Coast FIRE in Australia

The short answer

Coast FIRE in Australia means having enough in super and other investments that growth alone will reach your retirement target, so you can stop saving and just cover today's bills. Two dates shape the plan: super opens at 60 once you retire, and the Age Pension starts at 67. Because the Age Pension is means-tested, it helps a lot when your planned spending is modest and very little when it isn't.

In our example, a single homeowner planning to spend $40,000 a year moves their coast date from age 48 to 34 by counting the Age Pension. Planning to spend $45,000 instead, the pension adds nothing and the coast date is 52. Each of these dates is still a roughly 50/50 point based on average returns.

If Coast FIRE is new to you, read what Coast FIRE is first.

Super and investing outside it

The Coast FIRE calculator treats all your investments as one pot, so add up everything meant for retirement. The main options compare like this for 2026–27:

Your employer pays the super guarantee at 12% of your ordinary earnings. It counts toward the concessional contributions cap of $32,500 for 2026–27, along with salary sacrifice and personal contributions you claim a deduction for. If your total super balance was under $500,000, you can also carry forward unused cap from the previous five years. Concessional contributions are taxed at 15% in the fund, and Division 293 tax adds more for higher earners.

After-tax contributions have their own non-concessional cap of $130,000 a year, and you may be able to bring forward up to three years at once. Inside super, earnings are taxed at 15% while you're building it up and are tax-free once you move it into retirement phase, such as an account-based pension. Payments from that pension are tax-free from age 60.

Two things make super different for Coast FIRE. First, the super guarantee doesn't stop when you "stop saving". If you coast by moving to lower-paid or part-time work, your employer still pays 12% of what you earn. The calculator treats coasting as zero saving, so that money is a margin of safety. Second, super is locked until you retire after 60, which matters if you want to stop earlier.

When you can reach your super

Your preservation age is 60 if you were born on or after 1 July 1964, which covers everyone now in their 20s to early 60s. Under the conditions of release, you can usually take your super once you reach that age and retire, or when you turn 65 even if you're still working. A transition to retirement pension lets you draw some of it from your preservation age while you keep working.

Once your super becomes an account-based pension, you must withdraw a minimum each year: 4% under 65, 5% from 65 to 74, and more after that. That suits the 4% rule early on. Later, you can reinvest anything you don't spend outside super.

The Age Pension

The Age Pension age is 67, and there are no plans to change it. From 20 September 2026 to 19 March 2027, the maximum rate is $1,237.70 a fortnight for a single person, about $32,180 a year. A couple gets $933.00 each, $1,866.00 a fortnight combined, or about $48,516 a year. Those figures include the pension and energy supplements. Rates are indexed every March and September, so you can treat today's amount as a figure in today's money.

Unlike US Social Security, CPP or the UK State Pension, which you build up by working, the Age Pension is means-tested. Two tests run, and the one that gives the lower pension applies:

Your home isn't counted. Super is counted once you reach Age Pension age, along with your other investments, cars, contents and other assets. The asset limits and income free area come from the Department of Social Services, the $3 taper from Services Australia, and the deeming rates set the income your investments are assumed to earn, whatever they actually earn.

How the means test changes your number

The taper is steep. Every extra $1,000 above the asset limit costs $78 a year of pension, a 7.8% loss, while a 4% withdrawal rate only lets you spend $40 a year from that $1,000. So across a wide band of savings, having more can leave you with less to spend. Here is total yearly income at 67 for a single homeowner whose only assessable assets are their investments, spending 4% of the portfolio:

Two things follow. A single homeowner can cover up to about $43,800 a year with a modest portfolio plus the pension, at a 4% withdrawal rate. For a homeowner couple, the same peak is about $66,500. If you plan to spend more than that, the pension adds almost nothing to your plan, and you need the full spending ÷ withdrawal rate yourself. The pension still matters as a safety net: if markets fall or you spend down, it starts paying.

So the first question for an Australian Coast FIRE plan is which side of that line your spending falls on. Cars, contents and other assets also count, so leave yourself room below it.

Bridging to 60 and 67

If you stop work at 55, with super opening at 60 and the Age Pension at 67, your retirement has three stages:

That gives two bridges. The access bridge is the money you need outside super to get from your retirement date to 60. If you retire at 60 or later, you don't need one. The Age Pension bridge covers the share of spending the pension will eventually pay, for the years before 67. It can sit in super as long as you've reached 60 by the time you need it.

If your spending is under the peak above, split your target in two:

Then check the pension you'd actually get with that long-term pot, since the income test can trim it. If your spending is above the peak, skip the pension: your target is simply spending ÷ withdrawal rate, as on the 4% rule page.

The bridge assumes no growth. That's only conservative if the money stays invested and earns a positive real return, and invested money can fall just as you start drawing on it (see sequence of returns risk). Held in cash, expect it to roughly hold its value after inflation, with no spare.

To use the calculator, which has one retirement age and one spending figure, enter target × withdrawal rate as your spending. At 4%, that's target × 0.04. Treat this as a workaround: the chart shows the right target, but the "retire 2 years later" what-if and the success odds don't recalculate the bridge for a different retirement age.

A worked example in dollars

Jess is 30, single, and wants to stop work at 60, when super opens. Jess has $50,000 across super and an ETF account and adds $1,500 a month: $850 of super guarantee on a $100,000 salary (12%, less the fund's 15% contributions tax) plus $650 of personal saving. Jess expects to own a home outright by retirement and to spend $40,000 a year. We use our defaults: a 7% return, no fees, 2.5% inflation (the middle of the Reserve Bank's 2–3% target) and a 4% withdrawal rate, for a real return of 4.39% a year.

$40,000 is under the $43,800 peak, so the Age Pension can help. The simple formula gives a long-term pot of $195,500. At that size the income test trims the pension slightly, so Jess needs $198,297, which earns an Age Pension of about $32,068 a year from 67.

The bridge version: a $198,297 long-term pot plus seven years of Age Pension, a $224,477 bridge, for a target of $422,774. In the calculator, Jess enters $16,911 of spending (4% of the target). Because Jess stops at 60, no access bridge is needed.

Across 1,000 simulated markets, the bridge plan reaches its target by 60 in 51% of them if Jess stops saving exactly on the coast date, 65% with 3 more years of saving, and 99% if Jess never stops. If Jess keeps a salaried job after coasting, the super guarantee keeps adding money, so the real odds sit above the 51%.

How sensitive is Jess's plan?

Changing one assumption at a time shows which ones matter most:

Stopping at 55 needs a 12-year Age Pension bridge and, within the target, at least $200,000 outside super to cover five years before super opens. The last row is the means test at work: $45,000 is above the peak, so the pension adds nothing at Jess's planned wealth, and the target jumps to $45,000 ÷ 4%. If your spending sits near the peak, a plan built on the pension is fragile. It's safer to treat the pension as a bonus or to keep a clear buffer below the peak.

The currency menu changes the symbol and formatting only. Enter every amount in Australian dollars; nothing is converted.

Before you rely on the number

• Check which side of the peak you're on. About $43,800 a year for a single homeowner and $66,500 for a homeowner couple, at 4%. Near the line, plan without the pension.
• Count all your assets. Cars, contents, a caravan or an investment property count in the assets test and lower the pension.
• Hold the access bridge outside super if you plan to stop before 60.
• Plan for housing. The pension numbers here assume you own your home. Renters have higher asset limits but also higher spending.
• Use a cautious withdrawal rate for a long retirement. Our 4% rule guide explains why many early retirees use 3.5% or less.
• Expect rules to change. Rates, limits and deeming rates move twice a year, and governments change the means test. Recheck every year; see what to do after you reach Coast FIRE.

The Coast FIRE number calculator shows how much you'd need at every age. Planning elsewhere? See our guides to Coast FIRE in the UK, Coast FIRE in Canada and Social Security and FIRE.

Sources

Jess's results and the income table are our own calculations, explained on our methodology page. The pension estimates apply the assets test, the income test with deeming, and the September 2026 rates to a homeowner whose only assessable assets are investments. Rules and amounts come from official Australian sources, checked in October 2026:

1. Super guarantee. Australian Taxation Office. The super guarantee rate is 12% for 2025–26 and 2026–27.
2. Contributions caps. Australian Taxation Office. The concessional cap is $32,500 and the non-concessional cap $130,000 for 2026–27.
3. Concessional contributions cap. Australian Taxation Office. Unused cap from the previous 5 years can be carried forward if your total super balance was under $500,000.
4. Non-concessional contributions cap. Australian Taxation Office. Up to 3 years of the cap ($390,000) can be brought forward, depending on your total super balance.
5. Understanding concessional and non-concessional contributions. Australian Taxation Office. Concessional contributions are taxed at 15% in the fund; Division 293 tax can apply to higher earners.
6. Tax on super benefits. Australian Taxation Office. Earnings are taxed at 15% in accumulation and are tax-free in retirement phase; account-based pension payments are tax-free from 60.
7. Payments from super: preservation age and minimum payments. Australian Taxation Office. Preservation age is 60 for anyone born from 1 July 1964; minimum pension payments are 4% a year under 65 and 5% from 65 to 74.
8. Conditions of release of super. Australian Taxation Office.
9. Who can get Age Pension. Services Australia. Age Pension age is 67.
10. Social Security Guide 5.1.8.10: Common pension rates. Department of Social Services, 2026. Maximum rates from 20 September 2026 to 19 March 2027: $1,237.70 a fortnight single, $933.00 each for a couple, including supplements.
11. Social Security Guide 4.10.3: Pension income and assets test limits. Department of Social Services, 2026. From 1 July 2026, the full pension asset limit for homeowners is $333,000 single and $499,000 for a couple; the income free area is $5,876 a year for a single person.
12. Assets test taper rate. Services Australia. Pensions fall by $3.00 a fortnight for every $1,000 of assets above the limit.
13. Social Security Guide 4.4.1.10: Deeming rates and thresholds. Department of Social Services, 2026. From 20 September 2026: 1.75% on the first $66,800 of a single person's financial assets and 3.75% above that.
14. Inflation target. Reserve Bank of Australia.
15. Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data. William P. Bengen, Journal of Financial Planning, 1994. The original 4% rule: a 4% first-year withdrawal, raised each year with inflation, lasted at least 30 years in every historical US period studied.