Is ₹1 crore enough to retire in India? A withdrawal test

₹1 crore has been India's retirement number for a generation. It sounds like a lot. But you'll live off it for 25 or 30 years, and prices roughly double every 12 years at 6% inflation. Retail inflation was 4.38% in June 2026^[1], but a 30-year plan should allow for stretches when it runs higher.

So we asked our SWP calculator a simple question: how much can ₹1 crore pay you each month, and for how long?

The trap: a withdrawal that never rises

Take ₹50,000 a month and never raise it, and ₹1 crore at 9% never runs out. After 30 years you'd even have ₹5.58 Cr left.

But that ₹50,000 buys less every year. In year 30 it's worth about ₹9,228 in today's money. That's not a retirement income, it's a slow cut in your standard of living. A real plan raises the withdrawal with prices every year.

₹50,000 a month, rising with inflation

The difference between the two lines is only ₹5,697 a month at the start. Small changes early have a big effect decades later, the same compounding that built the corpus, running in reverse.

How long ₹1 crore lasts at each withdrawal

India's version of the "4% rule"

The US "4% rule" says you can withdraw 4% of your corpus in year one and raise it with inflation. It assumes US inflation and returns.

With 6% inflation and a 9% return over 30 years, the same maths gives about 5.3% a year here. It's higher than 4% because this is sized to run the money down to zero at year 30, not to last forever. If you retire at 50 and need 40 years, it drops.

How to size your own number

1. Start with today's monthly expenses, not a round number.
2. Grow them to your retirement year at 6% inflation. ₹50,000 today is about ₹1.6 lakh in 20 years.
3. Size the corpus so that first-year withdrawal is about 5.3% of it.

You'll get there through a SIP, EPF and NPS together. The NPS calculator shows the pension part (NPS is regulated by PFRDA^[2]), and the SIP calculator shows what a monthly amount builds.

What this doesn't mean

• The order of returns matters. A crash in your first years of retirement hurts far more than one later on. The SWP calculator's "Bad start" line shows how much.
• 9% isn't a promise. It assumes a mix of equity and debt. An all-FD retirement earns less, and its interest is taxed at your slab.
• Tax takes a slice. Equity SWP gains pay 12.5% LTCG above ₹1.25 lakh a year^[3]; the SWP calculator counts it.
• Health costs rise faster than 6%. Keep health cover separate from this corpus.

Withdrawals come out monthly after that month's return; raised once a year. Tax on SWP gains excluded from the table. Long-run Indian CPI inflation has averaged about 5–6%. For illustration only, not investment advice.