By country

FIRE calculators built on your country's own rules

Most FIRE calculators quietly assume you are American. These do not. Each one runs on its own country's pension system, retirement accounts and currency, because the rules that decide when you can actually retire are national, not universal.

By Muhammad Tayyab Shabbir · Updated 4 September 2026

United KingdomState Pension, ISAs and SIPPs, with the pension access age splitting the plan in two.IndiaEPF, PPF and NPS, and why money locked until 58 forces a taxable bridge.AustraliaSuperannuation and the preservation age wall, plus the means-tested Age Pension.CanadaTFSA and RRSP, with CPP and OAS reducing what the portfolio must cover.IrelandState Pension at 66, and the eight-year deemed disposal that shapes Irish investing.SingaporeCPF locked until 55, CPF LIFE from 65, and the corpus that must sit outside both.New ZealandKiwiSaver plus NZ Super, which is universal and not means-tested.GermanyStatutory pension points, Abgeltungsteuer and the Vorabpauschale drag on ETFs.NetherlandsAOW, and the Box 3 wealth tax that quietly doubles the target.South AfricaThe two-pot system, tax-free savings, and rand currency risk.UAENo income tax at all, no state pension either, and end-of-service gratuity.PakistanHigh inflation as the dominant problem, EOBI, and the Voluntary Pension System.MalaysiaEPF and its 2024 three-account restructure, locked until 50 to 55.Coast FIRE in the UKThe UK guide: your number in pounds, the ISA and pension stack, and how the State Pension shrinks your target.Coast FIRE in CanadaThe Canadian guide: your number in CAD, the TFSA and RRSP stack, and how CPP and OAS shrink your target.

Why does a country-specific calculator matter?

The 4% rule travels well. Almost nothing else does. Two people with identical savings and identical spending can face very different retirement dates depending on where they live, and the reasons are structural rather than cultural.

When you can touch your own money. Australia's preservation age, Singapore's CPF lock until 55, Malaysia's EPF at 50, Ireland's pension access at 60, the UK's at 57. In every case the money exists but is unreachable, so early retirement depends on a bridge fund sitting outside the system.
What the state gives back. New Zealand pays NZ Super to everyone at 65 regardless of wealth, which meaningfully lowers the target. Australia means-tests the Age Pension so hard that most early retirees will not see it. South Africa's grant is means-tested to the point of irrelevance for this audience. The UAE offers expatriates nothing at all.
What the tax system takes while you wait. The Netherlands taxes the portfolio itself through Box 3 rather than taxing gains, which raises the number you need by a large margin. Germany's Vorabpauschale creates an annual drag on accumulating ETFs. Ireland's eight-year deemed disposal does something similar. None of these appear in a generic calculator.

Each calculator states its assumptions on the page and links the government source for every rule it relies on, so you can check the workings rather than trust them. If a figure could not be verified from a primary source, we left it out and said so.

Comparing countries rather than planning in one? The FIRE number by country study puts 162 countries on a single price-adjusted scale, and the US state study does the same across all 50 states and DC.

Common questions

Why can't I just use a US FIRE calculator?

Because the rules that decide when you can reach your own money are national rather than universal. Australia has a preservation age, Singapore locks CPF until 55, Malaysia's EPF opens at 50 and Ireland's pensions at 60. In each case the money exists but is unreachable, so an early retirement depends on a bridge fund sitting outside the system. A generic calculator can hand you a total that is arithmetically right and practically unreachable.

Do all the country calculators use the same math?

Yes. Every calculator here runs on one shared engine: your target is annual spending divided by your withdrawal rate, discounted back to today at your real return, where the real return is your nominal return minus inflation minus fees. What changes between countries is the currency, the state pension offset and the default assumptions. The formulas and defaults are set out in full on how our calculators work.

Which withdrawal rate do the country calculators use?

Most default to 4%, the rate that comes from Bengen's 1994 paper and the Trinity study that followed it. Some do not. The India calculator defaults to 3.5% and the Australia calculator to 3.75%. Every page exposes the rate as a slider so you can see what the assumption is doing to your target.

How current are the figures on each country page?

Each country page links the regulator or government department that sets each figure, so you can check whether it has moved since we wrote it. Contribution caps, access ages and state pension rates all change on their own national calendars. The constants that apply across the site, including the tax year 2026 United States retirement plan limits, are collected on how our calculators work.

Sources and further reading

The figures and rules on this page rest on the sources below, so you can check them rather than take our word for it.

Bengen, W. P., Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data, Journal of Financial Planning, 1994 (FPA reprint, March 2004, member access), the origin of the 4% rule
Cooley, Hubbard and Walz, Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable, AAII Journal, February 1998, the Trinity study
How our calculators work, the formulas, defaults and tax year 2026 constants behind every figure on this site