SWP calculator with inflation: how long will your money last?

An SWP calculator shows what happens when you withdraw a fixed or rising monthly amount from an invested corpus. You enter the corpus, the monthly withdrawal, the expected return and how the withdrawal changes each year. It shows how long the money lasts, the balance year by year, what is left at the end and, here, the highest withdrawal that lasts your chosen number of years.

It depends on the withdrawal, the return and whether the withdrawal rises. With this calculator's defaults, ₹1 crore earning 9% a year and paying ₹50,000 a month that rises 6% a year with inflation lasts about 23 years. Keep the ₹50,000 flat and it lasts beyond 30 years, but it buys far less each year. To last 30 years with inflation-linked withdrawals, start near ₹42,000 a month.

If the SWP pays your living costs, yes. Prices in India have historically risen several percent a year, so a flat ₹50,000 buys much less after 15 or 20 years. Raising the withdrawal with inflation keeps your lifestyle steady but drains the corpus faster. Compare both settings here: the gap between them shows how much buying power a flat SWP quietly gives up.

There is no single safe rate. It depends on how long the money must last, your returns, inflation and how markets behave early on. For long retirements with inflation-linked withdrawals, many Indian planners use about 3% to 3.5% of the corpus in the first year rather than the US 4% rule. Use the sustainable-withdrawal figure here and test it in the Monte Carlo simulator.

Each SWP payment sells fund units, the earliest bought first, and only the gain in those units is taxed, not the whole payment. In equity funds, gains on units held up to 12 months are taxed at 20%, and on longer-held units at 12.5% on long-term gains above ₹1.25 lakh a year (sections 196 and 198 of the Income-tax Act, 2025). Gains on debt funds bought from April 2023 are taxed at your slab rate. Rules change with each Budget, so check before relying on this.

They suit different needs. FD interest is fixed and predictable, but it is fully taxable at your slab rate and does not rise with inflation unless you reinvest part of it. An SWP from a mutual fund can grow and is taxed only on gains, but its value moves with markets. Many retirees combine both. Our SWP vs FD guide compares them with worked numbers.

A fall early in an SWP hurts most, because you keep selling units at low prices and those units are not there when markets recover. This is called sequence-of-returns risk. This calculator uses one steady return, so it cannot show that effect. Keep a cash or debt buffer for a few years of withdrawals and test your plan in the FIRE Monte Carlo simulator.