SWP Calculator: How Long Will Your Monthly Income Last?

A systematic withdrawal plan (SWP) lasts as long as your monthly withdrawal stays close to what the money earns. At an assumed steady 8% a year, ₹20 lakh can pay you ₹15,000 a month for 20 years and still leave ₹10,18,299. Raise the withdrawal to ₹20,000 a month and the same ₹20 lakh runs out after 13 years 9 months.

You can test your own numbers with the SWP calculator, which shows when the money runs out and the balance at the end of every year. All returns here are illustrative; mutual fund returns are not guaranteed.

What an SWP is (and what it is not)

An SWP is an instruction to a mutual fund house to sell a fixed amount of your units on a fixed date, usually every month, and pay the money into your bank account. If you hold units worth ₹20 lakh and set up a ₹15,000 monthly SWP, the fund sells ₹15,000 worth of units at that day's NAV each month.

It is not interest and it is not guaranteed income. If the fund earns more than you withdraw, the balance grows; if it earns less, you are spending your capital. The fund keeps paying the fixed amount until the units run out or you stop the plan, so the important question is how long the money lasts at your chosen amount.

What the SWP calculator shows

The calculator asks for four things: the total investment, the monthly withdrawal, the expected return (8% a year by default) and the withdrawal period (1 to 40 years). It then works month by month: it adds one month of growth (the yearly rate divided by 12) and takes out your withdrawal at the end of the month.

• If the money lasts the whole period, it shows the balance left at the end.
• If the money runs out, it shows "Your money runs out after" in years and months, the number of full withdrawals, and the smaller final payment in the last month.
• It also shows the total withdrawn, the growth earned on the money, and a year-by-year table of what you withdrew and what was left.

It assumes the same return every month. It does not model market falls, tax, or a withdrawal that rises with inflation (there is a workaround for that below). If your withdrawal is larger than the whole investment plus one month's growth, it tells you so instead of producing a result.

Worked example: ₹20 lakh, ₹15,000 a month, 8%

Month 1, step by step: ₹20,00,000 grows by 8% ÷ 12 = 0.667%, which is ₹13,333. The balance becomes ₹20,13,333, then the ₹15,000 withdrawal leaves ₹19,98,333. Because you take out ₹1,667 more than the money earned that month, the balance falls a little, and the shortfall grows slowly as the balance shrinks.

Over 20 years the calculator shows total withdrawals of ₹36,00,000 (240 × ₹15,000), a balance of ₹10,18,299 left over, and growth of ₹26,18,299 earned on the money (₹36,00,000 + ₹10,18,299 − ₹20,00,000).

Now raise the withdrawal to ₹20,000 a month. The monthly shortfall starts at ₹6,667 instead of ₹1,667, and it accelerates. The calculator reports that the money runs out after 13 years 9 months: 165 full withdrawals of ₹20,000 and a final payment of ₹6,826 in month 166, for a total of ₹33,06,826.

Year-end balance	₹15,000 a month	₹20,000 a month
Year 1	₹19,79,250	₹19,17,000
Year 5	₹18,77,539	₹15,10,154
Year 10	₹16,95,090	₹7,80,360
Year 13	₹15,45,133	₹1,80,531
Year 15	₹14,23,270	Ran out (month 166)
Year 20	₹10,18,299	₹0

The lesson: a withdrawal 33% higher did not shorten the plan by 33%. It turned a corpus that would have lasted well beyond 20 years into one that is empty before year 14, and you collected less money in total (₹33.07 lakh against ₹36 lakh paid plus ₹10.18 lakh still in hand).

How long ₹10 lakh lasts at different monthly withdrawals

The dividing line is the monthly growth on your starting balance: ₹10,00,000 × 8% ÷ 12 = ₹6,667. Withdraw less than that and, at a steady 8%, the balance never falls. Withdraw more and it eventually runs out. The table uses the calculator at 8% with the maximum 40-year period.

Monthly withdrawal	Per year, as % of ₹10 lakh	How long it lasts at 8%	Total withdrawn
₹5,000	6%	Never runs out (₹68.18 lakh left after 40 years)	₹24,00,000 in 40 years
₹6,000	7.2%	Never runs out (₹33.27 lakh left after 40 years)	₹28,80,000 in 40 years
₹7,000	8.4%	38 years 2 months	₹32,07,396
₹8,000	9.6%	22 years 5 months	₹21,57,276
₹10,000	12%	13 years 9 months	₹16,53,413
₹12,000	14.4%	10 years 2 months	₹14,64,536
₹15,000	18%	7 years 4 months	₹13,26,936
₹20,000	24%	5 years 1 month	₹12,20,447
₹25,000	30%	3 years 10 months	₹11,66,972

The table scales with the corpus. ₹10 lakh at ₹10,000 a month and ₹20 lakh at ₹20,000 a month both last exactly 13 years 9 months, because both withdraw 12% of the starting amount each year. So you can read the table for any corpus: work out your yearly withdrawal as a percentage of the corpus and find the nearest row.

Sequence risk: why a fall early in an SWP hurts more

An SWP pays a fixed rupee amount, so it sells more units when the NAV is low. At a NAV of ₹100, a ₹15,000 withdrawal sells 150 units. If the NAV falls to ₹80, the same ₹15,000 sells 15,000 ÷ 80 = 187.5 units, 25% more. Those extra units are gone for good, so they do not recover when the market does.

A fall in the first few years of an SWP does the most damage, because it shrinks the base that has to fund every later payment. Two common ways to soften this: use a hybrid or debt fund rather than a pure equity fund for the money you will withdraw in the next few years, and keep a lower withdrawal rate (the table shows how much difference a few thousand rupees makes).

The inflation problem: an SWP calculator with inflation

A fixed ₹15,000 buys less every year. At 6% inflation, you would need 15,000 × 1.06¹⁵ = ₹35,948 a month in 15 years to buy what ₹15,000 buys now. Put the other way, a flat ₹15,000 in year 15 is worth about ₹6,259 in present-day rupees. The inflation calculator does this conversion for any amount.

The SWP calculator keeps the withdrawal fixed, but you can model rising withdrawals in blocks. Run it for 5 years, note the balance, then run it again from that balance with the withdrawal raised by 6% a year for five years (× 1.06⁵ = × 1.3382):

1. Years 1–5: ₹20,00,000 at ₹15,000 a month leaves ₹18,77,539.
2. Years 6–10: ₹18,77,539 at ₹20,073 a month leaves ₹13,22,342.
3. Years 11–15: ₹13,22,342 at ₹26,863 a month runs out after 4 years 11 months, with a final payment of ₹23,140 in month 60 of the block.

Plan for ₹20 lakh at 8%	What happens
Flat ₹15,000 a month	₹10,18,299 still left after 20 years
₹15,000 rising about 6% a year (in 5-year steps)	Money runs out at the end of year 15

Keeping up with inflation cuts the life of this corpus from more than 20 years to 15. Raising the amount every year instead of every five would drain it slightly sooner, since each year's payment would be a little higher than in the blocks. If your plan has to last a long retirement, start with a smaller withdrawal than you think you need, or a larger corpus.

How SWP withdrawals are taxed

Each SWP payment is a sale of units, and only the gain on the units sold is taxed, not the whole payment. A simple example with illustrative numbers:

1. You invest ₹10,00,000 in an equity fund at a NAV of ₹100 and get 10,000 units.
2. Thirteen months later the NAV is ₹110 and you withdraw ₹15,000. Units sold = 15,000 ÷ 110 = 136.36.
3. Those units cost 136.36 × ₹100 = ₹13,636, so the gain is ₹15,000 − ₹13,636 = ₹1,364. Only ₹1,364 of the ₹15,000 is a capital gain.
4. The units were held for more than 12 months, so it is a long-term gain. As of October 2026, long-term gains on equity funds are taxed at 12.5% only on the total above ₹1.25 lakh a year.

Twelve such withdrawals at a similar NAV produce gains of roughly ₹16,400 for the year, far below ₹1.25 lakh, so in this example there is no tax at all (assuming no other equity gains that year). Withdrawals from equity units held 12 months or less are short-term and taxed at 20% on the gain. For debt funds bought on or after 1 April 2023, the gain part of each payment is taxed at your slab rate however long you held the units.

Two details to remember. Units are sold first-in-first-out, and as the NAV rises over the years, the gain part of each payment grows, so the taxable share is small at first and larger later. Over the whole life of the plan, the total taxed equals the total growth: an SWP mostly defers tax rather than avoiding it.

SWP vs FD interest for monthly income

Take ₹20 lakh in a fixed deposit paying, say, 7% a year (rates vary by bank). That gives ₹1,40,000 a year, about ₹11,667 a month, and every rupee of it is interest taxed at your slab rate. In a 20% slab, tax plus 4% cess is ₹1,40,000 × 20.8% = ₹29,120 a year. The bank also deducts TDS at 10% once interest from that bank crosses ₹50,000 in a year (₹1 lakh for those 60 or older); TDS is credited against your final tax.

The same ₹11,667 a month from an SWP is mostly your own capital coming back in the early years, so the taxable gain is much smaller each year.

Monthly income from ₹20 lakh	FD monthly interest	SWP from a mutual fund
What is taxed	All the interest, every year	Only the gain part of each payment
TDS	Yes, above the bank's yearly threshold	No TDS for resident investors
Capital	Stays at ₹20 lakh (in rupees)	Rises or falls with the fund
Income certainty	Fixed rate for the term	Fixed payout, but the fund can lose value

For someone in a higher slab, the tax difference can be large. For someone who cannot accept any fall in capital, the FD's certainty is worth more than the tax saving. You can also split the money and use both. For more on FD maths, see SIP vs FD or the FD calculator.

SIP vs SWP: one builds, one draws down

Question	SIP	SWP
Direction of money	Bank to fund, every month	Fund to bank, every month
Typical stage of life	Earning years	Retirement or when you need income
Effect of a market fall	Buys more units cheaply	Sells more units cheaply
Tax event	None until you sell	Each payment (on the gain part)

They also work in sequence. A ₹5,000 monthly SIP for 10 years at 12% grows to ₹11,61,695 (the SIP calculator shows this). Switch that corpus to an SWP at 8%, and ₹7,745 a month (its monthly growth: ₹11,61,695 × 8% ÷ 12) keeps the balance roughly where it started, while ₹10,000 a month lasts 18 years 8 months. If you are still deciding how to build the corpus, read lumpsum vs SIP: which is better.

This article is general information, not investment or tax advice; returns shown are illustrative and real returns will differ.

Frequently asked questions

How much monthly income can ₹10 lakh give through an SWP?

At a steady 8%, about ₹6,667 a month keeps the balance roughly intact. ₹8,000 a month lasts 22 years 5 months, and ₹10,000 a month lasts 13 years 9 months. Real returns vary, so leave a margin.

Does the SWP calculator account for inflation?

No, it keeps the withdrawal fixed. To model rising withdrawals, run it in five-year blocks, raising the amount each time and starting from the previous block's balance, as shown above.

Is SWP better than FD for monthly income?

An SWP is usually more tax-efficient, because only the gain part of each payment is taxed. An FD gives a fixed rate and a stable capital. Which suits you depends on your tax slab and how much fluctuation you can accept.

Can I change or stop an SWP?

Generally yes. You can stop or change an SWP through the fund house or the platform you invested with. Check the request form for how much notice it needs before the next payment date.

What is a safe SWP withdrawal rate?

There is no rate that is safe in every market. In the steady 8% model, withdrawing less than 8% of the corpus a year never runs out, but that ignores inflation and market falls. A lower rate gives you more room for both.

Sources: EthicalFusion SWP, SIP and inflation calculators (8%, 12% and 6% illustrative rates, figures as shown by the tools); Income-tax Act, 2025 and Finance Act, 2026 capital gains rates for mutual funds; TDS thresholds on bank and post office interest in force from 1 April 2025 (as of October 2026).