Terms of Service

By accessing or using Retirement Lab, you agree to these Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy. Do not use the website if you do not agree.

Retirement Lab provides hypothetical illustrations for general educational and planning purposes. It does not provide individualized financial, investment, tax, legal, accounting, actuarial, insurance, medical, or Social Security advice. It does not create an adviser-client, attorney-client, fiduciary, or other professional relationship.

Do not make a claiming, investment, withdrawal, tax, insurance, estate, employment, or retirement decision solely from a calculator result. Confirm Social Security estimates and eligibility with the Social Security Administration, tax matters with qualified tax professionals, plan rules with the relevant custodian or employer, and material decisions with appropriately licensed advisers.

Every result depends on assumptions supplied by the user and on simplified model rules. Investment returns, inflation, health costs, taxes, longevity, employment income, pensions, government benefits, laws, and personal circumstances can differ materially from the modeled values. Monte Carlo percentages describe outcomes within the selected mathematical model; they are not probabilities guaranteed to occur in the real world.

No result—including a “success” result, an ending balance, a depletion date, or a claiming-age ranking—is a promise, guarantee, or forecast of actual performance.

The calculators apply the retirement-benefit reduction and delayed-credit schedules, deemed-filing spousal excess benefits, survivor benefits with the widow(er)’s limit (the larger of the deceased worker’s reduced benefit or 82.5% of the primary insurance amount) and inherited delayed credits, an annual January cost-of-living adjustment, the retirement earnings test (whole-month withholding, the monthly test through the entered earnings-stop age, and recomputation of the reduction at full retirement age), and optional trust-fund stress scenarios based on the 2026 Trustees Report.

They are not official benefit estimates and do not model every exception or fact pattern, including disability benefits, child-in-care and family-maximum rules, the government pension offset and windfall-elimination history, divorced-spouse rules, retroactive filing, the January 1 birthday rule, benefit withholding for taxes or Medicare premiums, or administrative timing. Confirm any claiming decision with the Social Security Administration.

Retirement Lab contains two different tax models, and results from one should not be assumed to flow through the other.

The Roth conversion and tax tab is a detailed estimate of 2026 federal income tax for a single year. It applies the 2026 rate brackets, the standard deduction with the age-65 addition, the 2025–2028 senior deduction and its per-person phase-out, the taxable portion of Social Security under IRC §86, stacked 0/15/20% rates on qualified dividends and long-term gains, the 3.8% net investment income tax on investment income the user identifies, and the 2026 Medicare IRMAA tables (which determine 2028 premiums). It does not calculate the alternative minimum tax, tax credits, itemized-deduction limitations, capital-loss carryforwards, cost basis beyond the amounts entered, the pro-rata rule for non-deductible IRA basis, Roth five-year rules, ACA premium credits, the married-filing-separately rules for spouses who lived apart, or any state or local tax; the state field is a rough flat allowance only. Amounts are for tax year 2026 and are not automatically updated for later years.

The detailed household plan uses user-entered effective tax rates per account rather than a tax return. It does not calculate brackets, deductions, credits, provisional income, or IRMAA, and it does not reconcile to the Roth tab.

Required minimum distribution features apply the SECURE 2.0 start ages and the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, with an optional first-year April 1 deferral. They do not apply the Joint Life and Last Survivor table, inherited-account rules, the still-working exception, plan-aggregation rules, or qualified charitable distributions. Custodian rules, plan documents, contribution limits, penalties, exceptions, and current law must be verified independently.

You are responsible for the accuracy, appropriateness, and completeness of the information you enter; for interpreting outputs in context; for maintaining backups you need; and for protecting exported files and share links. Review all assumptions before relying on an illustration.

You may use the public calculator for lawful personal, household, educational, or professional illustration. You may not interfere with the website, attempt unauthorized access, distribute malicious code, overload the service, misrepresent an output as a guaranteed professional recommendation, or use the site in a way that violates applicable law or another person’s rights.

The website may be changed, corrected, suspended, or discontinued without advance notice. Features, assumptions, source links, and calculation methods may evolve. A locally saved or exported plan may not remain compatible with every future version, although reasonable migration logic may be provided.

Links to government agencies or other services are provided for convenience. Retirement Lab does not control those sites and does not guarantee that external information is complete, current, available, or applicable to your circumstances.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the website and all calculations are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, non-infringement, uninterrupted availability, or error-free operation.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the site’s operators and contributors will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for losses arising from investment performance, taxes, benefit decisions, retirement timing, data loss, service interruption, or reliance on a result. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

If a provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply to the extent permitted by law. Mandatory consumer protections and other non-waivable rights in your jurisdiction remain unaffected.

Questions about these terms may be sent to info@retiring.guide.