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$500,000 drawn down at $40,000 a year lasts about 16 years — on a 4.9% return against 2.5% inflation. Everything is in today’s dollars, so that drawdown keeps its buying power as prices rise. Change any of it below for your own numbers.
Enter your balance, the amount you plan to draw each year and your assumed return and inflation, and this projects how many years the money lasts, with a balance-over-time chart. The ATO minimum drawdown rates by age are further down, with the rounding and pro-rating rules that change them. If you want the pension product rather than the arithmetic — the legislated minimum applied every year, tax-free earnings in the retirement phase and the transfer balance cap — use the allocated pension calculator.
Amount you withdraw each year (e.g. pension drawdown)
Real growth = return minus inflation
Based on your drawdown and assumed real growth (return minus inflation), your balance is projected to run out after about 16 years.
That is when the balance reaches zero, not when your income stops. This projection excludes the Age Pension, which is means tested — so your entitlement rises as the balance falls. See what that means below.
The link reopens this calculator with your figures filled in.
The projection above models your super alone. In practice the Age Pension fills the gap, and because it is means tested on your assets and income, your entitlement grows every year as the balance is drawn down.
of $40,000 a year
same spending, same returns
Assuming super is your only assessable asset and you have no other income. Rates as at 1 July 2026. Both figures rise as the balance falls, and the full rate — $31,223 a year for a single, $47,070 for a couple — is the floor your retirement eventually rests on.
Once you start an account-based pension (also called an allocated pension), a minimum amount must be paid to you each year. It is worked out from your age and your account balance on 1 July, and it steps up in bands as you get older. There is no maximum on an account-based pension — the ceiling people have in mind belongs to a transition to retirement pension. The dollar column is $500,000, for scale.
| Age | Minimum annual drawdown | On $500,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Under 65 | 4% | $20,000 |
| 65 to 74 | 5% | $25,000 |
| 75 to 79 | 6% | $30,000 |
| 80 to 84 | 7% | $35,000 |
| 85 to 89 | 9% | $45,000 |
| 90 to 94 | 11% | $55,000 |
| 95 and over | 14% | $70,000 |
The percentages are the standard ones, not the halved ones. The government reduced these minimums by 50% for the 2019–20 through 2022–23 financial years, and the reduction was not extended. The ATO still publishes the reduced column alongside the current one, which is why a fair number of pages and PDFs still show 2%, 2.5% and 3% — those figures have not applied since 30 June 2023.
Your fund’s figure will differ slightly from the table. The ATO flags these percentages as indicative. The rules round the calculated minimum to the nearest $10, and where a pension starts part-way through a year the minimum is pro-rated from the commencement day for the days remaining. So a pension started in January owes roughly half a year’s minimum, not a full one.
The minimum is not optional, and it can exceed what you want to spend. At 5% a $500,000 balance owes $25,000 a year at 67, and by 90 the same balance would owe 11%. Money forced out above your budget is not lost — it just stops being super, and its future earnings become taxable in your hands. The allocated pension calculator applies the minimum year by year and flags the years where it binds; the calculator on this page does not, because it answers the simpler question of how long a balance lasts at a drawdown you choose.
At a 5% return and 2.5% inflation — a real return of 2.5% a year — a $500,000 balance drawn at $40,000 a year lasts about 16 years. Here is the same calculation across the balances people most often ask about. Every figure comes from the calculator above, so you can reproduce any of them by entering the numbers yourself. Each balance links to a full breakdown against real retirement budgets.
| Starting balance | Drawing$40,000/yr | Drawing$60,000/yr | Drawing$80,000/yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| $300,000 | 9 years | 6 years | 4 years |
| $500,000 | 16 years | 10 years | 7 years |
| $750,000 | 26 years | 16 years | 11 years |
| $1,000,000 | 40 years | 22 years | 16 years |
These figures ignore the Age Pension, which most retirees become eligible for in part or in full and which changes the picture substantially — a balance that runs down over 20 years does not leave you with nothing at the end of it.
Each page works through one balance in detail: how long it lasts on the ASFA modest and comfortable budgets, what changes if you rent, and how the Age Pension fits in.
The age you stop at changes the answer more than the balance does — it sets how many years you fund before the Age Pension can help. Each page runs $1,000,000 from that age on the comfortable-single budget, and covers preservation rules, the pension wait and what changes if you rent.
Two things change once you stop working, and neither is obvious from a drawdown projection.
Franking credits become fully refundable. While you were working, the credit attached to a franked dividend offset the tax you owed. In retirement, with little or no taxable income, there is often nothing left to offset — so the credit is paid to you as a refund instead. A fully franked $700 dividend carries a $300 credit, and for a retiree below the tax-free threshold that $300 arrives as cash.
Your capital gains position changes. Capital gains are taxed at your marginal rate, and your marginal rate after you stop working is usually far lower than it was. Which parcels you sell, and when, produces materially different outcomes — and super withdrawals after 60 do not push you into a higher bracket, because they are not assessable income.
What a franked dividend is actually worth once the credit is refunded.
Dividend income, franking credits and the tax outcome at your marginal rate.
Parcel-level capital gains across your holdings, with an accountant-ready export.
General information about how the rules work, not a suggestion to hold or sell anything.
An allocated pension is the older name for what is now called an account-based pension, and the two mean the same thing: you move your super into a retirement income stream, draw a regular income from it, and the rest stays invested. Three rules make it different from the calculator on this page. You must withdraw at least the legislated minimum for your age each year. There is no maximum. And the fund pays no tax at all on the account’s earnings, where it would pay 15% while you were still working — which on a long projection is worth years of income.
The allocated pension calculator models all three, year by year, with the Age Pension as an optional layer. Use it when you want the product; use the calculator on this page when you just want to know how long a balance lasts at a given drawdown.
Either way the balance is not guaranteed. Unlike a defined-benefit pension or a lifetime annuity, an allocated pension runs until the money is gone, so how long it lasts depends on your drawdown and on returns. That is the trade-off in both directions: full flexibility and whatever is left passes to your estate, against no promise the income lasts as long as you do.
A transition to retirement pension lets you draw an income stream from your super once you reach preservation age while you are still working. It uses the same minimum drawdown rates as an account-based pension but adds a ceiling: no more than 10% of the balance in a financial year. Preservation age is now 60 for everyone still short of it, since it finished phasing up for people born from 1 July 1964.
The fact to get right, because most material gets it wrong: a TTR account still pays 15% tax on its earnings. It is not in the retirement phase until you fully retire or turn 65, so the tax-free earnings people associate with a pension do not apply. It did get the exemption until 1 July 2017, which is why the belief persists.
Two arrangements account for most TTR pensions: cutting back to part-time and topping the income up from super, or staying full-time while salary sacrificing heavily and replacing the lost take-home pay with TTR payments, which from 60 are tax-free. The transition to retirement calculator models the second one against your current position at matched net income, with the ceiling, the minimum, the concessional cap and the earnings tax all applied.
For most people the answer is simpler than expected: from age 60, withdrawals from a taxed super fund are tax-free, whether you take them as pension payments or as a lump sum. They are not included in your tax return and they do not push your other income into a higher bracket. That is why the calculator above projects gross drawdowns without deducting tax.
The exceptions are worth knowing. Preservation age is 60 for everyone now, so below that age super is only accessible in limited circumstances such as severe financial hardship or on compassionate grounds, and the taxable component of an early release is taxed at 20% plus the Medicare levy. Some public sector schemes hold an untaxed element, which is taxed differently and can be substantial. Death benefits paid to someone who is not a tax dependant are taxed on the taxable component. And investment earnings inside a TTR pension are taxed at 15% until you fully retire or turn 65, unlike an ordinary account-based pension where earnings are tax-free.
If any of those apply to you, check the current rates with the ATO before you withdraw — the thresholds are indexed and the untaxed- element rules in particular reward getting advice first.
Super drawdown is the process of withdrawing from your super to fund living expenses in retirement. How long your super lasts depends on your starting balance, withdrawal rate, investment returns and inflation.
The sustainable withdrawal rate is typically considered to be 4-5% of your balance per year, adjusted for inflation. Withdrawing more than this increases the risk of running out of money.
Rates checked against the ATO and the ASFA Retirement Standard — verified 13 August 2026
Estimates only. Not financial or tax advice. Full disclaimer for your rights and our limitations of liability.
Rates and thresholds last updated for the 2026–27 financial year.
This calculator exists to show you the arithmetic. It applies published Australian rates, thresholds and formulas to the numbers you enter and shows the working, so you can check it. That is all it does — it produces a number and describes what the number is. It does not recommend anything and it holds no opinion about any financial product.
What can move this result
Why these default assumptions are reasonable
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.