the markets and your health change. If you would like to work through your own three numbers with someone, we are glad to have that conversation.

The detailed version

The arithmetic, year by yearFor CPAs and anyone who wants the figures: the formula behind the tables, the tables in full, the example year by year, the life table figures, and the citations.Show

The formula

A withdrawal W is taken at the start of each year from a balance B, and what remains earns a return r above inflation for that year. Everything is in today's dollars.

With r equal to zero, the number of full withdrawals is B ÷ W, rounded down.
With r above zero, the number of full withdrawals is N = −ln(1 − B × r ÷ (W × (1 + r))) ÷ ln(1 + r), rounded down.
When B × r ÷ (W × (1 + r)) is 1 or more, the year's growth covers the withdrawal and the balance does not fall.

Two cells by hand. A 4% withdrawal at 2%: 0.02 ÷ (0.04 × 1.02) = 0.4902, and N = −ln(0.5098) ÷ ln(1.02) = 0.6737 ÷ 0.0198 = 34.0, so 34 years. A 5% withdrawal at 4%: 0.04 ÷ (0.05 × 1.04) = 0.7692, and N = −ln(0.2308) ÷ ln(1.04) = 1.4663 ÷ 0.0392 = 37.4, so 37 years.²

The tables in full

Years a yearly withdrawal lasts, without the 60-year cap

2% of the balance

No growth: 50
2% above inflation: 198
4% above inflation: Does not fall

2.5% of the balance

No growth: 40
2% above inflation: 77
4% above inflation: Does not fall

3% of the balance

No growth: 33
2% above inflation: 53
4% above inflation: Does not fall

3.33% of the balance

No growth: 30
2% above inflation: 44
4% above inflation: Does not fall

4% of the balance

No growth: 25
2% above inflation: 34
4% above inflation: 83

5% of the balance

No growth: 20
2% above inflation: 25
4% above inflation: 37

6% of the balance

No growth: 16
2% above inflation: 19
4% above inflation: 26

7.5% of the balance

No growth: 13
2% above inflation: 15
4% above inflation: 18

8% of the balance

No growth: 12
2% above inflation: 14
4% above inflation: 16

10% of the balance

No growth: 10
2% above inflation: 11
4% above inflation: 12

The same arithmetic as the tables above. "Does not fall" means the assumed growth covers the withdrawal. Hypothetical, for illustration only. Source: note 2.

$100,000 a year is 10% of $1,000,000, 5% of $2,000,000, 3.33% of $3,000,000, 2.5% of $4,000,000 and 2% of $5,000,000. $150,000 a year is 7.5% of $2,000,000 and 5% of $3,000,000.

The example, year by year

Age 65, $2,000,000, spending of $120,000 a year, Social Security of $50,000 a year from 67, all in today's dollars, before income tax. Each year the withdrawal comes out first and the rest earns the assumed return.²

The first years of the example at an assumed 2% above inflation

Balance at the start: $2,000,000
Withdrawal: $120,000
Balance at the end: $1,917,600

Balance at the start: $1,917,600
Withdrawal: $120,000
Balance at the end: $1,833,552

Balance at the start: $1,833,552
Withdrawal: $70,000
Balance at the end: $1,798,823

Balance at the start: $1,798,823
Withdrawal: $70,000
Balance at the end: $1,763,400

Balance at the start: $1,763,400
Withdrawal: $70,000
Balance at the end: $1,727,267

Balance at the start: $1,727,267
Withdrawal: $70,000
Balance at the end: $1,690,413

Figures from the engine behind the site's Will my money last? calculator. Hypothetical, for illustration only. Source: note 2.

With no growth above inflation: $240,000 comes out in the first two years, and the remaining $1,760,000 covers 25 withdrawals of $70,000, through age 91. The savings run short at 92.
At an assumed 2%: $486,338 is left at the end of the year you are 95, and $165,388 at the end of the year you are 100.
At an assumed 4%: $2,096,337 is left at the end of the year you are 95.
The yearly spending that leaves exactly nothing at 95 is $111,290 with no growth, $131,251 at 2% and $153,975 at 4%.

How long people live

The Social Security Administration's period life table for 2023 gives a remaining life expectancy at 65 of 18.12 years for men and 20.66 years for women. Of 79,084 men alive at 65 in the table, 19,063 are alive at 90, which is 24%. Of 87,399 women, 30,504 are alive at 90, which is 35%. At 95 the figures are 6,333 men (8%) and 12,612 women (14%). The table uses the death rates of one year for the whole Social Security population. It is an average, not a figure for any one person.⁶

The sources for the rules

Withdrawals from pre-tax accounts are taxed as income, and required minimum distributions generally begin at 73: the IRS's RMD questions and answers.¹ The starting age is 75 for people born in 1960 or later; see our guide to RMDs.
Social Security retirement benefits can begin as early as 62, and the increase for waiting stops at 70: the Social Security Administration.⁵
The 4 percent guideline's convention of one inflation-adjusted withdrawal for 30 years: Morningstar's description of William Bengen's research.⁴

Sources & notes (6)

Expand

1."Your withdrawals are included in taxable income except for any part that was already taxed (your basis) or that can be received tax-free (such as qualified distributions from designated Roth accounts)." "You generally must start taking withdrawals from your traditional IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, and retirement plan accounts when you reach age 73." IRS, "Retirement plan and IRA required minimum distributions FAQs," https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/retirement-plan-and-ira-required-minimum-distributions-faqs. ↩
2.Figures computed with the engine behind our Will my money last? calculator, /tools/will-my-money-last, with inflation set to zero so that every amount is in today's dollars and the return is the return above inflation. The withdrawal is taken at the start of each year and the remainder earns the assumed return for the year. The arithmetic assumes the same return every year, which no market delivers, and it leaves out income tax, changes in spending, and the cost of care late in life. Hypothetical figures for illustration only; not a prediction of any account's value or of how long any person's savings will last. ↩
3."There was a far higher risk of exhausting retirement savings when returns were poor in the first five years." Morningstar, "The State of Retirement Income: 2025," December 3, 2025, https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/state-retirement-income. ↩
4."we assume that retirees seek a “paycheck equivalent” in retirement and therefore aim to withdraw the same amount, adjusted upward to account for inflation, for 30 years. That is the convention used in William Bengen’s original research" on safe withdrawal rates. "Morningstar’s 2025 research suggests that 3.9% is the highest starting safe withdrawal rate for retirees seeking a consistent level of inflation-adjusted spending from year to year (assuming a 90% probability of having funds remaining at the end of an assumed 30-year retirement period)." That figure is "excluding Social Security or other nonportfolio income sources". "a retiree with a 20-year anticipated time horizon/life expectancy (rather than 30) can reasonably spend more than 5% of a balanced portfolio". Morningstar, "The State of Retirement Income: 2025" (note 3). ↩
5."You can start receiving your Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62." "If you delay taking your benefits from your full retirement age up to age 70, your benefit amount will increase." Social Security Administration, "Retirement Age and Benefit Reduction," https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html. "The benefit increase stops when you reach age 70." Social Security Administration, "Delayed Retirement Credits," https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/delayret.html. ↩
6."Here we present the 2023 period life table for the Social Security area population, as used in the 2026 Trustees Report (TR)." "the period life expectancy at a given age is the average remaining number of years expected prior to death for a person at that exact age". Social Security Administration, "Actuarial Life Table," https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html. The shares are the table's number of lives at 90 and at 95 divided by its number of lives at 65: 19,063 ÷ 79,084 and 6,333 ÷ 79,084 for men; 30,504 ÷ 87,399 and 12,612 ÷ 87,399 for women. ↩

Questions people ask

How long will my money last in retirement?: It depends on three numbers: your savings, what you withdraw each year, and what the savings earn after inflation. A yearly withdrawal of 4% of the starting balance lasts 25 years with no growth above inflation and 34 years at an assumed 2%. These figures are arithmetic, not forecasts.
What is the 4 percent rule?: It is a guideline from research on past market returns. You withdraw 4% of your savings in the first year and the same dollar amount, raised for inflation, each year after, for a retirement of about 30 years. It is a starting point. It does not count your taxes, your other income or a longer retirement.
How long will $1 million last in retirement?: At $100,000 a year, 10 to 12 years at assumed returns of 0% to 4% above inflation. At $50,000 a year, 20 to 37 years. The balance alone does not answer the question. Social Security or a pension lowers what you have to withdraw and lengthens every figure.
How long will $2 million last in retirement?: At $100,000 a year, 20 years with no growth above inflation, 25 years at an assumed 2% and 37 years at an assumed 4%. At $150,000 a year, 13 to 18 years. Income from Social Security or a pension lowers the withdrawal and lengthens every figure.
Is there a calculator for how long my money will last?: Yes. Our Will my money last? calculator takes your balance, your spending, your other income, and the return and inflation you assume. It shows the balance at each age and the year the money runs short, if it does. The result depends on the assumptions you enter.

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How long will your savings last in retirement?

What decides how long your savings will last?

How long will my money last at different withdrawal amounts?

How long will $1 million, $2 million or $3 million last in retirement?

What is the 4 percent rule?

How do Social Security, taxes and required withdrawals change the answer?

What changes the answer most?

What goes wrong when people ask how long their savings will last?

The formula

The tables in full

The example, year by year

How long people live

The sources for the rules

Questions and answers

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