What is my FI number?
The amount, in today’s money, your plan says you need for independence: your yearly need after you stop, grossed up for tax and divided by a withdrawal rate, plus your goals.
Your FI number is how much your plan says you need, in today’s money, to be financially independent. It appears on the financial freedom index card as The number you are aiming at, it is what Progress measures you against, and it is the top of the Freedom Ladder, so the ladder and the index always agree about the target.
How it is built
- Start with what your life is projected to cost each year once you stop working, in today’s money — each expense at its figure for after you stop, where you have given one, and only the rows still running then (or at your move, if that comes later).
- Add loan payments still running at that point, and take off income that keeps paying to the end of your plan, such as a pension already in payment.
- Gross that up for the tax you would pay drawing it, using Nivritee’s blended rate for the country you will live in.
- Divide by the withdrawal rate assumed for that country.
- Add your life goals still ahead, each discounted back to today at your return before independence (shown as Of which your life goals), and take off, valued the same way, money you expect to come in and income that stops before the plan ends. The total never goes below zero.
| Country you settle in | Withdrawal rate assumed | Blended tax on withdrawals |
|---|---|---|
| United States, Canada | 4.0% | 15% |
| United Kingdom | 4.0% | 12% |
| Australia | 4.0% | 8% |
| New Zealand | 4.0% | 5% |
| Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia | 4.0% | 0% |
| India | 3.5% | 12.5% |
| Japan | 3.5% | 20.315% |
| Europe | 3.5% | 20% |
Freedom Ladder
Cumulative, not four separate pots: everything you hold counts toward the rung it reaches and toward every rung above it. Illustrative figures, for one household.
The Freedom Ladder as the site draws it: Survival, Sustenance and Sufficiency as one cumulative bar, a fill for what you hold today, and Surplus beyond. The end of Sufficiency is the FI number.
- Survival and Sustenance, filled.
- Sufficiency, partly filled: its end is your FI number.
- Surplus — whatever sits beyond independence.
Illustrative figures — not anybody’s real plan.
See this in your own plan.
Open Retirement TrackerLast reviewed 1 October 2026.