Is $1 million enough to retire at 65?

At $40,000 a year drawn from savings, this calculator gives it about 61% odds of lasting to age 100. At $35,000 a year it gives about 81%. With Social Security on top, both describe a comfortable but not lavish retirement.

Is $1 million enough to retire at 55?

Much harder. Ten more years of withdrawals and ten fewer years of growth is the single largest change you can make to a plan. Lower the current age in the calculator and watch how far the odds fall before you decide.

A guideline from 1990s research: withdraw 4% of your starting portfolio in the first year, adjust that amount for inflation each year after, and a 30-year retirement usually survived historically. It is an average of the past, not a guarantee, and it was not designed for retirements longer than 30 years.

How long will $1 million last?

It depends entirely on the withdrawal rate. At $40,000 a year the median simulated path here still has money at 100; it is the unluckier quarter of paths that runs dry earlier. That spread is exactly what the shaded band on the chart shows.

Watercolor painting of a small fishing boat moored at a stone harbor pier in golden evening light, hills behind

Retirement guide

Can I retire with $1 million?

A million dollars is the number people picture when they picture retirement. This page takes the standard answer — the 4% rule — and checks it honestly.

The 4% rule, and where it came from

The rule says you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in the first year of retirement, raise that amount with inflation each year afterwards, and be reasonably safe. On $1 million that is $40,000. It comes from work by the financial planner William Bengen in the early 1990s and the Trinity study that followed, both of which tested withdrawal rates against historical U.S. market returns over 30-year retirements.

Thirty years is the detail that gets lost. The rule was never a law of nature; it was a summary of how a stock-and-bond portfolio held up across the particular windows of history those researchers could measure. It is a good starting point and a bad stopping point.

Retirement outlook

You could retire at 69.

Retired today, your money lasts to 100 in 61% of market scenarios — typically with about $142.7K to spare.

Today

Current assets

Saved per year

Current age

Retirement

Retirement age

Spending per year

Markets

Return while saving

Return in retirement

Projected net worth to 100, in today’s dollars

Today’s dollarsat% inflation

SavingRetiredMiddle 50% of outcomes

$250K

$500K

$750K

$1M

$1.3M

708090100

What happens when you check it here

The plan on this page is a 65-year-old with $1 million, no further saving, and $40,000 a year drawn from the portfolio. Across 1,000 simulated market histories it lasts to 100 in about 61% of runs. That is lower than the 4% rule implies, for two honest reasons.

First, this calculator funds you to 100, which is 35 years rather than 30 — five more years of withdrawals right at the end, when the balance is thinnest. Second, it assumes a 6% expected return in retirement rather than a heavier stock allocation, and it ties the size of the year-to-year swings to that return. The fix is smaller than you would guess: drop the draw to $35,000, a 3.5% rate, and the odds rise to about 81%. Half a percentage point of withdrawal is worth twenty points of confidence, and $35,000 is in fact the most this portfolio can support while still clearing the bar.

If your age or your balance differs from this page's, the site publishes a computed answer page for each combination of the two, worked out by the same engine and the same assumptions. This page is the argument; those pages are the arithmetic.

The parts of a million-dollar retirement this model ignores

Taxes come first. A million dollars in a traditional 401(k) is not a million dollars of spending money, and required minimum distributions eventually force withdrawals whether you want them or not. Social Security comes second, cutting the other way: the spending figure here is what you pull from savings on top of your benefit, so a household with $1 million and an average benefit is really spending around $60,000 a year in this plan, not $40,000.

The model also holds spending flat, ignores pensions and home equity, and knows nothing about your health. Use it to compare withdrawal rates and start dates against each other — that comparison stays reliable even where the absolute numbers are rough. None of it is financial advice.

Questions people ask

Is $1 million enough to retire at 65?: At $40,000 a year drawn from savings, this calculator gives it about 61% odds of lasting to age 100. At $35,000 a year it gives about 81%. With Social Security on top, both describe a comfortable but not lavish retirement.
Is $1 million enough to retire at 55?: Much harder. Ten more years of withdrawals and ten fewer years of growth is the single largest change you can make to a plan. Lower the current age in the calculator and watch how far the odds fall before you decide.
What is the 4% rule?: A guideline from 1990s research: withdraw 4% of your starting portfolio in the first year, adjust that amount for inflation each year after, and a 30-year retirement usually survived historically. It is an average of the past, not a guarantee, and it was not designed for retirements longer than 30 years.
How long will $1 million last?: It depends entirely on the withdrawal rate. At $40,000 a year the median simulated path here still has money at 100; it is the unluckier quarter of paths that runs dry earlier. That spread is exactly what the shaded band on the chart shows.

Keep exploring

The assumptions behind these numbers

Every figure comes from 1,000 simulated market paths assuming a 6% average yearly return in retirement (10% while still saving) with year-to-year swings scaled to those returns, and 3% inflation — so every dollar reads as today’s dollars, and “works” means the money lasts to age 100 in at least 80% of paths.

Social Security, pensions, and taxes aren’t modeled. If you expect income from those, your real answer is better than the one on this page. For exploring, not financial advice.