Will $2 Million (or $3 Million) Last in Retirement?

At a 4% withdrawal rate, a $2 million portfolio supports about $80,000 a year in inflation-adjusted spending, and historically this has lasted 30+ years in the large majority of U.S. market scenarios. At a more conservative 3.5% rate, that's about $70,000/year with a meaningfully lower risk of running out over a long retirement (35-40+ years) — relevant if you're retiring early.

Push the withdrawal rate to 5-5.5% (around $100,000-$110,000/year) and the risk of depleting the portfolio before a 30-year horizon rises substantially, especially if a market downturn hits in the first few years of retirement.

At a 3.5% withdrawal rate, a $3 million portfolio supports about $105,000/year, and under stable historical return assumptions this can mathematically last indefinitely — the portfolio's growth roughly keeps pace with withdrawals plus inflation. Even at the standard 4% rate, that's $120,000/year with the same strong historical track record as the $2 million/4% case.

$3 million gives you meaningfully more room for a comfortable withdrawal rate, or the same spending as $2 million with a much larger safety margin.

• Retirement length. Retiring at 45 needs a much lower withdrawal rate than retiring at 67, simply because the money needs to last longer.
• Guaranteed income. Social Security or a pension reduces how much your portfolio needs to cover directly — recompute your effective withdrawal rate against your portfolio-funded spending only.
• Asset allocation and sequence-of-returns risk in your first decade of retirement matters more than the long-run average return.
• Taxes on withdrawals (especially from tax-deferred accounts) can meaningfully reduce the after-tax spending your portfolio actually supports.

Rather than relying on these general benchmarks, plug your actual portfolio size, expected spending, and return/inflation assumptions into our retirement calculator to see your specific projected runway — including exactly which age (if any) your money is projected to run out, so you can adjust your withdrawal rate or spending accordingly.

Both $2 million and $3 million can comfortably fund a multi-decade retirement — the deciding factor is your withdrawal rate, not the headline portfolio size. Keep your withdrawal rate in the 3.5-4% range for the strongest historical track record.