Your FIRE Number Calculator

The FIRE number is your annual spending divided by the withdrawal rate you consider sustainable. At 4% that means twenty-five times a year of expenses — a figure that is easy to compute and very easy to compute on the wrong expenses.

Projected annual spending($)Include taxes, insurance and healthcare — everything that continues after work stops.Safe withdrawal rate(%)3.5% or lower for longer time horizons.

Portfolio needed for financial independence

$1,000,000.00

Monthly withdrawal supported: $3,333.33
Multiple of annual spending: 25

Values update as you type. This calculator covers the single scenario its formula assumes — see Common Mistakes for what it leaves out.

The formula this calculator uses

FIRE Number = Annual Spending / Safe Withdrawal Rate

FIRE Number: Portfolio value that makes work optional
S: Annual spending, including anything that continues in retirement
WR: Safe withdrawal rate as a decimal — 4% becomes 0.04
25x: The reciprocal of the rate: 1 / 0.04 = 25

How to check the result by hand

1
Build a projected retirement budget, not today's
Remove mortgage and work costs that end; add healthcare, travel, and the amortised replacement cost of anything that wears out. This number, not your current spend, is the numerator.
2
Add taxes on top of what you will spend
Pre-tax withdrawals are ordinary income and taxable accounts realise gains. If you need $40,000 net and expect to owe about $6,000, the numerator is $46,000 — which raises the target by $150,000 at a 4% rate.
3
Choose a withdrawal rate and compute its multiple
Divide one by the rate. Four percent gives 25, three and a half gives 28.57, three gives 33.33. Longer time horizons and heavier equity allocations pull people toward the lower rates.
4
Divide — then stress-test it
$46,000 / 0.04 = $1,150,000. Rerun at 3.5% and at higher spending before believing any single figure; the spread between scenarios is the real information.
5
Estimate the timeline from your savings rate
With a 25x target and a 5% real return, a 30% savings rate needs 27.98 years and a 50% rate needs 16.62. The savings rate dominates every other variable you might optimise.

For worked examples, common mistakes and the limits of this formula, read the full How To Calculate Your FIRE Number page.