Should You Plan Retirement to Age 95 or 100?

About one in three 65-year-olds may live to at least 90. That figure comes from Social Security's own planning guidance (Social Security Administration, Retirement Information for Medicare Beneficiaries, 2026). It's the reason a plan that ends at 85 quietly bets against a large share of retirees. So should you plan retirement to age 95 or 100? Here's the short answer. For an average 65-year-old, 95 is a reasonable default. Use 100 as a stress test. Switch to 100 as your main horizon if you're healthy, female, part of a couple or come from a long-lived family. The more useful question isn't really "95 or 100?" It's "how much chance of outliving my money am I willing to accept?"

Let's work through that.

Why 95 became the default

Planning to 95 has been described as "a little-questioned industry rule of thumb" (U.S. News via WTOP, 2024). It has deep roots. According to Marotta on Money, Bengen's 1994 study, which gave us the 4% rule, assumed a planning age of 95.

Calculator defaults have never fully agreed, though. Back in 2012, MONEY reported that Fidelity's tool used 92 for men and 94 for women, while T. Rowe Price used 95 for everyone.

Morningstar's research on the end of retirement calls a fixed age-95 horizon "a reasonable approximation" for the average 65-year-old couple (Morningstar, End of Retirement). The word that matters there is average. You aren't an average. You're one person, or one couple, with your own health and history.

The odds of reaching 95 and 100

Here's what the research says about longevity at 65.

Two things stand out. First, couples should plan longer than singles, because the odds that at least one of you is still alive are higher than the odds for either of you alone. Second, the numbers don't agree.

Why the numbers don't agree

One source puts a 65-year-old couple's chance of reaching 95 at about 20%. Another puts it at 34%. Neither is wrong. They're measuring different things.

• Period vs. cohort tables. A period table takes today's death rates and assumes they never improve. A cohort table builds in expected future improvements, so it gives longer lives.
• Whose data it is. Social Security tables cover the whole population. Insurers and annuity providers often use data on people who buy annuities, and that group tends to be wealthier and longer-lived.
• The year. Mortality tables get updated, and older articles use older tables.

If you have savings large enough to worry about this question, the more generous estimates may describe you better than the population average.

How to plan retirement to age 95 or 100: pick your risk, not your age

Don't pick an age first. Pick how much risk you'll accept, and let that set the age.

The Actuaries Longevity Illustrator from the American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries supports this approach. One common rule is to plan to the age you have only a 10% chance of outliving. As reported in secondary coverage of the tool, for a non-smoking 65-year-old in average health that works out to:

• About 98 for a woman
• About 96 for a man

Your own figure will move with your health, smoking status and whether you're planning alone or as a couple. The tool takes a few minutes to use. Enter your details and see where your 10% line falls.

That one exercise often settles the question. If your 10% age is 96, planning to 95 is close enough. If it's 99, plan to 100.

The hidden cushion inside a 95-year plan

Most people miss this. A fixed end age assumes you're alive until exactly that birthday. Real life doesn't work like that. Some of the futures where your money "runs out" at 93 are futures where you were never going to see 93.

Michael Kitces worked through the numbers for a 65-year-old couple planned to 95. An 80% Monte Carlo success rate turns into roughly 96.5% "true" success once the chance of dying earlier is counted. A 90% success rate leaves only about a 1.8% chance of actually running short (Kitces, What's Your Longevity Assumption?). An earlier study in Financial Services Review found that adding mortality to fixed-horizon models cut the estimated probability of ruin by almost 50% (Financial Services Review).

A quick note on terms. "Monte Carlo" sounds technical, but the idea is simple. Instead of assuming one steady average return, the simulation runs your plan through many possible market paths, some good, some bad, some awful early on. It then counts how many of them stay funded.

What this means for you: a 95-year plan with a high success rate already carries more protection than the headline number suggests. Pushing to 100 buys more, but less than you might expect.

What the extra five years actually cost

Safety isn't free. NerdWallet estimates that planning to 100 calls for a nest egg about 40% larger than planning to a normal life expectancy.

You can also see the cost in spending. Morningstar's 2025 research puts the safe starting withdrawal rate at 3.9%. That's the rate that held up in 90% of simulated outcomes over a 30-year retirement, roughly 65 to 95 (Morningstar, The State of Retirement Income 2025, Dec 2025). Stretch the horizon to 35 years and the safe starting rate falls. Each year of spending has to come out of the same pot for longer.

So the trade-off is real. Planning to 100 means one or more of these:

• You save more before you retire.
• You spend less each year once you stop.
• You work longer.
• You accept a lower success rate.

Pushing the horizon out also leaves more room for health care costs to grow. Fidelity estimates that one 65-year-old retiring in 2025 will spend $172,500 on Medicare premiums, deductibles and prescriptions over retirement, before long-term care (Fidelity Investments, 2025 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate, Jul 2025). More years means more of that bill.

When planning to 100 makes more sense

Consider 100 as your main horizon, rather than a stress test, if:

• Your family lives long. Suze Orman and others point to long-lived parents and grandparents as a reason to plan longer (Suze Orman).
• You're in good health and don't smoke.
• You're planning as a couple, especially if one of you is younger.
• You're a woman. The Longevity Illustrator figures above put the 10% line for women a couple of years past the line for men.
• You retire early. Starting at 55 instead of 65 turns a 30-year retirement into a 40-year one, before you even get to the end-age question.

If none of these apply, 95 with a solid success rate is a defensible plan. Then run 100 to see how far the result drops.

Levers besides a longer horizon

Extending the end age is one way to handle longevity risk. It isn't the only one, and it may not be the cheapest. Here are some options worth testing in your plan:

• Delaying Social Security. A larger benefit that lasts for life works as built-in longevity protection.
• Annuities or longevity insurance. These move some of the risk of a very long life to an insurer.
• Flexible spending. If you're willing to cut back after bad market years, your success rate can rise without a bigger nest egg.
• Revisiting the plan. Your odds of reaching 100 at 80 look different from your odds at 65. Rerun the numbers as you go.

These are things to model and compare, not recommendations. Which one fits depends on your situation, and a licensed professional can help you weigh them.

Run both ages and compare

The honest answer to "95 or 100?" is to run both. Look at the gap between them.

If your success rate barely moves when you extend from 95 to 100, longevity isn't your weak spot, and you can stop worrying about it. If it drops sharply, now you know. You can save more, adjust spending or test one of the levers above before life tests them for you.

That's how the plan you build with Monte Climb's retirement calculator works. You enter three numbers: your age, your savings and your monthly spending. We run them through 1,000 simulated futures and show what share stay funded. Plans run to 95 by default, and you can push them further to see what 100 does to your odds. If you want to talk it through, ask William, our AI planner, questions like "Am I on track?" or "Can I retire at 62?" He shows his work. It all runs in your browser, and nothing is saved until you say so.

It's a probability, not a promise. It's planning software, not advice. But it's a much better starting point than a guess.

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Frequently asked questions

Is planning retirement to age 95 enough?

For an average 65-year-old, often yes. Morningstar calls a fixed age-95 horizon a reasonable approximation for the average 65-year-old couple. If you're in good health, have long-lived relatives, are a woman or are planning as a couple, consider 100, or at least test it.

How much more do I need to save to plan to age 100?

NerdWallet estimates that planning to 100 calls for a nest egg about 40% larger than planning to a normal life expectancy. The exact difference depends on your spending, savings and how much risk you accept, so run both horizons and compare.

What are the odds a 65-year-old couple reaches 95 or 100?

It depends on the mortality table. Using the 2019 Social Security period life table, Marotta on Money puts the chance that one spouse reaches about 95 at roughly 20%. A Globe and Mail estimate puts it at 34% for 95 and 8% for 100. Tables that assume improving mortality, or that use data on wealthier people, give higher odds.

How do I choose the right planning age for me?

Pick the risk you'll accept first, then find the age that matches it. A common approach is to plan to the age you have only a 10% chance of outliving. The Actuaries Longevity Illustrator can estimate that age from your sex, health and smoking status.

Does a Monte Carlo success rate to age 95 overstate my risk?

It can. A fixed horizon assumes you live to exactly that age. Kitces found that for a 65-year-old couple, an 80% success rate to 95 is about 96.5% once the chance of dying earlier is counted.