How much do you need to invest today to retire on dividends? Enter the yearly amount you want after taxes and the years until you retire. The calculator reinvests every dividend until then and solves for the one amount to invest now, so your first year of retirement covers the goal.
Load any stock or ETF to fill in its latest price, its dividend at the current run-rate and its own dividend and price growth. Change any field to test your own assumptions.
since Oct 16QQQ has a Trend Signal — Oct 16 '26 (10 days ago)| Year | Start Balance | Start Shares | Share Price | Div / Share | Div Yield | Yield on Cost | Annual Dividend | Taxes Paid | Total Divs | End Shares | End Balance |
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* Leave the tax rate blank to estimate federal tax from 2025 single-filer brackets (quarterly, semi-annual and yearly payers taxed as qualified dividends, monthly and weekly as ordinary income), or enter your own rate — 15% is most common for qualified dividends. State tax rate is automatically added based on your location.
Example: $50,000 a Year From QQQ in 20 Years
Say you want $50,000 a year from QQQ dividends, after tax, starting in 20 years. Here is what the calculator works out.
Today: QQQ closed at $712.11 on Oct 26, 2026 and pays $0.7514 a quarter. That is a 0.42% yield. The example uses QQQ’s own growth rates: the dividend grows 9.78% a year and the share price grows 10.00% a year.
The plan:
- Invest $1,984,947 today, in an account with no tax until you retire.
- Reinvest every dividend for 20 years. You add no new money.
- When you retire, the shares are worth about $14,506,288.
- In your first year of retirement they pay $58,824 in dividends. Federal tax takes 15.0%, and you keep $50,000.
- You never sell a share.
In a taxable account, with federal tax on every dividend along the way (state tax not included), the same goal takes about $2,009,739 today. Use the tabs on the chart to compare.
| Year | Share Price | Dividend / Payment | Dividends That Year | End Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $712.11 | $0.7514 | $8,391 | $2,192,672 |
| 5 | $1,042.60 | $1.0914 | $12,394 | $3,264,646 |
| 10 | $1,679.12 | $1.7401 | $20,178 | $5,368,247 |
| 15 | $2,704.24 | $2.7746 | $32,843 | $8,825,491 |
| 20 | $4,355.20 | $4.424 | $53,447 | $14,506,288 |
| Retirement year 1 | $4,790.72 | $4.8566 | $58,824 | $15,956,916 |
Open this example in the calculator to see every year. The numbers follow QQQ’s latest price and dividend.
How the Dividend Retirement Calculator Works
The goal. The Income Goal After Taxes field is the yearly amount you want from dividends, after tax, in your first year of retirement.
Until you retire. Every dividend payment buys more shares at that payment’s price (after tax, in a taxable account). Dividend and share price growth are applied once a year. Extra investments (monthly, quarterly or yearly) are spread across the year’s dividend payments and reinvested with them.
After you retire. Dividends are paid out after tax and no shares are sold. The table shows the first five retirement years.
Taxes.
- Taxable account: federal and state tax every year. Leave the rate blank and federal tax is estimated from the 2025 single-filer brackets, assuming about $100,000 of other taxable income: quarterly, semi-annual and yearly payers are taxed as qualified dividends, monthly and weekly payers as ordinary income. Or type your own flat federal rate. State tax is set from your location.
- Non-taxable account: no tax while you save, then federal tax on dividends in retirement, like a traditional IRA. For a Roth, treat the after-tax result as conservative.
Left out. Inflation (all amounts are future dollars), dividend cuts and fees.
Reading the results
- Initial investment: what to invest today.
- Dividends / year: the first retirement year’s dividends before tax, with the after-tax figure that meets your goal.
- Portfolio value: what the holding is worth when you retire.
- Details: total invested, total taxes paid, and the first retirement year’s tax rate and taxes (federal, state, total).
- Chart: cumulative dividends and end value for each year. The Invested and No DRIP bars start hidden; tap them in the legend to show them. No DRIP is the same money with every dividend kept as cash instead of reinvested.
- Table: shares, share price, dividend per share, yield, yield on cost, dividends, taxes and balance for every year, then the first five retirement years.
Retire later, or cash now?
This calculator builds up first and pays out after. If you need dividend cash every month starting now, use the monthly dividend cashflow calculator.
Dividend Retirement FAQ
How much do I need to invest to retire on dividends?
Start with the yearly amount you need before tax and divide it by the dividend yield: $50,000 a year at QQQ’s 0.42% run-rate yield takes about $11,905,000 of QQQ. Years of reinvesting and dividend growth shrink what you must put in today. That is what this calculator solves: the one amount to invest now so your first retirement year’s dividends, after tax, reach your goal.
How much QQQ do I need to retire?
QQQ is loaded above, so the calculator has filled in QQQ’s latest price, its dividend at the current run-rate and its measured dividend and price growth, then solves for what to invest today for your goal and timeline. In the example above, $50,000 a year after tax in 20 years takes about $1,984,947 of QQQ today. The same works for VOO, JEPI or any other ticker.
Does the calculator include taxes?
Yes. For a taxable account it takes federal and state tax every year: qualified rates for stocks that pay quarterly or less often, ordinary rates for monthly and weekly payers, or a flat federal rate you enter. For a non-taxable account nothing is taxed while you save, and federal tax applies to dividends in retirement, like a traditional IRA.
Can I add monthly contributions?
Yes. Enter an amount in Extra Investment and pick Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly. The extra money is spread across the year’s dividend payments and reinvested with them, which lowers what you need to invest today.
Does the calculator sell shares in retirement?
No. Once you retire, it pays out each year’s dividends after tax and keeps every share, so the portfolio is still there. The table shows the first five retirement years. Amounts are not adjusted for inflation.
Why Dividends for Retirement
- Cash without selling. Dividends pay you while you keep the shares.
- Reinvesting compounds. Before you retire, each payment buys shares that pay their own dividends.
- Growing payouts. Companies that raise their dividend can help it keep pace with rising costs. Raises are never guaranteed.
India
Thanks so much for pointing that out. Love your channel. I learn so much watching your vids. So nice to see the developer actively engaged. I have 2 other trackers because I am obsessed with them. One is constantly updated. The other one not so much. 35 monthly is really steep but I will probably switch. Best wishes to you and the future growth of your business.
Leo DRIPCalc
Thanks for feedback and good wishes 🙂 … What are the other 2 trackers that you use? Provide links pls.
Btw on the YouTube, I posted a 25% discount, which ends after July 4th weekend … so less steep.. and on the site at the top there is a 15% launch discount..
India Snowden
The retirement calculator does not work. I would like to subscribe but for 15.95 monthly I should not find obvious errors.
It returns dividend income on stock that does not pay a dividend
Take out the field labeled desired income or relabel it correctly. I think that is a problem also.
Leo DRIPCalc
Hey India Snowden,
You are right – retirement calculator does produce weird results for NON-dividend stocks. Thanks for head up & will look into this.
For dividends stocks it seems to be correct. When we developed it, we spent great deal of time on testing (dividend stocks) 🙂 … But missed the non-div stocks issues.
However, since it was published there was VERY little interest in it (about 1% of total views), so we did not come back to in for a long time. It shall be fixed promptly, and should be an easy fix.
Sincerely, Leo.
Nobody
Shouldn’t the field labeled “Quarterly Dividend” just be labeled “Dividend” since the frequency is set by the user in the next field?
drip
“Quarterly” is a variable in the backend – if you load a stock like JEPQ, it will say “Monthly Dividend” and JEPQ pays monthly.
But to reduce confusion, I changed it to “Dividend Amount”
Cheers
nick stocking
Leo, in your retirement calculator I just ran MSTY 5 yr retirement with $200,000/yr payout.
1st time it says initial investment is $15,000. the next time I ran it it says $15,000,000. Now it’s saying $1,272,000
This is all over the place. also right hand column needs to be wider. It cuts off number
Leo DRIPCalc
you need to tightly adjust Div & Price CAGRs for funds like MSTY … most of the time both price & div will go down over time.. se when you estimate returns with such insane yields, you need to consider drop in price and dividends over time. I would not rely on consistent 80% yield and stable price