A success rate can't go on a calendar: your retirement date, counted down.

A plan that says your money lasts with 90% probability answers a question most people are not asking. The question is when they can stop working. Runway's earliest-retirement page now answers that one directly: a date, a count of the days left, and a dial to try other months. Here is how it works and exactly what the date means.

What is the retirement countdown?

It is the earliest-retirement page rebuilt around one date. If you have not retired yet, Runway tests every year you could retire against thousands of simulated markets and turns the answer into:

• One date. For example, July 1, 2028, at the confidence level you pick.
• Days to go. Counted from today each time you open the page.
• A confidence toggle. 85%, 90% or 95%. A higher bar pushes the date later, so you can see what extra certainty costs. The date for each level shows on its button.
• A dial. A month-by-month slider that runs from the date up to 36 months later. As you move it, the date, the days to go and the chance your money lasts update live. It works by touch on a phone.
• Milestones. A year out, 100 days out and 30 days out, each with a practical prompt: the conversation with your employer and your health coverage until Medicare, your last paycheck date and your notice, and your work benefits and first-year cash.

The date is the headline and the probability is the supporting number. A success rate is accurate, and it is hard to put on a calendar. You cannot ask for time off on 92%. That is the whole reason for the redesign: this is our design reasoning, not research, but a date is something you can plan around.

What date does the sample couple get?

Runway's sample couple is Pat (65) and Alex (64), with $1,460,000 saved and $95,000 a year of spending. The countdown only appears for people who have not retired, so for this example both keep working until 2030. As of October 16, 2026, the earliest date that keeps a 90% chance their money lasts is July 1, 2028.

The last column is the year the app would put in your plan if you applied the date. The plan works in whole years, so it uses the first year that starts on or after the date. That is never earlier than the date, so the plan is at least as safe as the chance shown.

How is the date calculated?

The planning engine runs 2,000 simulated market paths for each year the couple could retire, from this year to the last year the plan can test (2026 to 2056 here). That gives the chance the money lasts for each start year. The engine retires people at the start of a year, so each year's chance is placed on January 1, and this year's is placed on today. The date for a confidence level is where a straight line between neighboring years crosses it, rounded up to the next month.

Take 90%. The chance is 88.0% for a start on January 1, 2028 and 92.8% for January 1, 2029, so 90% falls about five-twelfths of the way through 2028, and rounding up gives July 1, 2028.

The month is illustrative. Markets move in years, not months, and the engine tests whole years. July is not meaningfully different from June. The month exists so the answer is a date you can count down to, and the page says so. What does carry weight is the year-to-year gap between the dates for 85%, 90% and 95%.

How much does your spending move the date?

A lot. With the rest of the sample couple unchanged, here is the 90% date at three spending levels (computed October 16, 2026):

Ten thousand dollars a year is 18 months in one direction and 29 months in the other. If your spending number is a guess, your date is a guess with a nice format. That is why the countdown starts from your actual spending: see how to build your spending number from your bank statements, and how much you can safely spend for the other side of the same question.

What does the countdown assume, and what does it leave out?

• It assumes your plan as it stands: your accounts, your spending, your Social Security claiming ages, no Roth conversion, federal tax only unless you enter a state, and a long-term-care episode near the end of the plan. Change any of these and the date moves.
• Income you earn before retiring counts if you enter it on the Basics step (Pro: annual household income while still working, deposited into the account you pick). The sample couple has none, so their date would come sooner with it.
• It is not a guarantee. A 90% date means the money lasted in about nine of ten simulated futures. In the tenth it did not.
• Not in this version: a spending readout that changes as you move the dial, and "what would move my date" suggestions. The date, the toggle, the dial and the milestones are what is live.

Who can use it?

The countdown lives on the Retirement Year page, a Pro feature (a 7-day Pro trial is available without a credit card). It appears only until everyone in the household has reached their planned retirement age. Saved results from before the countdown existed show the older year-only view until you recalculate once. The getting-started tutorial shows where it sits in the menu.

How were these numbers calculated?

• Household: the app's sample couple, Pat (65) and Alex (64), $1,460,000 across cash ($40,000), a taxable account ($350,000 with $210,000 basis), traditional IRAs ($950,000) and a Roth IRA ($120,000), married filing jointly, plan to age 95, both retiring in 2030 (ages 69 and 68), no income from work.
• Spending and claiming: $95,000 a year in today's prices unless stated; Social Security claiming ages 68 and 67, the engine's best pair; no Roth conversion.
• Simulation: Runway's Monte Carlo engine, 2,000 paths for each retirement year, the same seed for every year, with the chance made non-decreasing across years (retiring later never lowers the true odds). A long-term-care episode is assumed near the end of the plan.
• Dates: interpolated between years as described above, as of October 16, 2026. The first year's point is today, so a date that falls before next January 1 depends on the day it is computed.

Frequently asked questions

What is a retirement countdown?

It is a single date you can count down to: the earliest day your plan could start retirement at a chance-your-money-lasts level you pick (85%, 90% or 95%), with the days remaining and a dial to try later months. Runway builds it from its own simulation of every year you could retire.

How is the retirement date calculated?

Runway's engine simulates 2,000 market paths for each year you could retire and records the chance your money lasts. It places each year's chance on January 1, with this year's on today, and finds where a straight line between neighboring years crosses your confidence level, rounded up to the next month.

Why does a higher confidence level give a later date?

Because retiring later means more years of growth and fewer years of withdrawals, so the chance your money lasts rises with the retirement date. For the sample couple, 85% comes on April 1, 2027, 90% on July 1, 2028 and 95% on August 1, 2030.

Is the month in the date accurate?

No, it is illustrative. The engine tests whole retirement years and the month is read off between them, so a date of July is not meaningfully different from June. The gaps between your 85%, 90% and 95% dates are the part to trust.