SWP Calculator
A systematic withdrawal plan pays you a fixed sum each month while the rest stays invested. This calculator shows how many years the corpus survives at the withdrawal you choose, and what that monthly amount will actually be worth once inflation has had its way with it.
₹1,50,00,000 withdrawn in total, less ₹8,06,147 of capital gains tax across 26 financial years.
The corpus survives the full 25 years — but the last withdrawal buys only about ₹11,650 of today’s goods.
Worth knowing
Is the return really 10% a year?
We grow the money by 10 ÷ 12 each month, the standard monthly compounding convention. Compounded that way, 10% works out to an effective 10.47% a year.
Is the withdrawal amount what I actually receive?
Not quite. Each withdrawal is a partial redemption, so the gain in it is taxed. Across this plan that comes to ₹8,06,147, leaving about ₹1,41,93,853 of the ₹1,50,00,000 withdrawn.
Does the tax stay the same throughout?
No — it grows. The first twelve withdrawals are short-term, taxed at 20% with no exemption, yet they cost only ₹5,307 in total, because the corpus has barely grown and there is almost no gain in them to tax. Later withdrawals get the lower 12.5% rate and a yearly exemption and still cost more, because by then most of each withdrawal is gain rather than your original money.
Will ₹50,000 still be enough later?
At 6% inflation, the same ₹50,000 buys about ₹11,650 of today's goods by year 25. A fixed withdrawal shrinks in real terms every single month.
What is this assuming about my corpus?
That today's value is your cost — so only growth from here is taxed. If the corpus already carries a large unrealised gain, your actual tax will be higher than this shows.
Understanding this calculator
A withdrawal plan reverses everything the accumulation calculators do, and it introduces one risk that accumulation does not have: the order in which returns arrive now decides the outcome.
Why the sequence matters when you are withdrawing
While you are investing, a fall early on is helpful — your instalments buy more units cheaply. While you are withdrawing, a fall early on is the single most damaging thing that can happen.
The reason is that you are selling units to fund each withdrawal. In a falling market you must sell more units to produce the same rupees, so the corpus shrinks faster and has less left to recover with. Two retirements with identical average returns can end very differently depending purely on which years were the bad ones.
This calculator grows the corpus at a steady rate, which cannot show that. The number of years it reports is therefore a central estimate, not a floor — and the realistic range around it is wider on the downside than the upside.
Reading the survival figure honestly
Then do the same with the return assumption, three points lower. If the plan only survives at the optimistic figure, the withdrawal is too high for the corpus rather than the corpus being too small for the plan.
Inflation is the part people leave out
A fixed monthly withdrawal buys less every year. Holding it constant for twenty years means accepting a steadily falling standard of living; raising it with inflation drains the corpus considerably faster than a flat withdrawal does.
Which is why the figure restated in today's money matters more here than on any other calculator on this site. A withdrawal that looks comfortable in year one and buys half as much by year twelve has not solved the problem it was set up for.
Every withdrawal is a sale, and it is taxed
An SWP is not an income stream in the way a pension or deposit interest is. Each monthly payout is a redemption of units, so each one realises a capital gain or loss.
Units are sold oldest-first, which works in your favour — the units leaving are the ones most likely to have been held beyond twelve months and therefore taxed at 12.5% rather than 20%. And only the GAIN portion is taxed, not the whole withdrawal, because part of every payout is your own capital coming back.
The mechanics are the same as any equity redemption; how a SIP is taxed covers the lot accounting, and tax on shares and equity funds covers the rates and the exemption.
Related calculators
Tax rules applied as of 2026-Q2, last verified against official sources on 2026-08-23. This calculator does arithmetic on the figures you enter — it is not investment advice, not a recommendation, and not a forecast. All calculators