Calculate Your FIRE Number Using the 4% Rule.
Calculate your FIRE number and safe withdrawal amount using the 4% rule from the Trinity Study. Free, instant, no signup required.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 4% rule?
The 4% rule states that you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in year one of retirement, then adjust for inflation each year, with a high probability your money lasts 30+ years. From the Trinity Study (1998).
What is my FIRE number?
Your FIRE number is 25x your annual spending. If you spend $60,000/year, your FIRE number is $1,500,000. At that portfolio size, a 4% withdrawal covers your expenses indefinitely.
Is the 4% rule still valid today?
Most financial researchers still consider 4% a reasonable starting point for a 30-year retirement, though some suggest 3.3–3.5% for 40+ year retirements (relevant for early retirees). The key risk is a bad sequence of returns in your first 5 years.
What is a safe withdrawal rate for early retirement?
For early retirement (20–40+ year horizon), many planners use 3.5% or the Guyton-Klinger guardrails approach. Our calculator lets you model any withdrawal rate and shows the year your money runs out if the rate is too aggressive.
How does sequence-of-returns risk affect the 4% rule?
Sequence-of-returns risk means a market crash in your first 3–5 years of retirement can permanently impair your portfolio — even if long-run averages are fine. This is why Monte Carlo simulation (testing thousands of market scenarios) is more informative than a single average-return projection.