Free UK retirement calculator
A UK retirement calculator has to speak the language of HMRC, not a borrowed American model with a pound sign glued on. Pensions and ISAs are taxed on completely different schedules, the State Pension arrives on a date set by your birth year, your pot is legally out of reach until the normal minimum pension age, and a Scottish taxpayer pays a different bill from an English one on identical pay. Coastline models all of that natively — and shows the arithmetic behind every figure.
What a pot of each size actually pays you
Below is the largest after-tax annual spending each starting pot sustains to age 95, with the full State Pension underneath it, plus the gross amount the projection actually withdraws in the first year and the tax the whole plan pays over its life:
| Pot at 67 | Spendable / yr | State Pension's share | Withdrawn, year 1 | Draw rate | Lifetime tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £250,000 | £23,500 | 53.4% | £10,952 | 4.4% | £39,164 |
| £400,000 | £30,500 | 41.1% | £17,952 | 4.5% | £57,051 |
| £600,000 | £39,500 | 31.8% | £26,952 | 4.5% | £81,262 |
| £800,000 | £48,500 | 25.9% | £35,952 | 4.5% | £109,271 |
| £1,000,000 | £56,500 | 22.2% | £43,952 | 4.4% | £157,686 |
| £1,500,000 | £77,000 | 16.3% | £64,452 | 4.3% | £286,394 |
The interesting column is the third one. The pot's own draw rate barely moves — 4.4% at £250,000 and 4.3% at £1,500,000 — because a sustainable draw is set by returns, inflation and how long you live, not by how much you have. What changes enormously is how much of your spending the State Pension is doing: 53.4% of it at £250,000, and only 16.3% at £1,500,000. That is the whole reason a modest UK pot goes further than the same number would elsewhere.
The lifetime tax column starts small and then climbs hard, from £39,164 to £286,394, and the shape tells you where UK retirement tax actually lives. In the first year at £600,000 the entire £26,952 draw comes out of the GIA and nothing at all comes out of the pension — a GIA sale with no unrealised gain is untaxed, and the State Pension on its own sits under the Personal Allowance, so the year costs nothing. The bill arrives later, when the pension pot is what is left to draw on. Deciding how fast to empty it is the whole subject of the pension drawdown calculator. (Totals are each year's tax deflated to today's pounds and then summed, not a nominal running total.)
The State Pension is worth more than most people assume
The full New State Pension is £12,548 a year (£241.30 a week). On its own it is entirely untaxed — it sits £22 below the £12,570 Personal Allowance, so a retiree with no other income pays £0 in income tax and keeps every penny. That is why the pot you need falls so sharply once it is included:
| Spend / yr | Pot needed | Without the State Pension | What it saves you |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,000 | £170,000 | £410,000 | £240,000 |
| £25,000 | £280,000 | £520,000 | £240,000 |
| £30,000 | £390,000 | £630,000 | £240,000 |
| £40,000 | £610,000 | £850,000 | £240,000 |
| £50,000 | £835,000 | £1,070,000 | £235,000 |
A full record is worth roughly £240,000 of capital you do not have to save — and the saving is about the same at every spending level in the table, because the State Pension is a flat amount rather than a percentage. It is also not automatic: the full amount needs 35 qualifying years and nothing at all is paid below 10, so checking your record is worth more than most portfolio tweaks. And it cannot be taken early at any reduction — State Pension age is 66 for anyone born before 1961, 67 from 1961, 68 from 1977, and the earliest possible date is that age.
Scotland is a different income tax system — and the crossover is £33,493
This is the part almost every UK calculator gets wrong: Scottish taxpayers have their own bands, with a 19% starter rate below the rUK basic rate and a 42% higher rate that begins far earlier than England's 40%. So a Scottish taxpayer on a modest salary pays slightly less, and one on a good salary pays substantially more. The engine solves the exact break-even: at £33,493 of salary, a Scottish and an English taxpayer pay identical income tax to the penny.
| Salary | England & N. Ireland | Scotland | Difference | NI (both) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £30,000 | £3,486 | £3,451 | -£35 | £1,394 |
| £40,000 | £5,486 | £5,551 | +£65 | £2,194 |
| £50,000 | £7,486 | £8,982 | +£1,496 | £2,994 |
| £60,000 | £11,432 | £13,182 | +£1,750 | £3,211 |
| £80,000 | £19,432 | £21,732 | +£2,300 | £3,611 |
| £125,000 | £42,432 | £47,607 | +£5,175 | £4,511 |
At £30,000 Scotland is £35 cheaper. At £80,000 it costs £2,300 more, and at £125,000 the gap is £5,175. National Insurance is reserved to Westminster, so it is identical in both. Wales sets Welsh Rates of Income Tax but has matched rUK every year since devolution, so the engine treats Welsh rates as rUK rates and will diverge them the year Wales does.
Your pension is locked, and the lock is moving
The normal minimum pension age is 55 today and rises to 57 on 6 April 2028. There is no penalty-charge escape hatch: before that age the pot simply cannot be touched, so an early retirement has to be bridged from an ISA and a GIA. In the projection, someone retiring at 50 in 2026 watches the pot stay shut for 7 years — it opens at 57, not 55, because the rise to 57 lands before they get there. Getting that wrong by two years is the single most expensive planning mistake available to a UK early retiree, and it is why the ISA does the heavy lifting in a FIRE plan here.
Frozen thresholds: the tax rise nobody votes for
Every allowance and band ceiling is frozen in cash terms until 5 April 2031. A salary that merely keeps pace with inflation therefore drifts into a higher effective rate every year. On £60,000 rising with 3% inflation, the engine shows income tax plus National Insurance going from 24.40% of pay in 2026 to 26.82% in 2031 — about £1,450 a year more tax in today's money, for no pay rise in real terms. A calculator that inflates the bands away cannot show you this at all; Coastline holds them frozen through the statutory freeze and inflates them only afterwards.
One lever that works against it: salary sacrifice. Sacrificed pension contributions escape National Insurance as well as income tax, which ordinary relief does not. On a £45,000 salary, moving a £5,000 contribution into a sacrifice arrangement cuts National Insurance from £2,594 to £2,194 — £400 a year of pure extra saving, and the engine has a switch for it.
What this does and doesn't model
Being specific about the edges is the point — a projection you cannot audit is not much use on a decision this size.
- Pension access is modelled as phased UFPLS, where every withdrawal is 25% tax-free and 75% taxable, with the tax-free element capped in total at the £268,275 Lump Sum Allowance. A single up-front commencement lump sum of 25% is not modelled as such.
- One pension input and one ISA input. For a couple those are treated as combined balances and pension draws are split across two tax returns — right for two similar pots, optimistic where one partner holds everything.
- Contributions are capped at the Annual Allowance rather than charged. Unused-allowance carry-forward is not modelled, which makes the model slightly conservative about how much you can shelter.
- The GIA starts with no unrealised gain unless you set a cost basis, so Capital Gains Tax applies to growth from today forward. Dividends and interest inside the GIA are taxed at withdrawal as gains rather than annually.
- Not modelled at all: Marriage Allowance, the Blind Person's Allowance, Rent-a-Room, the trading and property allowances, Business Asset Disposal Relief and the venture-capital schemes — and, as with every projection here, council tax, VAT, Stamp Duty Land Tax and Inheritance Tax.
Why this one is different
Most free calculators aimed at the United Kingdom do one of two things: apply a single flat "tax rate" to everything, or quietly run a model built for somewhere else with the currency symbol swapped. Coastline runs a separate United Kingdom engine:
- Real United Kingdom tax rules, year by year. It applies income tax with the correct stacking order (non-savings, then savings, then dividends), the Personal Allowance taper above £100,000, National Insurance that stops at State Pension age, Capital Gains Tax on the GIA, and the three income-tax jurisdictions — rUK, Scotland and Wales — as separate rate tables — recomputed every single projection year rather than once.
- The right accounts, with the right access rules. A pension balance is modelled as a pension balance — including the ages at which you can and cannot reach it, which is where a borrowed model goes most badly wrong.
- Saving and spending, end to end. Accumulation and drawdown in one projection, so the plan connects rather than stopping at a target number.
- The arithmetic is shown. Every figure opens into the calculation behind it — you can check the model instead of trusting it.
- Free, no signup. No account, no email, no bank linking. Your inputs run the projection and are then discarded.
Two places to go next: the UK pension drawdown calculator works out what each pound out of the pot actually costs in tax, and the Monte Carlo simulator runs the same plan through hundreds of market histories instead of one smooth average. If you are comparing countries, there is a Canadian version and a United States version built the same way. The full method is written up in the methodology.
Educational projections, not financial or tax advice. Figures use 2026/27 rates and thresholds and are in today's pounds. Your record, your jurisdiction and your assumptions will move every number on this page — run your own.
Common questions
How much do I need to retire in the UK?
For a single retiree at 67 in England spending £30,000 a year after tax and living to 95, Coastline's engine puts it at about £390,000 across a pension pot, an ISA and a general investment account — on top of the full New State Pension of £12,548 a year. Without any State Pension the same plan needs £630,000. Assumes 6% nominal returns and 3% inflation.
Is the State Pension taxable?
It is taxable income, but on its own it is not enough to create a tax bill: the full New State Pension of £12,548 a year sits £22 below the £12,570 Personal Allowance, so a retiree with no other income pays £0. Any pension drawdown, salary or rental income on top of it is taxed from the first pound above the allowance.
Do Scottish taxpayers pay more income tax?
It depends on the salary, and the crossover is exact: at £33,493 a Scottish and an English taxpayer pay identical income tax. Below it Scotland is slightly cheaper (£35 less at £30,000); above it Scotland costs more, by £2,300 at £80,000 and £5,175 at £125,000. National Insurance is the same in both.
When can I access my pension?
At the normal minimum pension age, which is 55 now and rises to 57 on 6 April 2028. There is no early-access penalty option — before that age the pot cannot be touched at all. In the projection, someone retiring at 50 in 2026 finds the pot opens at 57, 7 years later, because the rise to 57 arrives before they reach 55. Those years have to be funded from an ISA or a GIA.
What do frozen tax thresholds do to my plan?
They raise your real tax bill every year without any rate changing. Allowances and band ceilings are frozen in cash terms until 5 April 2031, so on a £60,000 salary rising with 3% inflation the engine shows income tax plus National Insurance climbing from 24.40% of pay in 2026 to 26.82% in 2031 — roughly £1,450 a year more in today's money.
Does salary sacrifice actually save money?
Yes, and specifically it saves National Insurance, which ordinary pension relief does not. On a £45,000 salary, putting a £5,000 contribution through a sacrifice arrangement cuts National Insurance from £2,594 to £2,194 — £400 a year extra into the pot for the same cost to you. The saving is smaller above the upper earnings limit, where the NI rate is only 2%.