SWP calculator
If I draw a monthly income from this corpus, how long does it last?
A drawdown portfolio is usually held more conservatively than one still growing.
₹10,73,204left after 20 years
- Taken out in total
- ₹96,00,000
- Returns earned while drawing
- ₹56,73,204
- Runs dry after
- 270 months
Returns are assumed and steady. A bad first few years hurts a drawdown far more than a bad late one, and capital-gains tax on each withdrawal is not deducted here.
- Still invested
- Taken out
| Year | Withdrawn | Taken out so far | Returns | Balance left |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹3,96,999 | ₹49,16,999 |
| 2 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹9,60,000 | ₹3,90,112 | ₹48,27,111 |
| 3 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹14,40,000 | ₹3,82,652 | ₹47,29,763 |
| 4 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹19,20,000 | ₹3,74,571 | ₹46,24,334 |
| 5 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹24,00,000 | ₹3,65,820 | ₹45,10,154 |
| 6 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹28,80,000 | ₹3,56,344 | ₹43,86,498 |
| 7 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹33,60,000 | ₹3,46,080 | ₹42,52,578 |
| 8 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹38,40,000 | ₹3,34,967 | ₹41,07,545 |
| 9 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹43,20,000 | ₹3,22,929 | ₹39,50,474 |
| 10 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹48,00,000 | ₹3,09,889 | ₹37,80,363 |
| 11 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹52,80,000 | ₹2,95,772 | ₹35,96,135 |
| 12 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹57,60,000 | ₹2,80,480 | ₹33,96,615 |
| 13 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹62,40,000 | ₹2,63,922 | ₹31,80,537 |
| 14 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹67,20,000 | ₹2,45,985 | ₹29,46,522 |
| 15 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹72,00,000 | ₹2,26,563 | ₹26,93,085 |
| 16 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹76,80,000 | ₹2,05,526 | ₹24,18,611 |
| 17 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹81,60,000 | ₹1,82,748 | ₹21,21,359 |
| 18 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹86,40,000 | ₹1,58,075 | ₹17,99,434 |
| 19 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹91,20,000 | ₹1,31,354 | ₹14,50,788 |
| 20 | ₹4,80,000 | ₹96,00,000 | ₹1,02,416 | ₹10,73,204 |
An SWP is the reverse of a SIP: instead of paying money in every month, you redeem a fixed rupee amount out of a mutual fund on a fixed date. Whether ₹1 crore can pay you ₹80,000 a month for the rest of your life comes down to one comparison — what the remaining corpus earns in a month against what you take out of it that month. While the return is the larger of the two the corpus keeps growing as you spend it; the month it stops being larger, the balance starts falling, and every fall makes the next month's return smaller still.
A worked example
Take a corpus of ₹1,00,00,000, a withdrawal of ₹80,000 each month, 8% a year on what is still invested, and a draw of 20 years. Set the four fields above to those and the calculator returns ₹21,46,410 still invested at the end of the twenty years, having paid out ₹1,92,00,000 and earned ₹1,13,46,410 in returns along the way. Keep taking ₹80,000 after that and it runs dry in the 270th month — a little over 22 years.
- ₹1,92,00,000 paid out to you — 240 × ₹80,000
- ₹21,46,410 still invested at year 20 — the balance the table ends on
₹1 crore of capital plus ₹1,13,46,410 of returns is ₹2,13,46,410 in total — just over twice the corpus, spent and still held.
Read the returns column of the table, with those four figures entered, and you can watch the engine losing power. The first year earns ₹7,94,002 on a nearly untouched corpus, more than four-fifths of the ₹9,60,000 drawn that year. The twentieth year earns ₹2,04,835 on what is left, and the withdrawal is still ₹9,60,000. Nothing changed except the size of the balance the return is charged on — which is why the last few years of a drawdown fall away so much faster than the first few.
What this does not account for
Tax on every instalment
Each withdrawal is a redemption, and the gain inside the units redeemed is taxable — under section 112A or 111A for equity-oriented funds, and at slab under section 50AA for a specified mutual fund. The figures above are gross; what reaches your bank is less.
Exit load and the fund’s own rules
Redeem inside the exit-load window in the scheme information document and a percentage of each instalment is kept back. Equity redemptions also carry securities transaction tax.
A steady 8% that no fund delivers
The model credits the same monthly return every month. Real returns arrive in a jagged order, and a drawdown is far more sensitive to bad years at the start than at the end — you sell more units at low prices, and they are never there to recover.
A withdrawal that never rises
₹80,000 twenty years from now is not ₹80,000 of groceries. This calculator holds the instalment flat, so treat the result as a floor and index the withdrawal yourself if you want a constant standard of living.
Two smaller assumptions worth knowing, because they nudge every figure on the page. The month’s return is credited before that month’s withdrawal, which is the start-of-month case; if your SWP date is late in the month you will run slightly behind these numbers. And the last instalment is capped at whatever is actually left, so a corpus that ends mid-month pays out a short final withdrawal rather than going negative.
Where to go next
If you are still building the corpus rather than spending it, the retirement calculator works the same problem from the other end — what monthly saving gets you to a corpus this size. To put a number on the tax this page leaves out, the capital gains calculator prices the gain on units you sell. And if you are weighing a drawdown against the contracted alternative, the FD calculator shows what a deposit of the same size pays and what TDS takes out of it.
How long will ₹1 crore last if I withdraw ₹80,000 a month?
On the assumptions above — 8% a year on whatever is still invested, and the withdrawal never rising — the corpus is not exhausted in twenty years; it is worth about ₹21.5 lakh at the end of them and runs out in the 270th month, a little over 22 years. Raise the withdrawal to ₹1 lakh and the same corpus is gone in the 166th month, under 14 years. Set your own four numbers above rather than trusting either figure — the answer moves fast.
Is the whole SWP withdrawal taxed?
No. Each instalment redeems units, and only the capital gain inside those units is taxable — the rest is your own capital coming back. The gain is worked out unit by unit on first-in-first-out, so early instalments are mostly return of capital and later ones carry proportionally more gain. Equity-oriented units are taxed under section 112A or 111A of the Income-tax Act depending on how long the redeemed units were held; units of a specified mutual fund under section 50AA are treated as short-term and taxed at your slab however long you held them.
Is TDS deducted from an SWP?
For a resident investor, no — section 194K covers income distributed on units (an IDCW payout), not capital gains on redemption, so nothing is withheld and the tax is yours to pay by advance tax or at filing. A non-resident is different: redemption proceeds are subject to withholding under section 195, so an NRE or NRO investor receives the instalment net of tax.
Is an SWP better than a fixed deposit for monthly income?
They are taxed very differently, which is usually the deciding factor. FD interest is taxed at your slab in the year it accrues and the bank deducts TDS once it crosses the threshold in section 194A, whether you spend the interest or not. An SWP is only taxed on the gain inside the units you actually redeem. Against that, the FD pays a contracted rate and an SWP does not — a bad market year takes a real bite out of a corpus you are also drawing down.
What monthly withdrawal is safe from my corpus?
The arithmetic to check is simply this: twelve withdrawals against one year's return on the corpus. Draw less than the corpus earns and it grows while you spend; draw more and you are eating capital, and the calculator's "runs dry after" figure tells you how long that takes. Do not stop at the average, though — the same average return with three bad years at the start empties a drawdown far sooner than the steady version above.
This page starts from typical figures. In Hundo the same calculator opens on your own — the loan, the deposit, the salary already on the ledger — and says where each number came from.