Retirement Hub
Retire on numbers, not hopes.
Six guides through the payout half of Indian retirement — NPS exits, EPF and EPS, PPF windows, SWP strategy, inflation maths and senior schemes — with two tools that solve what your corpus can actually pay you.
What this hub is — and what it isn't
- Rules-first. The December 2025 NPS amendment, the EPS formula and the PPF windows, each with its official source.
- Honest maths. The planner steps your income up with inflation; the corpus check solves the number to the rupee.
- Schemes compared, never ranked. Cost, tax, liquidity and inflation behaviour differ.
- No live rates or returns. Calculators run on numbers you enter — nothing here is a projection we stand behind.
The six guides
Every claim traced to PFRDA, EPFO, India Post, the DEA or the Income Tax Department.
NPS exit and withdrawal rules
The December 2025 amendment: 80% lump sum, 20% annuity minimum, SLW and SUR.
Read the guide →EPF withdrawal and pension (EPS)
Tax-free after five years, 8.25% for FY 2025-26, and the EPS formula at 58.
Read the guide →PPF rules: withdrawals, loans and extension
15 years, then 5-year blocks — the withdrawal and loan windows in the 2019 scheme text.
Read the guide →The SWP withdrawal strategy
Turning a mutual-fund corpus into income — sequence risk, tax drag, and the honest maths.
Read the guide →Inflation and real returns
Why 8% can be 2% — nominal, real and the withdrawal maths that must respect both.
Read the guide →Senior schemes: SCSS and post-office MIS
Quarterly income at 8.2%, the ₹30 lakh caps, and what the payout does not do.
Read the guide →Solve what your corpus can pay you
Two in-browser tools — nothing leaves your device.
Withdrawal planner
Income that steps up with inflation — see how long the corpus lasts, in nominal and today's rupees.
Open →Corpus check
The corpus your target income actually needs, solved to the rupee — cushion or shortfall.
Open →Flat SWP calculator
The level-withdrawal version, for comparing against the inflation-stepped plan.
Open →Corpus builder
Accumulation first: what monthly saving reaches a target corpus by 60.
Open →FAQs
Retirement questions we get asked
How big should my retirement corpus be?
It depends on three inputs only you can set: the annual income you want, the return your corpus will earn, and how long it must last. The corpus-check tool solves for the exact corpus a given income needs under your assumptions — including the inflation step-up a flat rule of thumb ignores.
Can I withdraw from NPS, EPF and PPF before retirement?
Partially, under different windows: NPS allows partial withdrawal up to 25% of your own contributions with 4-year intervals before 60 (3 years after) under the December 2025 amendment; EPF allows advances for illness, marriage/education and housing under the scheme's specified paragraphs; PPF allows loans in years 2–5 and one partial withdrawal a year after year five. Each advance shrinks the corpus that compounds later.
What is the safest way to turn a corpus into monthly income?
No payout escapes every risk: market corpora carry sequence risk, annuities carry issuer and inflation risk, and small-savings payouts carry inflation risk because they never step up. Workable plans usually combine them — near-term spending in debt schemes, a growth corpus for later years, and a withdrawal rate that survives a bad first decade. Run the tools on pessimistic inputs before committing.
Do the retirement calculators use live rates or returns?
No. The site has no live rates feed — every tool runs on the numbers you enter, monthly modelled, with withdrawals paid at month-end and stepped up by inflation once a year. Scheme rates printed in the guides are the notified figures as of the review date, each linked to its official source.
Which retirement scheme should I choose?
That question has no honest answer: EPF is compulsory where you are salaried, NPS trades liquidity for a low-cost corpus builder, PPF is a tax-free debt sleeve, and SCSS/MIS are income schemes with caps. Cost, tax, liquidity and inflation behaviour differ, so the right mix depends on your tax slab, age and needs — which is why nothing here is ranked.
How does the new NPS 80% lump-sum rule interact with tax?
PFRDA's December 2025 amendment allows up to 80% of the corpus as lump sum for non-government normal exits above ₹12 lakh, but the Income-tax Act exempts only 60% under section 10(12A) — the extra 20% is taxed at your slab, and the annuity is taxable as income. Taking more lump sum now means more tax now, not free money.
Sources
Reviewed 24 Sept 2026. Rates are notified quarterly and rules change — PFRDA, EPFO, India Post and the Department of Economic Affairs are the authority, and this hub links straight to them.
- PIB — PFRDA (Exits & Withdrawals under NPS) Amendment Regulations, 2025 (PRID 2206763, 19 Dec 2025)Non-government normal exit: up to 80% lump sum with at least 20% annuity when corpus exceeds ₹12 lakh; 100% lump sum (or SLW/SUR) when corpus is ₹8 lakh or less; graded lump sum up to ₹6 lakh with balance in SUR between ₹8–12 lakh; 15-year vesting or age 60 (whichever earlier) for All-Citizen entrants; partial-withdrawal intervals of 4 years before 60 and 3 years after, capped at 25% of own contributions; entry and exit allowed up to age 85; government sector stays at 60/40.
- PFRDA — Exits and Withdrawals under the National Pension System (Amendment) Regulations, 2025The amendment regulation text itself: exit structures, lump-sum/annuity splits, SLW and SUR definitions, vesting and partial-withdrawal rules.
- NPS Trust — Systematic Lump Sum Withdrawal (SLW) FAQ bookletHow SLW pays the lump-sum portion out at a chosen frequency and fund allocation at exit, instead of one transfer.
- PIB — EPFO Central Board Trustee meeting: 8.25% interest for FY 2025-26 (PRID 2234502)The 8.25% EPF interest rate for FY 2025-26 set at the CBT's 239th meeting (2 Mar 2026).
- EPFO — Employees' Pension Scheme 1995 (EPS) pagesTen years of eligible service for a pension from 58; member pension = pensionable salary (average of the last 60 months) × eligible service ÷ 70.
- India Post — Public Provident Fund Scheme, 2019 (rules text)PPF tenure and extension in 5-year blocks, the once-a-year partial withdrawal after five years capped at 50% of the referenced balance, loans in years 2–5 up to 25% of the second-preceding-year balance, and extension-withdrawal limits of 60% of the block-start balance.
- Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance — Small Savings quarterly interest-rate revisionsThe quarterly rate-notification series, including the Q2 FY 2026-27 revision order dated 30.06.2026 that kept PPF at 7.1% and SCSS at 8.2%.
- National Savings Institute — Interest rates on National Savings SchemesThe notified scheme-rate table: SCSS 8.2%, PPF 7.1% for the current quarter.
- CBDT — FAQs on the new capital-gains regime (via PIB, 24 Jul 2024, PRID 2036604)Post-23-Jul-2024 rules: listed-equity LTCG at 12.5% above the ₹1.25 lakh yearly exemption, 20% STCG on equity-oriented funds, and gains on debt/other funds taxed at slab regardless of holding period.
- Income Tax Department — Tax on long-term capital gainsThe statutory LTCG treatment used when modelling fund withdrawals: 12.5% without indexation for long-term equity-oriented gains above the yearly exemption.
- Income Tax Department — retirement-benefit and EPF interest taxability pagesWithdrawal after five years of continuous service is tax-free; interest on an employee's own yearly contribution above ₹2.5 lakh (₹5 lakh where there is no employer contribution) is taxable.