Two numbers, one exit.
Retire early and the pot has two jobs: carry every year until a pension arrives, then cover whatever it doesn’t. This page prices both. One thing I never do here is guess what your system owes you: you bring the pension amount, from your country’s own statement, and you decide how much of a promise that far away to count.
Explain it like I’m five
A pension is money that starts arriving when you’re old enough. Retire young and there’s a long wait first, and your pot alone pays for every year of it. This page counts those waiting years, then shows how much smaller the pot can be because the pension eventually helps, and how much is still all yours to save.
New to all of it? Start from zero: ten short lessons that assume nothing.
The Pension Bridge
The age your own system will pay you, from your statement, not a guess.
Three traps on the statement. It usually shows a month: enter the year’s total, and some systems pay 14 of them. It’s usually gross: enter what would survive tax. And it’s often a forecast that assumes you keep contributing, which is a different number from what you’ve earned: use the accrued figure, or re-run the official service with contributions stopping at your exit. If all it offers is the keep-working forecast, don’t prorate it yourself, accrual rules aren’t linear; run it here as a what-if, not as your plan.
Advanced
Rent you’ll collect for good, an indexed occupational pension: one stream, for life, in today’s money, expected to rise with prices, counted with the same haircut. Income that stops after a few years isn’t this input. Neither is a payment fixed forever at one amount: that needs a different calculation, so don’t enter it here.
Your number, with the pension counted
€796,030
Your €50,000 today is 6% of the new target.
- The pot pays everything
- Each year from 67: the pot pays 72%, the pension 28%
- The ×30 target, counting nothing
- €900,000
- The pension, counted at 70%
- €8,400a year
- What counting it takes off the target
- −€103,970
- What must still be there at 67
- €648,000
- The permanent number, once everything counted has started
- €648,000
Counted at 70%, the pension carries 12% of this plan. The other 88% is the portfolio.
A euro of income 27 years away does the work of about 41 cents of one that starts tomorrow.
The rule, made precise.
For every bridge year the portfolio is alone: nothing you count here pays for a day of that stretch, which is the guide’s count-on-nothing rule made literal. Past the far end, the plan counts only the share you chose to trust, thinned again for every year of the wait. Count nothing and you’re back at the classic target, the stance this whole site builds from; the receipt prices exactly what trusting more is worth.
Real terms throughout, like every calculator here: everything in today’s euros. The pension is the accrued, after-tax figure your statement supports, and all counted income is treated as keeping pace with prices: a stated convention, not a universal fact, since systems index by differing recipes. Under the 2% convention a pension that never rises again keeps about 62% of the value of an indexed one at this page’s default 30×, so the 50% stance is stricter than even that scenario. The waiting discount runs at the plan’s own withdrawal rate, not a market return: the same caution as the multiple itself. Surplus income in any stretch is ignored, never banked. I never estimate what a system owes you, and this page never computes a date: when you can leave is the Exit Calculator’s question. Not advice.
The link carries these exact numbers; nothing about you is stored.
Where the number comes from
Nearly every covered country runs an official, free pension service: your record, an estimate, sometimes both. Where one exists, your country’s page in the atlas links it; the hint above says which figure to bring back.
The Exit Calculator asks when you reach the number. This page asks what the number is when part of the far future pays for itself. The Exit Calculator
This page sizes the pot. Whether a pot survives a long life and bad decades is a different question: The Three Endings runs yours against history, pension or none. The Three Endings
The reasoning behind it
This page prices the two numbers. Why they’re the right size, and where a state pension honestly belongs in an early-retirement plan, is worked through in the guides.
Nothing to sell
No affiliate links. No paywall. Nothing on this page is for sale, and nobody pays me to make a pension look bigger or smaller than it is.
Not advice
Arithmetic on the numbers you typed, under the stated conventions. What your system will actually pay, and when, is between you and it: check your official statement, and the rules in your country, ideally with a licensed adviser. Not advice.
Common questions
- Should I count my state pension in my FIRE number?
- Both halves of the honest answer are on this page. Retire decades early and the plan has to stand on the portfolio alone: for every bridge year the pension pays nothing, and even counted in full, a promise that far away carries only a small share of the plan (the receipt shows yours). Retire closer to the pension age and it genuinely carries more, so quantify it instead of ignoring it. Count it honestly, at a share you trust; never lean on it.
- Where do I find my pension amount, and which figure do I enter?
- Your country’s own pension service: free, official, and a better number than any site could guess. Your country’s page in the atlas links it. Then dodge the three statement traps. It usually shows a month: enter the year’s total, and some systems pay 14 of them. It’s usually gross: enter what would survive tax. And it’s often a forecast that assumes you keep contributing: use the accrued figure, or re-run the official service with contributions stopping at your exit age where it allows that. Never prorate the forecast yourself; accrual formulas have thresholds and minimum years, so a homemade proportional cut can be badly wrong. If the keep-working forecast is all your service offers, run it here as a what-if, never as your base plan: the haircut is a trust dial, it can’t convert a forecast into an earned entitlement.
- Why does the tool count less than my full pension?
- Two cuts, both on the receipt, nothing hidden. The haircut is trust: your own call on how much of a decades-away promise to count, because nobody knows the right number. The waiting discount is arithmetic: a euro of income that starts in 27 years does the work of about 41 cents of one that starts tomorrow, because the plan has to carry itself at its own rate until the far end arrives. The receipt prices exactly what each cut is worth in euros.
- What if my pension age moves again, or it stops keeping up with prices?
- Test the first one directly: the start age is an input, so move 67 to 69 and watch the number. For the second, this page counts pensions as keeping pace with prices, a stated convention: European systems index by law, by differing recipes. Under the 2% convention, a pension that never rises again still keeps about 62% of an indexed one’s value at this page’s default 30× (roughly 60 to 66% across the multiples), so the 50% stance is stricter than even that scenario. If you distrust the indexation, count half.
- Can this tell me what pension I’ll get?
- No, on purpose. Europe runs more than 27 systems, each with its own rules, and a site that guessed yours would be wrong just often enough to be dangerous. Your own system’s estimate is better than anything I could compute, and it’s free: question two says which figure to bring back, and your country’s atlas page has the link.
Nothing here is financial or investment advice: it’s arithmetic and education. Every tool runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved. Decisions about your money are yours, ideally with a licensed adviser. I’m happily not one.
Bring me a challenge.
The Exit Audit, then ninety minutes: a straight verdict, real alternatives with their pros and cons, and your first move. If you want someone to nod along, I’m the wrong person to pay.