Home · Retire Abroad Comparison
Free tool · no sign-upThe same retirement plan, in four countries
Identical savings. Identical withdrawals. Four different tax and healthcare systems. Enter your numbers once and see what your net income actually becomes as a resident of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Australia.
Your plan
Everything is in US dollars so the four countries are compared like for like. Defaults are a worked example — change them.
Once Social Security starts, portfolio withdrawals are reduced by the amount it replaces — so total income stays roughly level rather than jumping.
Net income per month, by phase
After income tax and healthcare costs. Phases split at Medicare eligibility (65), your Social Security claim age, the RMD age (73) and 80.
Where the difference comes from
Income tax and healthcare cost per month. The UK row shows the Foreign Tax Credit that offsets US tax under the treaty.
How this is worked out
This runs the same calculation engine as the full AI Retirement Income Planner — not a simplified copy. Every figure is produced month by month, then averaged over each phase.
What is modelled
- US federal income tax — brackets, standard and senior deductions, the taxable-Social-Security calculation, long-term capital gains, NIIT.
- US healthcare — ACA premiums, the 400% FPL subsidy cliff, the 250% FPL Silver CSR band, then Medicare Part B/D and IRMAA surcharges from 65.
- UK — personal allowance and the basic/higher/additional rates. Under Article 17 of the US–UK treaty, US Social Security is not taxed by the UK, while 401(k) and pension withdrawals are. US tax is then reduced by a Foreign Tax Credit.
- Canada — federal brackets plus the basic personal amount and a provincial rate.
- Australia — the tax-free threshold, marginal brackets and the Medicare levy.
- Required Minimum Distributions from age 73, using the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table.
- Inflation on brackets, deductions, thresholds and healthcare costs, applied per phase.
What is not
- US state income tax is set to zero — i.e. a no-tax state. That flatters the US column, so any overseas advantage shown here is understated.
- No local healthcare cost abroad. The UK, Canadian and Australian columns assume the public system covers you. Private or international cover would reduce those figures.
- No provincial or state-level variation beyond a single flat rate.
- No National Insurance, no Canadian/Australian social-security entitlements (CPP, OAS, the Age Pension) — this compares the same savings under different tax systems, not different working lives.
- No currency risk. Everything is held in US dollars; a real move introduces exchange-rate exposure this deliberately leaves out.
- Nothing about visas, residency qualification or how long you must stay to become tax-resident.
Why there is no generic "retire in Europe" column. The planner can model expat residence in euro, peso or baht countries, but in that mode it applies US federal tax only — it has no tax model for the destination country. Showing that beside the UK, Canada and Australia figures would imply you could move abroad and pay almost nothing, which is false. Only the four countries with genuine tax models are shown here.
This is an educational model, not advice. It cannot know your full circumstances, and cross-border tax has traps — treaty tie-breakers, exit taxes, pension transfer rules — that no calculator settles. Use it to frame better questions, then check them with a cross-border tax professional. We are software developers, not financial advisers.
This is one scenario. A real plan needs several.
The tool above compares four countries for a single set of numbers. The full planner adds the things that actually decide whether a plan holds: multiple phases you control, withdrawal-order strategy, Roth conversion planning, guardrails, stress tests, Monte Carlo, saved scenarios you can compare side by side, and an AI co-pilot that explains the maths.
One-time purchase. Runs offline in your browser. No subscription, no account.