FIRE Calculator

It's the portfolio size at which your dividends alone cover your annual spending. Divide the yearly income you want by your portfolio's average dividend yield. For $40,000 a year at a 4% yield, the number is $1,000,000.

It depends on your spending and your yield. At a 4% yield you need about 25 times your annual expenses: $1,000,000 for $40,000 a year, or $1,500,000 for $60,000. At a 3% yield the same $40,000 takes about $1,333,333, and at 8% only $500,000, though very high yields usually carry more risk.

These describe the lifestyle a FIRE number is sized for, not a different formula. Lean FIRE usually means spending under roughly $40,000 a year and the smallest portfolio target. Fat FIRE means a more comfortable budget, commonly $100,000 or more a year, requiring a much larger portfolio. Regular FIRE sits in between — adjust the Desired Annual Income field above to match your own spending.

Coast FIRE is the point where you have enough invested that growth alone — with no further contributions — will carry your portfolio to your full FIRE number by a future date. Most Coast FIRE calculators assume you'll eventually sell shares under the 4% rule. This one instead asks: if your dividends keep reinvesting at your expected yield and price growth, how much would you need today to coast to your dividend FIRE number by a chosen year? Turn it on in advanced options.

Barista FIRE means part-time or lower-stress work covers part of your expenses while your portfolio covers the rest, letting you step back sooner. The 'Other Income' field in advanced options works for this and for Social Security or a pension — enter what you expect from that source, and the calculator only sizes your portfolio to cover the remaining gap, not your full spending.

Not exactly. The 4% rule is a withdrawal rate: you take 4% of your portfolio each year and may sell shares to do it. The yield here is the cash dividends your holdings pay, and the goal is to live on those payouts without selling. The arithmetic matches at 4%, but a real portfolio's yield can differ a lot from 4%, which changes the number you need.

No, the result is a pre-tax figure. To cover your spending after tax, divide your after-tax spending by one minus your tax rate before you enter it. For example, $40,000 after tax at a 15% rate is about $47,059 of dividends per year, and at a 4% yield that takes roughly $1,176,471. The Dividend Tax Calculator can help you estimate your rate.

Either works — the calculator uses a dollar amount, but savings rate is often the more motivating number, since it's the biggest lever you control. Add your annual income in advanced options to see your savings rate calculated automatically. As a rough guide, a 50% savings rate typically reaches FIRE in well under 20 years of saving, while a 70%+ rate can cut that to under a decade, all else equal.

By default the timeline grows your portfolio only through reinvested dividends at the yield you enter, so it can look slower than real-world results. Add an expected share price growth rate in advanced options to model total return instead, which speeds up the estimate. Your monthly contribution also has a big effect: with $20,000 invested now and a 4% yield, going from $500 to $1,000 a month cuts the wait to reach $1,000,000 from about 47 years 11 months to about 35 years 2 months.

For each year of the projection it lists what you contributed, how much your portfolio grew (reinvested dividends plus any share price growth you entered), the ending balance, the annual dividend income that balance would pay at your yield, and how close you are to your target. The highlighted row is the first year your balance reaches the target. You can download the whole table as a CSV.