FIRE calculator for Switzerland

What "financially independent" means (your FI number)

Financial independence is the point where your assets could cover your spending without a salary. Your FIRE number, the wealth at which work becomes optional, is your yearly spending divided by the withdrawal rate you plan to use. Spend CHF 60'000 a year and plan on a 4% rate, and the sum is CHF 1'500'000 (that is spending × 25). Choose a more cautious 3.5%, and it is about CHF 1'714'000.

• FI number = yearly spending ÷ withdrawal rate.
• The same thing as a multiplier: spending × (1 ÷ rate). At 4% that is ×25; at 3.5% about ×28.6; at 3% about ×33.3.

The withdrawal rate is an assumption, not a promise

You will see a fixed "4% rule" all over the internet. It is a US rule of thumb drawn from particular market history: a rough starting point, not a Swiss guarantee. A weak run of markets in your first few retired years does more damage than the same run later, because you are selling assets to live on while they are down (sequence-of-returns risk). And your Swiss situation is different: your state pension, taxes and life expectancy do not match the data the rule came from.

A 3% assumption instead of 4% raises a CHF 60'000-a-year target from CHF 1'500'000 to about CHF 2'000'000. Same life, very different number. That is why the rate is an input you can change above, not a constant.

Your money unlocks at different ages: the three-pillar bridge

Your FI wealth is not one pot you can tap freely. Pillar 3a and vested-benefits capital can normally be drawn only in an age 60-70 window (2026; up to 70 only if you keep working past 65). AHV, the state pension, can start earliest at 63 (62 for women of the AHV 21 transition generation), with the ordinary reference age 65 in 2026 (slightly lower for women born 1961-1963), and it is permanently smaller if you take it early (around 6.8% less per year early).

Retire at, say, 52, and none of those pillars has opened yet. You have to self-fund a bridge from freely available savings until they do, and the maximum single AHV pension is capped at CHF 2'520 a month (2026), so the state will not carry the plan on its own. This bridge is where most early-retirement plans succeed or fail.

Wealth tax, inflation and taxes on the way there

There is no federal wealth tax, but cantons and communes levy one every year on your net assets (2026). It is modest, but it is a recurring cost a "×25" rule never subtracts, and rates differ by canton. Inflation makes the target a moving one: if your spending drifts up over the decades, so does the wealth needed to cover it. This calculator works in today's francs, deflating the expected return by the inflation assumption, so the target you see stays comparable to your spending today.

One more nuance that catches DIY calculators: movable private capital gains are tax-free at federal level (current law), but dividends and interest carry 35% Swiss withholding tax at source, recoverable for residents who declare them. "Tax-free growth" is not the same as "tax-free income".

A note on reforms

There was a plan to tax pension lump-sum withdrawals more heavily from 2027 (part of the Entlastungspaket 27). That measure is not in force: today's rules apply. The parliamentary debate on the package is recent, so check the current status before relying on it. We will update this page if the law changes.