Project your 403(b) retirement balance. Same math as 401(k); offered by public schools, hospitals, and nonprofits.
Projected balance at retirement
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Annual employee contribution
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Total employer match
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The retirement plan teachers and hospital staff actually get
A 403(b) is the tax-deferred retirement account offered to people who work for public schools, universities, hospitals, and 501(c)(3) nonprofits. It behaves almost identically to a 401(k): money goes in before tax, grows untaxed, and is taxed as ordinary income when you withdraw it in retirement. For 2026 the employee elective deferral limit is $23,500, the same ceiling that applies to a 401(k). This projector takes your salary, the percentage you defer, any flat employer contribution, your time horizon, and an assumed return, then compounds the whole thing year by year.
It is built for the educator or nonprofit employee who wants a realistic balance at retirement rather than a vague reassurance. One thing to know going in: the calculator caps your annual deferral at $23,500 automatically, so if your salary times your percentage exceeds that, it uses the legal maximum instead.
Twenty-five years on an $80,000 salary
Suppose you earn $80,000 and defer 10 percent, which is $8,000 a year, comfortably under the cap. Your employer adds a flat $2,000 annually. With 25 years to go and a 7 percent return, each year the account receives $10,000 of new money and then grows. After 25 years the projected balance is about $676,765. Of that, you contributed $200,000 of your own pay and your employer added $50,000, with the remaining $426,765 coming from compounding alone. That last figure is the one worth sitting with: more than 60 cents of every dollar in the account at retirement was created by growth, not by money you set aside, which is the entire case for starting young and never skipping a year.
| Input or output | Value |
|---|---|
| Salary | $80,000 |
| Employee deferral (10%) | $8,000 per year |
| Employer contribution | $2,000 per year |
| Your contributions over 25 years | $200,000 |
| Employer match over 25 years | $50,000 |
| Projected balance at retirement | $676,765 |
The chart below makes the point that compounding, not contributions, does most of the heavy lifting over a long career.
The return assumption deserves a second look
A single number drives the projection more than any other: the assumed annual return. The example uses 7 percent, a reasonable long-run figure for a diversified stock-heavy portfolio before inflation, but small changes swing the result enormously over 25 years. Drop the assumption to 5 percent and that same $10,000 a year grows to roughly half a million instead of $676,765. Push it to 9 percent and it clears $900,000. The honest way to use this tool is to run a pessimistic, a middle, and an optimistic rate, then plan around the middle while making sure the pessimistic case still gets you to a livable balance. Time, not heroics in any single year, is what compounds your contributions into real money.
Where a 403(b) quietly differs from a 401(k)
Two wrinkles set the 403(b) apart. First, long-tenure employees with 15 or more years at the same qualifying employer may add a special catch-up of up to $3,000 a year, on top of the standard age-50 catch-up. This calculator does not model that extra room, so if you qualify, your real ceiling is higher than the $23,500 shown. Second, many 403(b) menus historically leaned on high-fee annuity products. Watch the expense ratios; a plan stuffed with 2 percent annuity wrappers can erase a big slice of the growth this tool projects at a clean 7 percent. If your plan offers a low-cost index lineup alongside the annuities, the index funds are almost always the better long-term home for your contributions.
Frequently asked
Should I pick the Roth 403(b) instead?
If your plan offers a Roth option, contributions go in after tax and qualified withdrawals come out tax-free. Younger workers in lower brackets often favor Roth; those near peak earnings usually prefer the upfront deduction of the traditional version. The dollar limit is the same $23,500 either way.
What happens to my 403(b) if I change school districts?
You keep it. The account is yours, and you can leave it where it is, roll it into your new employer's plan, or roll it to an IRA. Rolling to an IRA often opens up lower-cost investment choices than a legacy 403(b) menu allows.