Finance
SWP Calculator
See how long a corpus lasts when you withdraw a fixed amount every month — with the balance still growing. Free, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
Withdrawal plan
Use a conservative figure — withdrawing during a market fall depletes a corpus faster.
Breakdown
- Total withdrawn
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- Balance at end
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Enter a corpus, monthly withdrawal, and horizon on the left. The total withdrawn and ending balance update here as you type.
What this is and why it matters
A Systematic Withdrawal Plan, or SWP, is a facility offered by mutual funds where you redeem a fixed rupee amount from your investment at a regular interval — usually monthly — while the rest of your money stays invested and continues to earn returns. It is the natural counterpart to a SIP: during your working years a SIP builds a corpus through monthly contributions, and in retirement an SWP draws that corpus down through monthly withdrawals. Retirees and anyone wanting a predictable cash flow from their savings use an SWP to turn a lump sum into a monthly “paycheck” without redeeming everything at once and losing future growth.
An SWP calculator matters because the interaction between withdrawals and growth is genuinely unintuitive. Whether a corpus lasts five years or fifty depends on the balance between how fast you withdraw and how fast the remaining money grows. If your annual withdrawal is smaller than the annual return, the corpus can sustain withdrawals almost indefinitely, and may even keep growing. If your withdrawal outpaces the return, the balance shrinks each year and eventually hits zero — and the calculator tells you exactly when. Seeing that crossover point in months lets you set a sustainable withdrawal rather than discovering too late that the money ran out.
It also helps with the reverse question: given a corpus and a horizon you want it to last, how large a monthly withdrawal is safe? By adjusting the withdrawal until the corpus survives the full period with a comfortable buffer, you can plan an income that does not exhaust your savings prematurely. Because the tool separates the total amount withdrawn from the balance remaining, you can see both how much income the plan delivers and how much of your capital survives to the end of the horizon.
How to use this tool
Enter the corpus. Type the lump amount you have invested and will draw from — for example a retirement corpus, the proceeds of a matured policy, or accumulated mutual-fund units. This is the starting balance the withdrawals come out of and the return grows.
Set the monthly withdrawal. Type the fixed amount you want to take out each month. This is your regular income from the plan. Try a few figures: a withdrawal below the monthly return keeps the corpus intact, while a larger one draws it down — the calculator shows the effect immediately.
Set the expected return and horizon. Type the annual return you expect on the invested balance, as a percentage, and the number of years you want the plan to run. The return is an assumption, not a guarantee — use a conservative figure for retirement income, since a market fall early in the plan hurts more when you are also withdrawing.
Read the breakdown. The panel shows the total amount withdrawn over the horizon, the balance remaining at the end, and a clear flag if the corpus runs out before the horizon ends — including the month it depletes. Adjust the withdrawal or return to find a plan where the corpus comfortably lasts as long as you need.
Examples and use cases
A sustainable retirement income
A retiree in Pune has a ₹50 lakh corpus and wants ₹30,000 a month, expecting 10% a year on the invested balance over 20 years. Because the annual return (about ₹5 lakh in the first year) comfortably exceeds the annual withdrawal (₹3.6 lakh), the calculator shows the corpus not only lasts the full 20 years but ends with a larger balance than it started — the plan is sustainable and even leaves an estate.
Withdrawing too fast
The same ₹50 lakh corpus at 10%, but with a ₹75,000 monthly withdrawal, tells a different story. The annual withdrawal of ₹9 lakh far outpaces the return, so the balance shrinks every year. The calculator flags that the corpus depletes well before 20 years, pinpointing the month it hits zero — a warning to lower the withdrawal or accept a shorter horizon.
Sizing a withdrawal to last exactly the horizon
An investor in Delhi has ₹30 lakh and wants it to last precisely 15 years, expecting a conservative 8%. Testing ₹25,000 a month leaves a healthy balance at the end, so they raise the withdrawal toward ₹30,000 and watch the ending balance fall toward zero. Using the tool to tune the withdrawal lets them extract the maximum sustainable monthly income for their exact horizon.
Bridging income before a pension starts
Someone retiring at 58 wants ₹40,000 a month for the 7 years until a pension begins, from a ₹40 lakh corpus at an expected 9%. The calculator shows the corpus supports the withdrawals for the full 7 years and still leaves a substantial balance to roll into the pension years — confirming the bridge plan works without exhausting savings before the pension arrives. They can then test a slightly higher withdrawal to see how much extra monthly income the bridge can safely provide while still preserving a cushion.
Frequently asked questions
- How does the SWP calculation work?
- The tool models each month in sequence. At the start of every month it removes your fixed withdrawal from the balance, then grows the remaining balance for that month at one-twelfth of the annual return. It repeats this for the full horizon. If a monthly withdrawal is larger than the balance available, the corpus is exhausted — the tool caps the final withdrawal at what remains, records how many months the plan lasted, and flags that the corpus depleted. This month-by-month approach captures how withdrawals and growth interact, which a single formula cannot show as clearly.
- What is the difference between an SWP and a SIP?
- They are opposites. A SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) pays a fixed amount into an investment every month to build a corpus over time. An SWP (Systematic Withdrawal Plan) takes a fixed amount out of an existing corpus every month, usually to provide regular income, while the remaining balance stays invested and keeps growing. People typically use a SIP during their earning years and switch to an SWP in retirement to draw down what they accumulated. To model paying in rather than drawing out, use the SIP calculator instead.
- How do I make sure my corpus never runs out?
- Keep your annual withdrawal at or below the return the corpus earns. If your corpus earns 10% a year, withdrawing up to about 10% annually (a little less to be safe) lets the growth replace what you take out, so the balance holds or rises. Withdraw more than the corpus earns and the balance shrinks each year until it depletes. A common rule of thumb for retirement is to keep withdrawals around 4–6% of the corpus a year, leaving a buffer for years when returns disappoint. This calculator lets you test any rate and see the outcome directly.
- Why is a conservative return assumption important for an SWP?
- Because withdrawing during a market downturn is far more damaging than in the accumulation phase — a phenomenon called sequence-of-returns risk. When you take money out while the market is down, you sell more units to fund the same withdrawal, leaving fewer units to recover when the market rises. This means an SWP can run out sooner than an average-return projection suggests if poor returns come early. Using a conservative expected return, and keeping a buffer, protects against this. Treat the projection as a guide, not a guarantee, and review the plan periodically.
- Are SWP withdrawals taxed?
- Yes. Each SWP withdrawal from a mutual fund is treated as a redemption, and the gain portion is subject to capital gains tax depending on the fund type and holding period. For equity funds, gains on units held over a year are long-term and taxed at the applicable long-term rate above the annual exemption; shorter holdings are taxed at the short-term rate. Debt fund gains are taxed as per the rules for the year of investment. This calculator projects the gross withdrawals and balance and does not deduct tax — consult a chartered accountant to estimate the tax on your specific plan.
- Are the figures I enter stored anywhere?
- No. The entire calculation runs in JavaScript inside your own browser. Nothing you enter — corpus, withdrawal, return, or horizon — is uploaded, logged, or stored on any server. The tool is free, needs no login, and closing the tab clears everything. There is no account and no saved history.