Retirement Planning
Calculate the corpus figure and monthly savings needed based on your retirement assumptions. Includes inflation and return inputs.
Retirement planning centres on one question: how large do your savings need to be? This calculator works backwards from your inputs - retirement age, lifestyle estimate, inflation assumption - and shows you the corpus figure and monthly savings the model produces. Interpret the output and decide what it means for you.
Plan to age 85–90 to be safe. Corpus lasts until this age.
India's long-run CPI average is ~6%. Use 5–7%.
All-in household expenses today.
Typical range: 70–90% of pre-retirement expenses. No EMIs / children's education during retirement.
NPS annuity, employer pension, rental income, or any guaranteed monthly receipt in retirement (in today's ₹).
Expected annual return on your retirement savings portfolio (EPF, equity MF, NPS, etc.).
Expected return on the corpus once deployed conservatively in retirement (debt + balanced funds, annuities).
Enter your current corpus earmarked specifically for retirement.
Including EPF contribution (employee + employer), PPF, NPS, SIPs, etc.
Expected annualised return on your ongoing contributions (e.g. equity MF: 12%, mixed: 10%).
Fill in your age, expenses, savings, and return assumptions - then click Calculate to see if you're on track for retirement.
Inflation doubles your expenses roughly every 12 years at 6%. So ₹75,000/month today could be ₹2.7L/month in 25 years. The corpus must be large enough to fund 25–30 years of these inflation-growing expenses.
A globally popular heuristic: withdraw 4% of corpus per year. That implies a corpus of 25× annual expenses. In India, with higher inflation and lower safe withdrawal rates, many experts suggest using 3–3.5% (corpus = 28–33× annual expenses) for safety.
Getting a negative return in early retirement is far more damaging than in mid-retirement - you sell units at low prices to meet expenses. This is why the post-retirement return assumption should be conservative and why a debt/annuity buffer matters.
Add up: Employee EPF (12% of basic), Employer EPF, PPF contributions, NPS contributions, and any SIPs specifically for retirement. Don't include emergency fund or children's education investments as those have separate goals.
This calculator uses deterministic projections assuming constant returns and inflation. Actual markets fluctuate. This is for planning and orientation only - not a guarantee. Revisit your plan every 2-3 years or with a major life event.
You need: current monthly expenses, expected inflation (typically 6-7% for India), years to retirement, retirement duration (25-30 years), and expected post-retirement returns. The corpus must be large enough that - withdrawing inflation-growing expenses each year - it lasts the full retirement period. Use the calculator above to compute this automatically for your numbers.
A common rule is 25-33x your annual expenses at retirement. For example, if your current monthly expenses are ₹75,000 and you retire in 20 years, your retirement-day monthly need (at 6% inflation) could be around ₹2.4 lakh - requiring a corpus of roughly ₹7-9 crore. The exact figure depends on your lifestyle inflation, expected returns, and retirement duration.
The US-origin 4% rule implies a 25x corpus. In India, most planners recommend a more conservative 3-3.5% withdrawal rate due to higher inflation (6-7%) and longer retirement horizons. This means targeting a corpus of 28-33x annual retirement expenses to have a meaningful safety buffer against market downturns and inflation surprises.
FD yields of 6.5-7.5% sound reasonable, but after 30% income tax, the post-tax return can fall to 4.5-5.25% - barely above or below India's 6-7% long-run inflation. Over a 20-30 year retirement, purchasing power erodes significantly. Retirement planning works best with inflation-beating growth assets (equity MFs, NPS) during accumulation, shifting toward stable income instruments closer to retirement.