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Retirement Simulator

Monte Carlo projection across retirement destinations. Models Roth conversion strategy, each country's tax and visa rules, Social Security, and mortality for you and your spouse. Runs entirely in your browser.

Where could your money take you?

10 high-level questions to see where your money can take you.

1 · Retiring, or working from overseas?

2 · Who’s retiring?
3 · Ages today
4 · Stop working at
5 · Approximate Annual Income

Before tax. Zero if you have already stopped working. Bonuses, 401(k) and HSA amounts are addressed with the Deep Dive button above.

6 · Your US state
7 · Current Approximate Savings (excluding home)
8 · Monthly Social Security Income Estimate
9 · Monthly Discretionary Spending

Food, utilities, transportation, insurances, entertainment, child care, clothing, vehicle liabilities and maintenance, subscriptions, hobbies, travel, dining, etc.

10 · Your home

Can I live there?

Every destination side by side: whether you can live there full time, how long you can stay as a visitor, what the visa asks, healthcare, tax on your retirement income and the languages spoken. Tick what matters to you to narrow the list, then plan trial stays or a move for good on your timeline below. Trial stays follow each country's visitor rules – in the Schengen area, a US passport allows 90 days in any 180, counted across every Schengen country together – and the timeline won't let you plan a stay that breaks one. It totals what your trial stays cost: flights, a furnished rental, travel medical cover and any visa, on top of your home costs. The detail is in each playbook.

Loading the residency rules for every destination…

📅 Your timeline — where you will be, year by year: trial stays abroad, and the moves for good

Your timeline

Your timeline: stays abroad and moves
Fill in as much or as little as you like. 3 or 6 months: try a country, then come home — click a month to start a stay; click a stay to see what it costs (flights, a furnished rental, travel medical cover and any visa, on top of your US home; US taxes only). Move: Country 1 / Country 2: move there for good — click any month of a year and you move that January. Leave it empty and the plan stays in the US.
Uses one run.
For the household that moves from country to country with no US home. From the year you choose, the home is sold (or the lease ends), its costs and the utilities stop, and every month you are in the US is a furnished rental.

Deep Dive

Every input the simulator takes, section by section. Open only what matters to you: anything you leave keeps its default, and each field says whether you set it or it is a default.

📊 Your household and your money — who you are, what you earn, and what you have saved

Who you are

Household & Timeline
Controls federal tax brackets, standard deduction, LTCG thresholds, NIIT threshold, and Social Security taxability thresholds throughout the simulation. Qualifying Surviving Spouse uses the joint (MFJ) schedule; Head of Household has its own wider brackets and larger standard deduction than Single; Married Filing Separately uses the split schedule (half the joint bands) and, having lived with a spouse, is taxed on up to 85% of Social Security from the first dollar. If a spouse's death later triggers survivor mode, the tool switches to Single tax treatment automatically regardless of this setting -- this toggle is for households that file that way from day one. Choosing Single, Head of Household or Qualifying Surviving Spouse plans for one person: it removes the second person from the form — their ages, accounts, Social Security, pension, annuity and contribution fields all disappear, and nothing of theirs is modelled. There is no need to zero anything out by hand.
Used only to prorate salary/contributions/FICA/employer-health in the specific calendar year each of you actually retires — e.g. a November birthday means ~10 months of that year are still worked, not zero, while a January birthday works out to essentially zero months (the clean whole-year cutoff was already correct for that case). Every other age-based figure in this tool still switches cleanly at the whole-year boundary.
Employment income (salary, bonus, match, contributions, FICA, employer health) stops at this age plus the extra months — so "59 and 6 months" keeps you working half a year past your 59th birthday. Set months to 0 to retire exactly on the birthday. Household drawdown still begins in the calendar year you reach the whole-year age.
Household drawdown starts once you've BOTH retired — if one of you keeps working, the plan stays in accumulation mode for the household as a whole. Once retired, each of you needs your own marketplace health insurance policy until you hit Medicare (65) or move abroad — computed automatically per person per year (2026 unsubsidized ACA benchmark rates, age-banded: $350/mo under 41, $500/mo 41–50, $700/mo 51–60, $950/mo 61+), assuming your retirement income is too high to qualify for ACA subsidies.
After the first death, Social Security switches to the higher of the two benefits (the survivor benefit), and household spending drops to this share of the couple's budget.

What you earn

State income tax (while a US resident)
Check this to model establishing residency in a no-income-tax state (Florida, Texas, Tennessee, etc.) before the international move — state tax then stops from the year you move abroad, whatever you choose below — there is no longer a taxing state to be domiciled in. It does not reach back over the years before the move: those are taxed at the rate below, for the state you actually lived in. If you already live in a no-income-tax state, pick it in the dropdown above instead — that gives 0% for every year. With this checked, the domicile choice below makes no difference: the rate is already zero.
Picking your state sets this box from that state's own rule. When ticked, the state rate is applied to the federally taxable share of your benefits (the same share the IRS worksheet produces), with no retirement-income exclusion against it. Most states that tax benefits only do so above an income line, which this one switch cannot model, so it is ticked in those states to be safe — untick it if your income in retirement stays below the line shown.
Moving abroad does not end state income tax by itself. States tax on domicile, and domicile persists until you establish a new one somewhere else — a home that stays available to you, a driver's licence, voter registration or a vehicle registration can each keep it alive. State regimes also generally credit tax paid to other states, not to foreign countries, so a domicile you keep can mean paying your state and your destination on the same income, with no offset. That is why this defaults to “state tax continues”. Choose “sever domicile” only if you will actually do it, and confirm what your state requires — the aggressive states are strict about proof.
Georgia's 2026 flat rate under HB 463.
State rates and retirement-income rules here are estimates to confirm with your state, not researched citations — pick your state to prefill a starting point, then adjust to your actual situation. Exclusions apply only to Traditional IRA/401(k) withdrawals (RMDs and discretionary combined); Roth withdrawals are already state-tax-free. State tax stops once you've moved abroad and established non-residency; if you're staying in the US it applies every year.
Salary, Side Income & 401(k) Match
Each of you earns salary/bonus and accrues match only up to your own retirement age above — the household stops accumulating once you're both retired. Your retirement ages (in the Household & Timeline section) are what set how long each of you works; keep working past the move year and those years are earned abroad. The match is added directly to that person's Traditional 401(k), on top of the employee contribution below. Bonus splits 50/50 into cash and brokerage each year. Salary and side income both count toward the Social Security earnings test (in the Social Security section) for anyone who claims before full retirement age.
Each person's side income is taxed as earned income: self-employment tax (both halves, half of it deductible) or, for a part-time job, the employee's share of FICA — sharing the Social Security wage base with any salary; federal income tax, with the 20% qualified business income deduction on self-employment profit from work done in the US; and state tax while state tax applies. After the move it is pay earned where you live, taxed exactly as pay earned there the same way: the country's tax and contributions where its figures are published, its contributions instead of US payroll tax where the US has a social-security agreement with it, the foreign earned income exclusion (one cap per person, shared with any salary) or the foreign tax credit, and no business income deduction. Not included: retirement-plan contributions from it (Solo 401(k), SEP), the self-employed health-insurance deduction, and any higher Social Security benefit it earns. Enter profit after business expenses; a loss is not modelled. Side income runs for the years set here whatever is chosen for pay abroad below.
Once you've moved abroad, US citizens who keep working can exclude their foreign earned income (wages/salary — not investment income, pensions, or withdrawals) from federal income tax, up to this cap per working spouse. The cap inflation-indexes forward from today at your home-country rate (the real FEIE limit is ~$130,000 for 2025). Where the country you live in taxes your pay, the simulation compares the exclusion with the foreign tax credit in your first year working there and keeps whichever costs less (you cannot switch back and forth: dropping the exclusion bars it for five years). A planning approximation: the exclusion is applied to your after-401(k) taxable wages rather than gross, and assumes you meet the physical-presence/bona-fide-residence test.
After the move, this decides the payroll tax on your pay. None: no salary, bonus or 401(k) match while living abroad — pay stops at the move even if the retirement age above is later (side income is separate and unaffected). Self-employed: US self-employment tax (both halves); an employee: the employee's share of FICA. Where the US has a social-security agreement with the country you live in, the US charges neither and that country's own contributions apply instead; without one, the US keeps its payroll tax and the country may charge its own too. The country's income tax on your pay is included where its figures are published — the result names any country where it is not yet. In a US territory the territory's income tax replaces the federal one on local pay, and US payroll tax continues. Before the move, pay is taxed as it is today.
Social Security
Enter each benefit at FRA (67) — the tool automatically applies the standard SSA early/delayed adjustment (roughly -30% at 62, -13% at 65, +24% at 70) based on the claiming age above, so you don't need to hand-recalculate the dollar amount every time you test a different claiming age.
The earnings test only reduces a benefit claimed before FRA, and only by the claimant's own earnings — their pay and side income, both entered under Salary, Side Income & 401(k) Match — over the annual limit ($24,480 in 2026; $65,160 in the year FRA is reached). IRA/Roth withdrawals never count against it. The benefit withheld is paid back as a higher benefit from FRA on: Social Security recomputes the early-claiming reduction without the months withheld, and the plan does the same.
Social Security benefits get their own annual cost-of-living adjustment — not automatically the same as general inflation, so it's a separate dial.
Per the 2026 Trustees Report: the OASI (retirement) trust fund is projected to deplete in Q4 2032 — about 6 years out — at which point payable benefits drop to 78% of scheduled amounts unless Congress acts. Combined with the disability fund, that's 2034 at 83%. Try 100% (assumes Congress fixes it), 78% (today's official retirement-fund projection), or 50% (a harsher stress test) at year 6.
Pension Income
Optional, off by default. Applies to you (the "yours" person throughout this tool) -- if it's your spouse's pension instead, swap which of you is entered as the primary person elsewhere in the form, since this attaches to that slot specifically.
Most private-sector pensions pay a fixed amount with no cost-of-living adjustment, unlike Social Security -- 0% is the realistic default for most. Government/union pensions sometimes do include a COLA; set this higher if yours does. COLA only starts accruing once the pension actually begins paying (same fix we applied to Social Security), not from today.
Taxed as fully taxable ordinary income at the federal level (no partial-taxability formula like Social Security gets), stacked on top of any self-employment/side income for that year's marginal bracket. At the state level, it draws on the same Georgia retirement-income exclusion used for Traditional withdrawals -- computed independently for the pension rather than sharing a combined pool with conversions/withdrawals in the same year, so if you also have a large Roth conversion or Traditional withdrawal in the same year as pension income, the exclusion could be modestly double-counted between them; a real, but usually small, simplification. Stops if you're the one who passes away first (no separate survivor-annuity election modeled); doesn't apply once you've moved abroad and established non-residency, same as the Traditional withdrawal exclusion.
Annuities
Guaranteed lifetime/period income from an annuity, entered per person. Modeled as fully taxable ordinary income (like the pension above). Payments begin at the start age, grow by the COLA once they begin, and — if you set a survivor percentage — continue to the surviving spouse at that share after the annuitant dies. Off by default; leave the monthly amount at 0 and it has no effect.
Stock Options, Severance & One-Time Income
One-time or scheduled windfalls — a severance package, RSU vesting or stock-option exercise, a sign-on bonus, a business sale, an inheritance. Each lands in the year you set (0 = this year), taxed by its treatment: Ordinary (severance, RSUs, NQSOs — taxed like wages at your marginal rate), Capital gains (long-held stock/options — LTCG + NIIT), or Tax-free (e.g. an inheritance or already-taxed cash). The net lands as income that year, reducing what must be withdrawn. Leave empty and nothing changes.

Savings & investments

HSA (Health Savings Account)
2026 IRS family limit is $8,750 combined, plus a $1,000 catch-up for each spouse who is 55 or older — so up to $10,750 combined once both qualify. Grows invested like your other accounts. Withdrawals are modeled as tax-free (assumes they're used for genuine qualified medical expenses, which is unrestricted even for care received abroad) and drawn after cash/brokerage but before touching Roth, to preserve Roth as the longest-lasting bucket. A deceased spouse's HSA rolls into the survivor's own HSA tax-free, same as the IRAs.
Pre-Retirement Savings
When checked (the default), each of you contributes the age-based IRS max to your Traditional 401(k)/IRA every working year — $24,500 base (2026), $32,500 at 50+, $35,750 in the 60–63 window — on top of any match, held flat at 2026 levels. Uncheck it to set your own amounts below (per person, per year): split between Traditional (pre-tax) and Roth (post-tax) 401(k), plus any extra taxable-brokerage savings. Traditional + Roth combined are capped at the IRS limit for your age; Roth and brokerage contributions are funded from take-home pay.
Each of you carries your own separate employer plan (not one shared family plan) — real payroll deductions while that specific person is still working, far cheaper than the individual marketplace bridge premium that kicks in once each of you individually retires. Stops for each person the moment they retire, independent of the other's working status.
Medicare is not free. Once you turn 65 in the US this is what you pay per person each month — Part B plus a Medigap or Part D supplement (~$330 is a realistic all-in figure for 2025). Charged per person for every year either of you is 65 or older and still in the US, taking over from the pre-65 marketplace bridge; a still-working 65+ person stays on their employer plan above instead. Moving abroad replaces it with your destination coverage. Rises ~5%/yr on its own Medicare-premium track, below the broad healthcare-inflation rate used elsewhere. Set to 0 to assume Medicare Part A only.
Starting Balances & Growth
IRAs are individually owned by law, so Traditional/Roth are split by person. Brokerage and cash can be held individually or jointly.
How much of today's brokerage balance is unrealized gain vs. original cost basis — sets the starting point for capital-gains tax on future withdrawals. Adjust to your actual cost basis if you know it.
Cash sits in savings/money-market yield, not market-invested — much lower return, much lower volatility, and it's the first thing spent down each year.
In any year income exceeds spending, the surplus first tops the cash account up to this many months of that year's expenses (a tax-free liquidity buffer, spent down first). Anything beyond the buffer is invested in the brokerage, where it earns the market return rather than the cash yield. Set to 0 to send all surplus straight to the brokerage.
Applies only to the currency reserve — the account the opportunistic conversions to your destination's currency actually buy into (see FX section below). A drag taken off that account's return each year. Regular USD brokerage, Traditional/Roth/HSA/cash aren't charged this.
Investment Risk & Asset Mix
Optional calculator: set a starting allocation and a target allocation across six asset classes, plus how many years it takes to glide from one to the other. Once checked, the simulation recomputes the blended return and volatility fresh every single year based on where that year falls along the glide path -- not just once at the start. When unchecked, this whole section has no effect and the "Expected annual return" and "Return volatility" sliders in the Starting Balances & Growth section stay exactly as you set them. Note: volatility blends as a simple weighted average, which is a simplification -- real diversification usually reduces total portfolio risk somewhat below this average.
Market assumptions — start from a named belief about long-run returns, then edit any field.
Historical uses the actual 1871–2022 US record; Optimistic uses the last 50 years; Cautious is this tool’s long-standing conservative default. All three are starting points — every field below is yours to change.
Starting mix (today)
Starting total: 100%  |  Starting blend: —% return, —% volatility
Target mix (once the glide path finishes)
Target total: 100%  |  Target blend: —% return, —% volatility
The allocation (and therefore the blended return/volatility) shifts a little further toward the target every year, reaching it fully at this many years from now and then holding steady. A common real-world pattern is to glide toward a more conservative mix as retirement approaches and progresses -- the defaults above do that (starting more growth-oriented, ending more capital-preservation-oriented), but nothing stops you from setting a flat or even more aggressive target instead.
Actually shifting the mix each year toward the target means selling some assets and buying others -- bid-ask spread, any trading costs, and (for funds) redemption/purchase costs. Charged only on the portion of the portfolio actually being reallocated that year (bigger early in the glide, shrinking toward zero once the target is reached and there's nothing left to trade), taken as a drag on that year's return. 0.15% is a reasonable default for a mix of $0-commission ETFs/stocks and lower-liquidity CDs/bonds -- adjust if your actual accounts run cheaper or pricier.
These are estimates, and they are not yours. They are pre-filled from published 10-year forward-looking capital market assumptions (blended from Vanguard, J.P. Morgan, BNY and Schwab, plus current CD and Treasury rates) so the model has somewhere to start — not because they describe your portfolio, your costs, or your view of the next thirty years. Replace them with your own. Every result on this page moves more with these fourteen numbers than with any country's tax rate, so leaving them at our defaults means accepting somebody else's forecast as the foundation of your plan. If you work with an adviser, these are the figures to ask them for.
Returns are nominal and annual; volatility is the annual standard deviation. The model draws each year from a fat-tailed distribution around these, so a higher volatility widens the range of outcomes rather than just the average. Set a class you do not hold to any value — a 0% allocation ignores it.
Inflation
The rate the plan assumes for the whole projection once the near-term forecast below runs out. Yours to set. For scale: realised US CPI ran about 2.5% over the last thirty years and 2.8% since 1983, and the median 30-year window since 1871 was 2.7% — so a 3.4% assumption sits above roughly three quarters of the historical record. That is deliberately cautious, not a measurement.
A single rate for thirty years assumes the next five look like the thirtieth, which is the one thing nobody forecasting inflation believes. Set a near-term rate and a horizon and the plan uses it for that many years before reverting to the long-run figure above. Leave the horizon at 0 for a single flat rate — that is the default and it changes nothing. Auto-fills from the published forecast when one has been sourced; it is a forecast either way, and forecasts are wrong.
Inflation after the move is set per destination, alongside each country's currency & economic assumptions (see Retirement Country 1 and Country 2 below).
Roth Conversion Strategy
Recalibrated for a low-volatility bond/CD portfolio — -10% (the default for a stock-heavy portfolio) would almost never trigger against 6% volatility, silently skipping conversions and tax-loss harvesting for the whole retirement.
Conversions run each triggering year from the start age until either the stop age or the move (whichever comes first). Leave "Keep converting until fully converted" checked (the default) to ignore the stop age and keep converting every triggering year until the Traditional balance is emptied or you move — set a stop age and uncheck it to halt conversions earlier (e.g. before an IRMAA or ACA-subsidy income cliff).
Tax on each conversion is computed against the actual 2026 MFJ federal bracket schedule ($32,200 standard deduction; 10%–37% brackets, indexed for inflation each year), stacked on top of that year's other ordinary income (RMDs + an assumed 85% taxable share of Social Security) — not a flat rate. The tax owed is withheld directly from the converted amount itself (so less lands in the Roth than the trigger amount), and if the person converting is under 59.5, that withheld portion is also hit with the 10% early-withdrawal penalty, paid separately from cash — same as it would be in reality, since money used to pay the tax never actually reached the Roth. Conversions only happen before you move abroad.
🇺🇸 Your life before you move — Origin: United States

Property & vehicles

Current US Home or Rental
Check "I currently rent" and the owned-home fields below (value, mortgage, appreciation, housing cost, sale) are ignored — instead the monthly rent above is charged every pre-move year (or for life if you stay in the US), inflating at the home-country rate. Nothing lands in brokerage from a home sale.
Charged on top of the housing costs above, every year you still own this home, inflating with US housing inflation. Kept separate rather than folded into those figures because it is the line people forget, it does not stop at mortgage payoff, and in a condo or co-op it can be the largest single carrying cost. Leave at 0 for a house with no association.
Sold in the move year (or, if staying in the US, in whichever year long-term care begins for either of you — assumes you'd downsize into care around then). Mortgage is assumed paid down on a straight-line schedule to zero by the payoff year. Net proceeds = appreciated value, minus remaining mortgage balance, minus the sale-cost percentage. If moving abroad, proceeds fund the destination home purchase first; any leftover — or, if staying in the US, the full net proceeds — land in brokerage as cash. Housing cost is charged every year until the home is sold: flat at the "until payoff" figure (fixed-rate P&I dominates) through the mortgage payoff year, then drops to just taxes/insurance, which inflate at the home-country rate from that point on.
Only applies when moving abroad. Keep the home, rent it out for income, and sell it in a year you choose instead of at the move. Because there's no sale at the move, the destination purchase is funded from your investment accounts (the same as if you rented in the US). While rented, the home keeps its carrying costs (taxes/insurance, HOA, and mortgage P&I until payoff), and net income = rent, minus the management fee, minus expected maintenance, minus those carrying costs — a negative year (costs above rent) is shown honestly.
Additional Homes (rental / second properties)
Add any properties beyond the primary US home and the destination home (set in the Retirement Country 1 section) — a rental, a vacation place, a second home abroad. Each one appreciates, carries an all-in monthly cost (taxes + insurance + maintenance + any mortgage payment), can earn net rental income, and is either sold in a year you choose (net proceeds land in your brokerage) or held for life. Enter every amount in US dollars. Pick USD for a US-dollar property, or Local for one priced in your destination's currency: the plan converts your dollar figures to that currency at Country 1's exchange rate, shows the local amount beside each one, and lets its cost move with the exchange rate like your other local costs. Leave this empty and nothing changes.
Vehicles — US
Every vehicle you own or lease in the US — the cars you drive before any move. For each: whether it's Owned or Leased, the monthly payment (loan or lease) and how many years of payments remain, and — for an owned car — its current value and loan balance so its equity (value − loan) lands in your brokerage when it's sold. Owned cars also carry insurance, any registration and compulsory-insurance charge, routine + major maintenance, and a replacement purchase each cycle; a lease is just its payment, which includes its insurance, and it runs for its “Payments left” years and then ends — the car is returned and the payment stops (leave it 0 for an ongoing, renewing lease). A lease bought out at its term becomes an owned car and carries insurance from then on. A US car is cashed out for its equity when you leave the US at the first move; any car can also be sold in a chosen Sell year. Costs pause while anyone in the household is in long-term care. Cars for a destination country go in that country's own Vehicles section below.

What you spend

US Cost of Living (monthly, $ — while still in the US, pre-move)
Many US suburbs are thin on fixed-route transit, so this is mostly occasional rideshare rather than a monthly pass.
Catch-all for everything not itemized above — subscriptions, gifts, personal care. Health premiums are excluded here since those are already modeled separately in the US health-bridge section.
Monthly total: —/mo. Utilities, water/sewer/trash, cell phone, and Wi-Fi are searched national averages; groceries is your stated actual spend; dining, gardening, pet care, transit, leisure, clothing, and misc are estimates — adjust any of these to your actual current spending. This set applies every year until the move; the destination set below takes over from the move year forward.
Custom Monthly Expenses
Four open slots for anything not already covered above — name each one and set a monthly amount. Applies every year of the simulation (both before and after any move), inflating at the same rate as the rest of your cost of living. Leave the amount at 0 and it has no effect.
Out-of-Pocket Medical & Dental
Out-of-pocket costs beyond whatever insurance premium (ACA bridge, Medicare supplement, or post-move supplemental/public coverage) is already modeled above — routine copays, annual deductible exposure, and typical office visits, plus dental and vision, which are rarely fully covered by any of those. Charged per person, every year either of you is alive, whatever your location. Glasses charged once every 2 years rather than annually, since that's the typical replacement cycle. All four inflate at the same healthcare-specific rate as the insurance premiums above, not general inflation. The annual out-of-pocket maximum caps the medical+dental+vision total each year (every real system has one — a US ACA plan runs ~$9,000, and many public-plus-supplemental systems abroad leave residents with far less); the cap rises with healthcare inflation. Set it to 0 for no cap. Defaults are a reasonable middle-of-the-road estimate for two people with insurance in place — raise them if you tend to run higher on any of these.
Vacations (US, pre-move)
Steady-state travel budget while still in the US, every year until the move. Your first retirement country's post-move travel budget is set under Retirement Country 1. Separate from the one-time relocation-era travel splurge.
Relocation-Era Travel Splurge
One-off or multi-year travel splurges — for example a big trip 3 years from now and another at 8 years. Each is an extra annual travel spend (USD) that runs for the number of years you set, starting in the year you choose (0 = this year). Add as many as you like; leave empty for none.
Family Gifts & Inheritance
Money you hand to children or family while you are alive. This is the opposite direction from the gift above, and the plan treats it as what it is: a spending line that reduces what you have. It is not a goal the plan scores you against — this tool does not measure you against a target or tell you how to reach one.
The amount US federal law lets you give each person each year without it counting against anything. It ships unset, because we have not verified this year's figure — it is indexed annually and a stale number here would be worse than none. Set it from the IRS's own published figure and the plan will show how much of your giving fits inside it.

Going over it does not create a tax bill, and the plan does not pretend otherwise. Gifts above the exclusion are reported on Form 709 and draw down your lifetime exemption; tax is only due once that is exhausted, which for most households never happens. The plan deducts every dollar you give either way — the exclusion changes the paperwork, not the cash.
Both add directly to brokerage, not inflated or FX-converted — a fixed nominal dollar amount arriving in the year specified. Set either to $0 to exclude it.

When you move

Moves & timing
Where you move, and when, is set on Your timeline at the top of the form: Move 1 takes you from the US to Retirement Country 1, and an optional Move 2 to Retirement Country 2, the final modeled destination.
🇫🇯 Retirement Country 1 — your first destination and everything specific to it

Where you're going

Retirement Country
A regular, documented withdrawal plan from your brokerage/retirement accounts — this counts toward the destination country's visa income requirement alongside Social Security (consulates generally accept pension statements, Social Security statements, and investment-income records together, not just one source). Size it to cover your actual living expenses net of Social Security rather than padding it. It's a fixed planning input you can adjust — real spending drifts with inflation, and your income needs shift once a spouse's Social Security begins.
Country Tax Rules
US federal tax on Traditional withdrawals, RMDs, and Roth conversions is computed from the real 2026 MFJ bracket schedule (not a flat rate) — see the Roth Conversion section above for the mechanics. Americans owe this no matter where they live in retirement.
Applies to the gain portion of brokerage sales after you've moved (pre-move, this is always 0 — you're still a US resident). In some countries this reflects social charges most sources treat as non-creditable against US tax even under the treaty — a genuinely contested area, so treat this as an estimate, not certainty. Auto-fills per country.
This one is genuinely unresolved, and both answers are defensible. A withdrawal from a US IRA or 401(k) by a US citizen is US-source income, and the US foreign tax credit generally wants foreign-source income — so whether your destination may tax those withdrawals at all turns on a treaty resourcing article, and the treaties differ country by country. Rather than pick one for you, this shows you both: run it each way and you will see the spread your own answer sits inside. Which one applies to you is a question for a cross-border tax consultation — this tool cannot answer it and does not try to.
Several destinations run an optional regime for foreign retirees that replaces the normal schedule — such as a flat-rate scheme or a special pensioner-visa status. These are elections or visa statuses you hold, not automatic, so the plan only applies one if you say you have it. Options here change with the destination.
For remittance-based systems — used by some destinations — tax attaches only to income actually brought into the country, not to what stays in your US accounts. If you fund part of your spending from money already held locally, or leave withdrawals offshore, lower this. Ignored entirely by destinations that tax on a worldwide or territorial basis, so it is safe to leave at 100%.
For US territories only. A bona-fide resident of Puerto Rico under Act 60 pays 0% on capital gains that accrue after establishing residency — modeled here as a reduction in the US federal LTCG/NIIT on realized gains once you've moved (100% = fully exempt). Auto-filled per destination: Puerto Rico is 100%; Guam, the USVI, the CNMI and American Samoa mirror the US tax code, so they stay 0% at baseline. A planning approximation — it exempts all realized gains post-move, not just the post-residency slice, and assumes bona-fide residency is established. Zero for every non-territory destination.
A few countries tax your assets every year, not just your income. The Netherlands' Box 3 is the prime example — a levy on savings and investments (brokerage, Roth, cash; your Traditional/401(k) is treated as a pension and excluded). It's charged on the balance above a per-person exemption, once you're resident. Enter an effective annual rate (the Netherlands' notional-return system works out to roughly 1.5–2.2%/yr on investments) and the per-person exempt amount. Auto-filled per country; 0 for everywhere without a wealth tax.
Costa Rica Visa & Healthcare
CAJA (public healthcare and pension) charges residents a share of their declared income on the 2026 voluntary scale: from 7.05% at the lowest band to 19.11% at the highest, and 13.77% for a household declaring about $1,600–3,100 a month — applied here as an ongoing annual cost once you've moved.

Property & vehicles

Home Purchase in the New Country
Check "Rent instead of buy" and the purchase price, closing costs, AC install, property tax, insurance and maintenance below are all skipped — instead the monthly rent above (entered in USD, converted to local currency and then FX-adjusted and inflating at the destination rate) is charged from the move. Any proceeds from selling your US home stay invested in brokerage.
Financing (if buying — leave mortgage at 0 to pay all cash)
Only the down payment (price − mortgage) plus closing costs comes out of your accounts at purchase; the balance is paid down over the term and any remaining balance is netted from the sale. Country mortgage rules, average rates, terms and closing costs will prefill here as we research each country.
Entered in USD, converted to local currency at the same everyday rate as your other destination costs and inflating at the destination rate. Auto-fills per country where we have a benchmark — where we do not, it stays 0 and is marked unresearched rather than guessed, because a condo fee invented for you is worse than one you enter yourself. It matters most in exactly the dense-city markets people pick for condos.
Closing costs (registration, legal fees, transfer taxes, and in some countries notary fees) vary widely — often 3–5% of price, but as high as 7–8% where transfer taxes on an existing home are heavy. A genuinely large, easy-to-forget one-time cost, paid on top of the sticker price at purchase and funded the same way as the purchase itself. Auto-fills per country.
Many existing homes abroad don't have AC installed. Added as a one-time cost at the same time as the home purchase, funded the same way (US home sale proceeds, or the brokerage waterfall if the sale doesn't fully cover it).
Property-tax rates vary widely by country — from near 0% on a primary residence in some places to roughly 1% of value in others, and they can vary a lot by locality. Auto-fills per country.
Home-insurance rates vary by country — often around 0.2–0.4% of value, and cheaper in some markets. Auto-fills per country.
The standard planning rule of thumb (~1%/yr) regardless of country — adjust up for an older property or one with a pool.
Only applies when you buy here and have a Country 2 move set. Keep the Country-1 home, rent it out for income from the second move, and sell it in a year you choose instead of at the move. While rented it keeps its carrying costs (taxes/insurance, HOA, and mortgage P&I until payoff), and net income = rent, minus the management fee, minus expected maintenance, minus those carrying costs — a negative year (costs above rent) is shown honestly.
Vehicles — Country 1
Every vehicle you'll own or lease in Country 1 after the first move. A car added here is pegged to Country 1 — its costs are in Country-1 currency, and its equity is cashed out when you leave Country 1 at the second move (or in a chosen Sell year). Same per-car choices as the US list above.

Currency & inflation

Currency & Exchange Rate (FX)
You enter every destination cost in US dollars; this section controls how those dollars are converted to your destination's currency and how much exchange-rate movement helps or hurts the plan over time.
Auto-set per country when you change the country above. The rate is US dollars per unit of the local currency. It is 1 only where costs are in US dollars. A currency pegged to the dollar has 0% volatility, so no exchange-rate risk; a floating currency carries its own.
Off by default — turn it on and run again to see the difference. Each year it buys only what next year's living costs abroad (your cost-of-living list above, at next year's prices) still need, less what is already in the reserve, at this year's rate. It buys only in a year the rate is at or below your target; otherwise next year is paid at next year's rate, as with the strategy off. Before the move that means once, in the year before you go. The dollars come from cash first, then from selling brokerage, taxed like any other sale. The target is a percentage of that currency's typical rate, so 93% means "about 7% cheaper than normal." A USD-pegged destination, or staying in the US, has no reserve.
A modest bank/card spread on ordinary day-to-day conversions (groceries, bills, the maid/chef, everything routine) — separate from the currency-reserve mechanic above, which already has its own fee. Real-world this is minimizable with the right multi-currency accounts, so treat 1% as a reasonable default rather than a floor.
Inflation after the move
Drawn fresh each year, uniformly between the low and high bound — not a single fixed rate. Auto-fills per country — typically around 1%–3%. Some countries' recent readings have run near zero or negative, but that's an unusually low stretch, not a 40-year baseline, and a single flat 0% assumption understates how much a bad run of years could cost. Widen or narrow the band, or set low=high for a fixed rate like before.

What you spend there

Destination Cost of Living (monthly, in USD, post-move)
Combined monthly public-transit cost (train / metro / bus passes) for the household. Vehicles are modeled in the Vehicles section — add a row there for each car the household needs. Only applies from the move year forward — see the US section above for the pre-move figure.
Catch-all for everything not itemized above — private insurance top-up, subscriptions, gifts, personal care.
Monthly total: —/mo USD — each line prefills by scaling the US figures above to this country's cost level (shown in USD), and is fully editable. Enter dollars; the engine converts to local currency at your exchange rate and it moves with the same yearly rate as everything else once you've moved. Applies only from the move year forward; see the US section above for the pre-move figure.
Custom Monthly Expenses (in this country, post-move)
Your first retirement country's own custom expenses, applied from the move year on. These start as a copy of your US Custom Monthly Expenses — leave them and they behave exactly as before; change any to model a cost that's different once you live here. (Labels follow your US ones.)
Out-of-Pocket Medical & Dental (in this country, post-move)
Your first retirement country's own out-of-pocket medical costs, applied from the move year on. These start as a copy of your US Out-of-Pocket Medical & Dental — leave them and results are unchanged; change any to reflect what care costs where you'll live. (The premium is set separately in Post-Move Health Insurance.)
Vacations (in this country, post-move)
A steady-state travel budget for every year you live in your first retirement country. Your pre-move US budget is set under Vacations (US); the one-time relocation-era travel splurge is separate.

Health & long-term care

Long-Term Care
"Regular" \u2248 assisted living; "full-time" \u2248 private-room skilled nursing. Rough US medians (2026) run about $6,300 / $11,000/mo; many destinations abroad are far lower, often $1,300–3,000/mo. Auto-fills per country, adjust for the specific facility tier you'd expect.
You: regular-tier care (assisted living) for the first 5 years from onset (age 85\u201389), then full-time specialized care from age 90 on.
Each simulation run draws independently for each of you against this probability — roughly half of 65-year-olds are estimated to eventually need some paid long-term care, so this shows up as a spread across runs rather than a certainty in every one. Ignored if "until death" above is checked.
Modeled as an added cost on top of normal spending (a simplification — in reality some regular living costs would be offset once someone moves into care).
Post-Move Health Insurance
Private/international coverage or a public-system top-up layered on top of (or instead of) the local public system — commonly $150–500/mo depending on age and plan tier. Where a country's public health contribution is mandatory, that is handled separately; this is the optional supplemental layer most expats add on top. Scales down for under-65 and up further for 75+, same shape as the US bridge bands. Auto-fills per country — set to 0 if you'd rely on the public system alone.
Applies to both the pre-Medicare US bridge premium and any post-move supplemental premium above — healthcare costs have historically outpaced general inflation (retiree health premiums in some countries rose 4.7%/8.1%/6% in the three years through 2025, for reference).
Some countries levy a flat charge per household just to access the public healthcare system, separate from the supplemental top-up above. Charged once per household per year (not per person), starting the year public coverage begins, and rises with the same healthcare-specific inflation rate as the premiums above. Set to 0 for countries without an equivalent mandatory access fee. Auto-fills per country.

Settling in

Relocation & Visa Costs
Ongoing residency-permit renewals, gestor/immigration-lawyer help, translations, and related admin — the yearly upkeep on whatever residency or visitor visa your destination requires. Paid every year once you've moved, growing with general inflation. Auto-fills per country.
Some residency programmes require you to lock up capital rather than show income — some residency-by-deposit programmes work this way. The plan takes the required amount out of cash and brokerage when you move and holds it aside: it is still your money and still counts toward what you leave behind, but you cannot spend it, so it cannot keep you from running out. Only the interest it earns is available, and only if the account pays any. Turn this off if you are entering on a route with no deposit.
Interest the locked deposit pays, if any. Credited to cash each year, so it is spendable — the principal stays locked. Leave at 0 if the deposit earns nothing, which is the safe assumption unless you have confirmed otherwise.
International moving costs for a partial household shipment — furniture, belongings — separate from the relocation-era travel splurge above, which is discretionary travel, not moving logistics. Paid once, in your move year.
International pet transport, health certificates, and any required quarantine — set to 0 if not applicable. Paid once, in your move year.
Live-In Household Staff
Full-time live-in domestic help including mandatory social-security contributions and benefits — roughly $600–800/mo base in many countries, this defaults 15% above that. In higher-wage countries, minimum-wage rules plus mandatory employer social charges can put even one 35-hour/week worker's total cost far higher, before any live-in premium. Set to 0 if not part of the plan. Stops automatically the moment either of you enters assisted living — the facility takes over cooking and cleaning at that point, so this and long-term care are never paid simultaneously.
Many countries legally require a year-end bonus of about one month's salary/year (~$690–920 at the defaults above) — this defaults to 2x that legal minimum. Paid once a year, on top of the monthly amount above, modeled as a single year-end lump sum for simplicity (the real payments are typically split across the year). Same stop condition as the monthly cost: ends once either of you enters assisted living.
🌎 Retirement Country 2 — your second destination (optional)

Where you're going

Retirement Country 2
Leave this as “none” for a single-destination plan — everything below stays inert. Pick a country and it auto-fills from that country’s researched figures, and the plan moves you there after your years in Country 1.
The Country-2 move lands this many years after you arrive in Country 1 (so year = Move 1 year + this). Country 2 is the final modeled destination.
Country Tax Rules (Country 2)
Applies to the gain portion of brokerage sales while you live in Country 2. Auto-filled from the country you pick above.
For US territories only (e.g. Puerto Rico under Act 60 = 100%). Zero for every non-territory destination.
A few countries tax your assets every year (the Netherlands' Box 3 is the prime example). Auto-filled per country; 0 for everywhere without a wealth tax.
Costa Rica Visa & Healthcare (Country 2)
CAJA (public healthcare and pension) charges residents a share of their declared income on the 2026 voluntary scale: from 7.05% at the lowest band to 19.11% at the highest, and 13.77% for a household declaring about $1,600–3,100 a month — applied here as an ongoing annual cost once you've moved to Country 2. Defaults to your Country-1 CAJA figures; edit for a Country-2-specific rate or declared income.

Property & vehicles

Home Purchase in Country 2
Check "Rent instead of buy" and the purchase price, closing costs, AC install, property tax, insurance and maintenance below are all skipped — instead the monthly rent above (in USD) is charged from the Country-2 move.
Financing (if buying — leave mortgage at 0 to pay all cash)
Only the down payment (price − mortgage) plus closing costs comes out of your accounts at purchase; the balance is paid down over the term and any remaining balance is netted from the sale.
Years from today the Country-2 home is bought. Defaults near your Country-2 move year.
Vehicles — Country 2
Every vehicle you'll own or lease in Country 2 after the second move. A car added here is pegged to Country 2 — its costs are in Country-2 currency, and its equity is cashed out in a chosen Sell year. Same per-car choices as the lists above.

Currency & inflation

Currency & Exchange Rate (FX) — Country 2
You enter every Country-2 cost in US dollars; this controls how those dollars convert to Country 2's currency and how much exchange-rate movement helps or hurts the plan.
Auto-set per country when you change Country 2 above. The rate is US dollars per unit of the local currency. It is 1 only where costs are in US dollars. A currency pegged to the dollar has 0% volatility, so no exchange-rate risk; a floating currency carries its own. (The opportunistic currency reserve is a single-destination feature and is off in multi-country plans.)
Inflation after the move (Country 2)
Drawn fresh each year, uniformly between the low and high bound — not a single fixed rate. Auto-fills per country when you pick Country 2 above — typically around 1%–3%. Widen or narrow the band, or set low=high for a fixed rate. May be negative for a deflation assumption.

What you spend there

Country 2 Cost of Living (monthly, in USD, post-move)
Monthly total: —/mo USD — each line prefills by scaling your US figures to this country's cost level (shown in USD), fully editable. Applies from the Country-2 move year forward.
Custom Monthly Expenses (Country 2, post-move)
Country 2's own custom expenses, applied from its move year on. These start as a copy of your US Custom Monthly Expenses — leave them and they behave exactly like your US figures; change any to model a cost that's different once you live here. (Labels follow your US ones.)
Out-of-Pocket Medical & Dental (Country 2, post-move)
Country 2's own out-of-pocket medical costs, applied from its move year on. These start as a copy of your US Out-of-Pocket Medical & Dental — change any to reflect what care costs where you'll live. (The premium is set separately in Post-Move Health Insurance below.)
Vacations (Country 2, post-move)
A steady-state travel budget for every year you live in Country 2. Defaults to your US budget until you change it.

Health & long-term care

Long-Term Care Costs (Country 2)
Only the per-month care costs are country-specific. The care timeline (onset ages, duration, probability, until-death) is set once in the Country-1 Long-Term Care section and applies plan-wide.
Post-Move Health Insurance (Country 2)
Note: healthcare inflation is a plan-wide assumption; this control is shown for parity with Country 1 and does not create a separate per-leg override.

Settling in

Relocation & Visa Costs (Country 2)
Live-In Household Staff (Country 2)
More options & plan settings — extra properties and simulation controls

Market & simulation

Market Realism
Real market returns crash harder and more often than a normal distribution predicts. This samples from a Student-t distribution instead, calibrated to the same mean/volatility you set above. Off by default here — a Treasury/CD-style portfolio doesn't carry equity-style crash risk.
Without this, each year's return is drawn independently — real markets have multi-year downturns. This adds a crisis regime that can persist for a few years before recovering. Off by default here for the same reason as above.
Defaults land roughly on historical business-cycle frequency — a downturn every 6–7 years, lasting ~2 years on average.
During market crises, the dollar has historically tended to strengthen as capital seeks safety — this shifts the exchange rate in your favor (fewer dollars needed per unit of local currency) during those years, once you've moved abroad.
Simulation Settings
Changes save automatically.
Set your inputs, then run.
"Today's dollars" deflates each simulated path by the actual cumulative inflation *that path* experienced (home-country rate until the move, then that path's own random destination-inflation draws after) — not a single flat assumed rate.
10th–90th / 25th–75th percentile
Median path
Home purchase year
Move year

How taxes are modeled: US FEDERAL income tax uses the real 2026 IRS bracket schedule for your filing status — standard deduction plus the age-65 addition, long-term capital-gains brackets, the net investment income tax, and Social Security inclusion — indexed for bracket creep each year, not a flat rate. Each destination applies its own tax schedule on retirement income — a full progressive schedule wherever one has been modeled, with the US treaty credit stated per destination. US STATE tax is the one flat figure: a single rate you select, exact for flat-tax states and an approximation for progressive ones. RMDs use the IRS Uniform Lifetime divisor from age 75. Withdrawal order draws from brokerage first, then whichever of Traditional/Roth carries the lower effective tax rate under your current settings. Survivor Social Security uses a simplified "higher of the two benefits" rule. Treat this as a planning compass, not a filed tax return or immigration filing.