4% rule calculator
The 4% rule (Trinity Study) lets you withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one of retirement and adjust for inflation each year, with ~95% historical success over 30 years.
How to Use the 4% Rule for Retirement Withdrawals
Apply the 4% safe withdrawal rate (Bengen 1994, Trinity Study 1998) to estimate sustainable annual income from a retirement portfolio.
- Step 1Enter your portfolio value
Total of all retirement-account assets (401(k), Roth IRA, taxable brokerage). Exclude home equity, cars, and an emergency cash buffer.
- Step 2Apply the 4% rate to find year-1 income
A $1,000,000 portfolio supports a $40,000 inflation-adjusted annual withdrawal — survives 95%+ of 30-year historical periods per the Trinity Study.
- Step 3Adjust the rate for your retirement length
Use 4.0% for 30-year retirement, 3.5% for 40-year, 3.25% for 50-year (early FIRE). Longer horizons need lower withdrawal rates due to sequence-of-returns risk.
- Step 4Increase the dollar amount each year by inflation
Year 2 withdrawal = year-1 amount × (1 + inflation). 3% inflation: $40K → $41.2K. This preserves purchasing power across decades.
- Step 5Stress-test with lower returns
Run a scenario with 5% real return instead of 7% to see if the portfolio survives a bad-sequence decade (1970s, 2000s). If yes, the plan is robust to most futures.
The 4% rule, in plain English
Year 1: withdraw 4% of your starting portfolio. Year 2: that same dollar amount, adjusted up for inflation. Repeat annually. Historical backtests (Bengen 1994, Trinity Study 1998) found this works for 30-year retirements with ~95% success on a 50/50 to 75/25 stock/bond portfolio.
On a $1.5M portfolio: year 1 withdrawal = $60,000. Year 2 with 3% inflation = $61,800. Year 3 = $63,654. Continue.
Annual withdrawal by portfolio size
| Portfolio | 3% (very safe) | 3.5% (FIRE-safe) | 4% (standard) | 5% (aggressive) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $500k | $15k | $17.5k | $20k | $25k |
| $1.0M | $30k | $35k | $40k | $50k |
| $1.5M | $45k | $52.5k | $60k | $75k |
| $2.0M | $60k | $70k | $80k | $100k |
| $3.0M | $90k | $105k | $120k | $150k |
When 4% fails
- Sequence-of-returns risk: bad early years deplete the portfolio before recovery
- 40+ year retirements: 95% success drops to 85% over 50 years — use 3.25–3.5% for early retirement
- Heavily bond-tilted portfolios: too little equity to outpace inflation long-term
- Inflexible spending: can't cut back in bad market years
4% Rule Calculator FAQ
Where does the 4% rule come from?
Is the 4% rule still valid in 2026?
What's the difference between 4% rule and 25× rule?
Should I really use 4% for a 50-year retirement?
Does the 4% include taxes?
What if I can spend flexibly in bad years?
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Methodology, sources, and editorial standards
The 4% rule calculator on this page uses the same closed-form math published by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's consumer-investor portal at Investor.gov and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Every number you see is generated client-side in your browser — no data is sent to our servers, no account is required, and no personally identifiable information is stored or shared. The calculation assumes constant rates and contributions over the modeled period; real-world returns, fees, and tax treatment vary year to year, and the figures presented are educational projections, not personalized financial advice.
We cite primary data sources directly within the FAQs and snapshot block above. Historical return assumptions are drawn from NYU Stern's historical returns database (Aswath Damodaran) and Robert Shiller's S&P 500 dataset. Inflation comparisons rely on the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI series. Mortgage and credit-card market data come from Freddie Mac's PMMS and the Federal Reserve's G.19 release, respectively. Where we publish our own multi-scenario research, the dataset is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license at snowballr.io/data.
Snowballr is an independent, ad-supported publication. We do not sell financial products, accept affiliate commissions on bank, brokerage, or loan products, or take payment for editorial placement. Our editorial standards describe how we source, fact-check, and update every calculator and guide. The full master sources index lists every primary reference used across the site, organized by topic. For corrections, updates, or fact-checking inquiries, contact us via the contact page; we typically respond within 24–48 hours.
Important disclaimer: This calculator is provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, tax, accounting, legal, or financial-planning advice and should not be used as the sole basis for any decision about your money. Compound projections, debt-payoff schedules, and retirement estimates depend on assumptions that will change in real life — investment returns are not guaranteed, market downturns can extend recovery timelines, fees and taxes reduce realized growth, and inflation erodes the real purchasing power of nominal balances. Before making a financial decision based on any number you calculate here, consult a fiduciary financial advisor, a licensed tax professional, or both, as appropriate to your situation. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Who uses this calculator
The 4% rule calculator is used by three distinct audiences, each for a different question. New investors and savers use it to answer the foundational "what could this become?" question — they enter conservative monthly amounts and realistic return assumptions to see whether building meaningful wealth on a normal salary is actually possible. The answer, for almost every income level, is yes; the math just requires patience and consistency that intuition resists. Mid-career professionals use the same tool to stress-test their retirement plan against catch-up contributions, late-career raises, and the trade-off between paying down debt and investing in tax-advantaged accounts.
Pre-retirees and recent retirees use the calculator to validate withdrawal sustainability and to model what happens if a market downturn coincides with the start of retirement. Educators, financial coaches, and personal-finance bloggers use Snowballr's calculators in their teaching because every input is visible, every formula is documented, and the year-by-year breakdown lets learners see exactly where compounding pulls ahead of contributions. We support that use case explicitly under our Creative Commons license — you can embed any calculator on your own site using the snippet generator at /widgets and cite Snowballr per the citation guide.
Common assumptions and how to interpret the numbers
The output is only as accurate as the inputs and the assumptions that bridge them to real life. Three categories of assumption deserve the most scrutiny. Returns are nominal unless explicitly labeled real (inflation-adjusted); a seven-percent nominal return is closer to four-percent real, which materially changes long-horizon projections. Inflation itself averaged just under three percent in the U.S. from 1928 through 2024 but ran above five percent in roughly fifteen of those years and below zero in three. Average expense ratios for index funds dropped from roughly one-and-a-half percent in 2000 to under a tenth of a percent today, but actively managed mutual funds still average about half a percent — which translates to a quarter of the final balance lost to fees over a thirty-year horizon at typical contribution rates.
Taxes affect both contributions and withdrawals in ways the headline number does not show. Pre-tax contributions in a traditional 401(k) or IRA receive a deduction today but trigger ordinary income tax on withdrawal. Roth contributions are post-tax today but grow and withdraw tax-free. Taxable brokerage accounts pay tax annually on dividends and at sale on capital gains. If you are comparing projected balances across account types, equalize by reducing pre-tax balances by your expected retirement tax rate and adding back the dividend drag on the taxable account; otherwise the comparison is misleading. Our 401(k) vs Roth IRA comparison walks through this explicitly with worked examples at three tax-bracket scenarios.
For inputs you are uncertain about, run the calculator twice with a high and a low value to see how sensitive the answer is to your assumption. If a two-percent rate change moves the final balance by less than ten percent, the assumption is not very load-bearing. If it moves the balance by forty percent or more, that input dominates the model and deserves the most careful estimation. The single highest-leverage input in almost every compound-interest scenario is time — every additional year compounds geometrically — followed by rate, then contribution, then starting principal in roughly that order.