How much do you need to retire in Australia? There is no single number. There is your number, and it comes from how you want to live, where, and for how long.
Retirement is a function of income, not an age: the point where you want to stop working and have the income to do it. The Age Pension starts at 67, up from 65 between 2017 and 2023 (Services Australia), and I would not rely on it staying there.
A benchmark, with its date
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia publishes the ASFA Retirement Standard, a yearly budget for a modest or a comfortable lifestyle. For the June quarter of 2026, for people aged 65 to 84 who own their home:
| Couple, a year | Single, a year | |
|---|---|---|
| Comfortable lifestyle | $78,998 | $56,166 |
| Modest lifestyle | $52,690 | $36,548 |
These figures assume the home is owned outright. People who rent, or who still carry a loan on their home, need more. They are budgets, not your costs, and they move with the cost of living from quarter to quarter.
Working out your own number
Start with spending, not savings. What does a year of your life cost now, and what will change when work stops? Some costs fall away, such as travel to work. Others rise: holidays, health, help around the home. Then split the year into what has to be paid and what you want to spend.
Where the income comes from
Once the spending is clear, the next question is what pays for it: rent from property, a pension from super, part of the Age Pension for those who qualify, and any other income. Each source behaves differently. Some keep arriving in a bad year; some do not. That split is what I call the income floor, and I explain it in What an income floor is.
How long it has to last
Retirement can run for thirty years or more, and inflation works on every one of them. The money has to last for the life you live, not the average one. That is why the same figure can be ample for one person and short for another.
I see a pattern every year. People who have been on my mailing list for a long time get in touch at about 55 and say they really need to do something now. They are not too late, and there is usually more to work with than they think. What they lose is the years they could have had. A benchmark tells you what a lifestyle costs on ASFA’s measure. Your own number tells you what your life costs, and that is the one worth knowing early.
Your number is worth working out from your own figures, years before your last pay day if you can. To work out yours, book a first conversation. It costs nothing, and if there is no value to add, you will be told.
Nicholas Lockhart
Figures are the ASFA Retirement Standard for the June quarter 2026, shown as history; they change each quarter.