When can I retire?

How it works

The calculator runs your money forward a year at a time, in today’s money. Until you stop work, your pensions and your ISAs and savings grow, and what you pay in each month is added. From the age you retire, a year’s spending comes out at the start of each year and what’s left keeps growing.

It tries every retirement age from 40 (or your age now, if later) up to 75, and gives you the earliest one at which your money still lasts to the age you plan to.

Growth is above inflation: 2.6% a year for a cautious mix (about 30% in shares), 3.9% for balanced (about 60%) and 5.1% for adventurous (about 90%). These are the full planner’s long-run assumptions, not a forecast.

Spending comes from ISAs and savings until pensions can be drawn, then from pensions — a quarter tax-free, the rest taxed as income alongside the State Pension — and then from whatever savings are left.

The UK rules it uses

• Pensions can normally be drawn from 55, rising to 57 from April 2028.
• A quarter of each pension withdrawal is tax-free, up to £268,275 over your lifetime (the lump sum allowance).
• The full new State Pension is £241.30 a week in 2026/27 — £12,548 a year. You need 35 qualifying years of National Insurance for the full amount, and at least 10 to get any.
• State Pension age: the calculator uses 66 if you were born before 1960, 67 if born from 1960 to 1977, and 68 from 1978 — close to the timetable in law.
• Income tax on pension income at 2026/27 rates: nothing on the first £12,570, 20% to £50,270, 40% to £125,140 and 45% above. There’s no National Insurance on pension income.

A worked example

Say you’re 40, with £100,000 in pensions and £25,000 in ISAs. You pay £600 a month into pensions (with tax relief and your employer’s share) and £250 a month into an ISA. You’d like to spend £25,000 a year, planning to 95, with a balanced mix.

The calculator finds you could retire at 55. By then you’d have about £321,000 in pensions and £104,000 in ISAs and savings. The first two years come from your ISAs, until pensions open at 57, and the full State Pension adds £12,548 a year from 68.

Questions people ask

Can I retire before I can take my pension?

Yes, if you have enough in ISAs or other savings to cover the gap. The calculator spends those first, until pensions can be drawn at 55 (57 from April 2028).

Does it include a final-salary pension?

Not here: it’s for pension pots, ISAs and savings. A defined benefit (final-salary) pension pays a set income instead, and the full plan includes it.

What if I won’t get the full State Pension?

Switch it off to see the answer without it. You can check your own forecast at gov.uk/check-state-pension, and the full plan can use a part State Pension.

Is the answer guaranteed?

No. It assumes the same growth every year, and real markets rise and fall — a bad run early in retirement can matter a lot. The full plan tests your plan against thousands of possible markets.