Coast FIRE Calculator Australia

What does Coast FIRE mean in Australia?

Coast FIRE means your super and other investments are already big enough to grow, with no voluntary contributions, into what you’ll need at retirement. You keep working, but your pay only has to cover the life you’re living now.

There’s one local twist. While you’re employed, your employer keeps paying the super guarantee whether you’ve hit Coast FIRE or not. So in Australia, coasting usually means stopping salary sacrifice and extra investing, while the compulsory contributions quietly add a safety margin.

Take a 30-year-old who wants A$50,000 a year in retirement, in today’s dollars, and plans to stop at 67. That’s 37 years of growth. With a 6.5% return, 2.5% inflation and a 4% withdrawal rate:

The calculator above starts with the left-hand column. The A$10,000 in the right-hand column is an assumption for the example, not an estimate of what you’ll get. The next section explains why it’s deliberately modest.

How the Age Pension changes the number

The Age Pension starts at 67. The full rate for a single person, supplements included, is A$1,237.70 a fortnight from 20 September 2026. Rates are adjusted every March and September, so check the current figure on Services Australia rather than trusting any number you read in an article, including this one.

The catch is that it’s means-tested. An assets test and an income test both apply, and your payment is worked out under whichever gives the lower amount. Someone who reaches a full FIRE number will often get a small part pension or none at first, then more later as their balance runs down. That’s why I wouldn’t count the full rate in a Coast FIRE plan at 30.

The rough approach is still the same as anywhere else. Subtract the pension you realistically expect from your yearly spending, and enter what’s left as your spending figure. Even a modest A$10,000 a year cuts the example’s Coast FIRE number by A$60,644. If you own your home outright and plan to spend modestly, you might reasonably count more. If you’ll have a big balance, count less or nothing.

Retiring before 67, or before 60

Subtracting the Age Pension only works once it starts. If you stop at 60, your savings cover the full A$50,000 for seven years first.

Add the missing pension for those years on top of the reduced FIRE number:

1. FIRE number counting A$10,000 of Age Pension: A$1,000,000.
2. Seven years of missing pension: A$70,000.
3. Target at 60: A$1,070,000.

With 30 years of growth from age 30, that’s a Coast FIRE number of A$339,322, compared with A$396,404 if you ignored the Age Pension. The bridge money is assumed to earn nothing above inflation, so it’s on the cautious side. In the calculator, set retirement age to 60 and spending to A$42,800.

Sixty is the other age that matters, because it’s the preservation age for anyone born after 30 June 1964. In general you can’t take your super before then, and you need to retire or reach 65 to get full access (ATO). If you want to stop at 55, the money for those five years has to be outside super. At A$50,000 a year that’s A$250,000 in today’s dollars by 55. On its own, that slice has a Coast FIRE number of A$96,006 at 30.

Super or investing outside super?

For money you won’t need until 60, super is hard to beat. Since 1 July 2025 the super guarantee has been 12% of ordinary time earnings (ATO). Concessional contributions, which include the super guarantee, salary sacrifice and personal contributions you claim a deduction for, are taxed at 15% in the fund. That’s less than most people’s marginal rate. Division 293 adds another 15% if your income and concessional contributions come to more than A$250,000.

The concessional contributions cap is A$32,500 from 1 July 2026, up from A$30,000 (ATO contributions caps). Everything counts toward it, including your employer’s super guarantee, so check how much room you actually have before salary sacrificing.

Outside super, you’d usually hold shares or ETFs in your own name. There’s no tax break going in, and dividends and gains are taxed along the way, but you can sell whenever you like. That’s the whole point for early retirement.

My rough split: if you’re happy to work to 60 or later, put your extra savings into super. If you want the option of stopping earlier, build a separate pot outside super big enough to cover the gap, and put the rest into super. For the calculator, add both together as your current savings and include the super guarantee in your monthly figure.

What the calculator leaves out

Tax works in your favour after 60. Super payments from a taxed fund are generally tax-free once you’re 60 (ATO). Investments outside super don’t get that treatment, so if a big share of your early spending comes from them, allow for tax in your spending figure.

For inflation, the Reserve Bank targets 2% to 3% (RBA), and 2.5% is the default here. If you’d rather plan for the top of that range over 37 years, try 3% and see how much the number moves.

Sequence risk isn’t modelled either. The calculator assumes the same average return every year. A crash in the years right after you stop adding money hurts far more than one later on. The super guarantee helps here, because it keeps money going in whether you mean it to or not.

The 4% rule comes from US market history, as our methodology explains. I’d also test 3.5%, which lifts the example’s Coast FIRE number from A$303,220 to A$346,537.

And every figure here is in today’s dollars. You enter a nominal return, and the calculator takes inflation off it. A A$1,250,000 target means that much buying power at today’s prices, not the balance your super statement will show in 2063.