Retirement Age Calculator
The Retirement Age Calculator makes it straight forward for you to answer the most fundamental retirement question, "At what age can I retire?". The calculator only needs answers to a few questions. More below
Information
Other Retirement Calculators
- Retirement Calculator — Does it all. Better on desktops or larger screens.
- Retirement Income Calculator
- Retirement Savings Calculator
Calculator Details
The calculator has 11 inputs, 6 of them are required:
- Your Current age
- Annual contribution toward retirement
- and/or Current retirement savings
- ROI for retirement savings
- Retirement lasts how many years
- Desired retirement income
- ROI during retirement
There are 5 optional inputs. Any or all can be left at 0.
- Annual contribution increase
- Current retirement savings
- Income from government
- Other annual income
- Annual inflation rate
Click on the [Help] button for more details about each input.
If "For retirement income, withdraw only interest" is checked, you'll not be able to enter a value for "Retirement lasts how many years" since withdrawing only the interest means the principal will remain untouched. Theoretically, the income will last in perpetuity. An exception to this will be if you enter a value for "Annual inflation rate", then only the first withdrawal will equal the interest earned for the year. Subsequent withdrawals will be more than the interest earned to compensate for inflation.
Hopefully this retirement age calculator gives you insights into your retirement options. If the calculated age is older than you would like, you basically have four options available to reduce the age:
- Increase the annual contribution
- Achieve a higher rate of return on your retirement savings
- Achieve a higher rate of return during retirement
- Reduce your desired retirement income
Help with Retirement Age Calculator
Though many, if not all, of the inputs will be self-explanatory at a basic level, it is suggested that you review the below information. There are various details that are important to understand.
Your current age — or the age you plan to start saving/investing.
Current retirement savings — if you have already started saving, enter the total amount in your retirement account.
Annual contribution toward retirement — enter the amount you plan to save for your retirement fund. Generally speaking, the older you are, the higher the amount will have to be for you to reach your retirement income goal.
Annual contribution increase — assumes your annual contribution will go up over the years. Enter the annual average increase that you expect (as a percentage). If you want to allow for inflation, then enter an amount LESS than your assumed average annual inflation rate. For example, if you expect to contribute 3% more each year and you expect inflation to average 2% a year, then enter 1% since 2% is going to be eaten up by the impact of inflation.
ROI for retirement savings — (return on investment) your expected, annualized average return on your investments. If you were to put your money in a standard saving account (not necessarily a good idea), then this would be the annual interest rate paid on the account.
Income from gov't — if you expect social security income or a government pension enter the annual amount. This amount plus any income from other sources will be deducted from "annual income required" to calculate the amount of income retirement your savings will have to generate.
Other annual income — if you expect income from other sources besides your retirement saving and government social security or pensions enter the annual amount. For example, if you expect a pension from an employer, enter the annual pension amount. This amount and social security will be deducted from "annual income required" to calculate the amount of income your retirement fund will have to support.
Retirement lasts how many years — Your retirement age will be calculated based on the number of year you plan to fund your retirement from investments. At first, this may seem counter intuitive, but the longer you expect to be retired, the later will be your retirement age. The reason for this is due to the need to let your investments grow to fund the longer retirement.
Desired retirement income — what is the total annual income you expect to need on the day you retire including the income from other sources. The calculation for retirement age will be based on the time it takes your investments to fund your desired income less the income from government and other sources.
ROI during retirement — your rate of return on your investments after you retire. You could use the same percentage as you use for "ROI for retirement savings" however, normally after one retires they invest their money in assets that are more conservative and that generates a lower rate of return.
Annual inflation rate — if you want to increase your retirement income, then enter an estimated inflation rate. Your income will increase by this amount.
B.W. says:
Excellent calculator….validates my Excel spreadsheet that I created to show basically the same thing. But yours is much faster, easier to input values, and shows a chart that is easy to understand and teach others.
Nice work.
Karl says:
Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to let me know.
Speaking of inputting values, I just released an update this morning to this retirement calculator that lets the user save a custom URL. They can use the URL to preload the calculator with their values the next time they try it. Nothing to enter to get started. Just edit the values that have changed. (It too will solve for retirement age.)
Nathaniel says:
Hi Karl,
Great website and calculators! Question: Do you have the WordPress plugin available for your Retirement Age Calculator? The one I installed on our commercial website is shortcode: [fcretireageplugin] however, it is not the same as shown above (https://accuratecalculators.com/retirement-age-calculator).
Thanks in advance!
Karl says:
Hi Nathaniel, thanks. I appreciate the compliment. I have only the one retirement age plugin at this time. And before you ask :-), there are no immediate plans for an update either. The website itself is taking all my time.
Nathaniel says:
Thank you for the quick response. Any chance you would have a version of code we could embed onto our website and newsletter?
Thanks in advance.
Karl says:
Nothing off the shelf. If you have a budget for development and licensing, I can support a request for a version of the calculator for your website. If you want to pursue that, you can reach me via the contract link at the bottom of any of these web pages.