What investment return should I assume?
Nobody can tell you, and Nivritee does not try. The two returns are assumptions. Start from the country default, then test the plan on a lower figure before you rely on it.
There is no correct figure, and Nivritee does not recommend one. No statistics office publishes a forward long-run return for a portfolio. The two return rates under You & your assumptions are assumptions — the defaults are reasoned starting points, set deliberately below long-run index history, because a plan that assumes the best decades on record fails quietly.
What the two rates do
- Investment return while you are working — the yearly growth applied to everything counted in your corpus until the age you stop earning.
- Investment return after you stop earning — the rate applied from then on. It is lower by design: the default assumes a portfolio tilted towards bonds once your salary stops.
The projection grows your whole corpus at one of these two rates each year. It does not use the rate you typed on a deposit or the return on a single fund — those are recorded for you to see, not to drive the projection.
Nivritee’s defaults
| Country | While working | After you stop earning |
|---|---|---|
| India | 11.0% | 7.0% |
| Malaysia | 8.0% | 4.5% |
| United States | 7.5% | 4.5% |
| Australia | 7.5% | 4.5% |
| Canada | 7.0% | 4.5% |
| New Zealand | 7.0% | 4.5% |
| United Kingdom | 7.0% | 4.0% |
| Singapore | 7.0% | 4.0% |
| Hong Kong | 7.0% | 4.0% |
| Europe | 6.5% | 4.0% |
| Japan | 6.0% | 3.5% |
A sensible way to use them
- Generate the plan on the default and note the verdict.
- Lower the working-years return by a point or two and re-generate. If the verdict drops a band or more, your plan depends heavily on markets being kind.
- Run the stress tests on the Retirement Tracker to see what a bad sequence of years does.
- Put the default back with Reset to country defaults, or keep the lower figure if you prefer a cautious plan.
See this in your own plan.
Open You & your assumptionsLast reviewed 1 October 2026.