Roth IRA Calculator
Estimate what your Roth IRA could be worth at retirement and how much more it keeps than a taxable brokerage account. Adjust your age, deposits, and expected return to see the result update instantly.
Your Retirement Inputs
Adjust values to model your Roth IRA growth
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Compound Growth Projection
Roth IRA vs Taxable Account
How the Projection Works
The calculator follows your account one year at a time, from your starting age to your target retirement age. Each year it adds your contribution, then applies your expected growth rate to the full balance.
At the same time, it runs a second account with identical deposits where each year’s earnings are taxed at your bracket. The gap between the two lines is the value of tax free compounding.
Set your time horizon
Your starting age and retirement age determine how many years of deposits and growth the projection includes.
Enter money going in
Add any current balance and your yearly contribution. Deposits above the 2025 IRS limit are capped automatically, with a higher cap from age 50.
Choose a return and bracket
The growth rate drives both accounts. Your tax bracket only affects the taxable comparison and the lifetime tax savings figure.
Read the results
Review your projected balance, total contributed, investment growth, growth multiple, and the year by year schedule.
What Is the Roth IRA Growth Formula?
Because each deposit is added before growth is applied, every contribution earns a full year of return. That makes the projection a future value of an annuity due plus the growth of your opening balance.
- FV : Future value
- Your projected Roth IRA balance at your target retirement age.
- P : Initial investment
- The balance already in your account when the projection begins.
- C : Yearly contribution
- What you add each year, limited to $7,000, or $8,000 once you reach 50.
- r : Growth rate
- Your expected average annual return, entered as a decimal (8% = 0.08).
- n : Years invested
- Retirement age minus starting age.
- T : Tax bracket
- The rate applied to yearly earnings in the taxable comparison account.
Growth Chart: $7,000 a Year at Different Returns
This reference shows where steady, maximum deposits of $7,000 a year can lead from a $0 start. Compare the contributions column with the balances to see how much of the result comes from compounding.
| Years investing | Total contributed | At 6% return | At 8% return | At 10% return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 years | $70,000 | $97,801 | $109,518 | $122,718 |
| 20 years | $140,000 | $272,949 | $345,960 | $441,017 |
| 30 years | $210,000 | $586,612 | $856,421 | $1,266,604 |
| 40 years | $280,000 | $1,148,334 | $1,958,467 | $3,407,963 |
Start of year deposits, no starting balance, nominal (not inflation adjusted) dollars.
Worked Example: Age 30 to 65
Here is how the calculator handles a typical mid career saver who already has a small balance and plans to contribute $7,000 every year.
- 1Years invested: 65 minus 30 = 35 years. Total contributed: $5,000 + (35 × $7,000) = $250,000.
- 2Year one: ($5,000 + $7,000) × 1.08 = $12,960. Year two: ($12,960 + $7,000) × 1.08 = $21,556.80.
- 3Repeating this for all 35 years gives a Roth balance of $1,376,642, of which $1,126,642 is investment growth.
- 4The taxable account grows at 8% × (1 minus 0.22) = 6.24% after tax, reaching only $913,896.
FAQs
It assumes you deposit at the start of each year, so every contribution earns a full year of return.
It caps deposits at the 2025 limits of $7,000, or $8,000 from age 50, while the 2026 limits are $7,500 and $8,600.
It is your projected investment growth multiplied by your tax bracket, the tax a fully taxed account could owe on those gains.
No, results are nominal, so enter a lower inflation adjusted return such as 5 to 6% if you want today’s purchasing power.
The model taxes each year’s earnings at your bracket, so less money stays invested to compound.
Yes, open the year by year growth schedule below the calculator to see contributions, earnings, and both balances at every age.
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