How the calculation works
The calculator goes through your plan one month at a time. In a month with a payment, the payment comes out first, capped at whatever is left, so it can never take more than there is. Any one-off expense for that month comes out next. Then what’s left grows by one month of the expected return, which is the yearly rate divided by 12. If you choose the end of the month, the growth comes first and the payment after. With a yearly raise, every payment in the second year is that much bigger than in the first, and so on.
It always runs for exactly the number of years you ask for, whether the money lasts the whole time or runs out partway through. Real returns go up and down from month to month; the calculator assumes the same return every month, which is why it also shows what happens if returns are 2% lower or higher.
A worked example
Take ₹10,00,000, with ₹10,000 taken out at the start of every month and an expected return of 8% a year. Each month the money grows by 8% ÷ 12 = 0.667%.
- Month 1: ₹10,000 comes out, leaving ₹9,90,000. That grows by ₹6,600, to ₹9,96,600.
- Month 2: ₹10,000 comes out, leaving ₹9,86,600. That grows by ₹6,577, to ₹9,93,177.
- The same happens every month after that.
| After | Balance |
|---|---|
| 1 year | ₹9,57,670 |
| 5 years | ₹7,50,179 |
| 10 years | ₹3,77,983 |
Over the 10 years you receive ₹12,00,000, more than the ₹10,00,000 you started with, because the money earned ₹5,77,983 while it stayed invested. ₹10,000 a month is 12% of the starting amount each year, more than the 8% it earns, so the balance shrinks. It falls slowly at first and faster later: each month there is a little less left to grow, so growth covers less of each withdrawal. Enter these numbers in the calculator above and you'll get the same result.
Why the withdrawal rate matters more than the amount
Two very different amounts of savings behave the same way if the withdrawal is scaled to match. What decides whether the money lasts is how fast you take it out compared with how fast it grows. Take out less than it earns and the balance can grow for ever; take out more and it shrinks, slowly at first and then faster, because each month there’s a little less left to earn a return.
That’s the idea behind the “safe withdrawal rate” used in retirement planning. A commonly cited starting point is taking out about 4% of your savings in the first year, for money that has to last 25 to 30 years. The tips under the answer show your own rate so you can see where you stand.
How SWP withdrawals are taxed in India
These are the rules for FY 2026–27, for withdrawals from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, last checked on 6 October 2026. Tax rules can change in each year’s Union Budget, so for your own return check the Income Tax Department or ask a tax adviser. The amounts in this calculator are before tax.
An SWP doesn’t pay you interest. Each withdrawal sells some of your fund units, so tax is due only on the gain inside it: the part above what you paid for those units. The part that is your own money coming back isn’t taxed. Units count as sold oldest first, so in the early years most of each withdrawal is your own money and the taxable gain is small. It grows over time, because the units being sold have had longer to grow.
| Fund | Held for | Tax on the gain |
|---|---|---|
| Equity funds (65% or more in Indian shares) | 12 months or less | 20% |
| Equity funds | More than 12 months | 12.5%, but the first ₹1.25 lakh of these gains each year is tax-free |
| Debt funds (more than 65% in debt), units bought from 1 April 2023 | Any length of time | Added to your income and taxed at your slab rate |
| Debt fund units bought before 1 April 2023 | More than 24 months | 12.5% |
| Debt fund units bought before 1 April 2023 | 24 months or less | Your slab rate |
| Other funds: hybrid funds with 35–65% in shares, gold, international, funds of funds | More than 24 months (12 months if listed on a stock exchange) | 12.5% |
| Other funds | Shorter than that | Your slab rate |
A 4% health and education cess, and any surcharge, is added to these rates. The ₹1.25 lakh tax-free amount covers all your long-term equity gains in the year together, not each fund separately.
For residents, the fund house doesn’t take tax out of your withdrawals: you pay it when you file your return, or through advance tax. For NRIs, the fund house deducts tax from each withdrawal.
This is why an SWP from an equity fund is often lighter on tax than a fixed deposit or a fund’s dividend option. Interest from an FD and dividends from a fund are taxed in full at your slab rate. With an SWP, only the gain part of each withdrawal is taxed, at 12.5% once the units are over a year old, and the first ₹1.25 lakh of those gains each year is tax-free.
Reading the results
The coloured box at the top gives the answer in one sentence: green if the money lasts and keeps growing, amber if it lasts but shrinks, and red if it runs out early. The bar under it is your whole plan, filled as far as the money goes, with a diamond for each one-off expense.
The chart shows the balance month by month. The shaded band around it is the same plan with returns 2% lower and 2% higher, so you can see how much depends on the markets. In the year-by-year table, each row adds up a year’s payments, expenses and growth and shows the balance at the end of that year. Years count from your first withdrawal by default; you can switch to calendar years (January to December) or, in rupees, India’s financial years (April to March), where the first and last rows can be shorter than 12 months. The CSV download has every month, for a spreadsheet.