The amount today that grows to your FIRE number, untaxed.
Coast FIRE number today
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FIRE number at retirement
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Gap to coast point
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The moment you can stop saving for retirement
Coast FIRE is a quieter cousin of full financial independence. You do not have enough to quit work today, but you have enough invested that, left untouched, it will compound into your full retirement number by the time you stop working. From that point you only need to earn enough to cover your living costs. Every additional dirham of saving becomes optional. For someone in their thirties or forties, hitting Coast FIRE is psychologically huge: the pressure to maximise savings rate finally lifts.
The UAE makes this calculation unusually clean. With no personal capital gains tax on individual investments, the whole compounded balance is yours. The model treats the individual capital gains rate as zero, which reflects the current position; in most other countries you would shave a slice off your assumed return to account for tax drag, and the coast number would be higher as a result.
Working backwards from your target
The engine runs in two moves. First it sizes your full retirement pot by dividing annual expenses by your safe withdrawal rate, the familiar 4 percent rule giving a pot of 25 times spending. Then it discounts that future pot back to today using compound growth over the years until retirement. The formula is target divided by one-plus-return raised to the number of years. Whatever today’s invested savings fall short of that discounted figure is your gap to the coast point.
A 35-year-old aiming for 60
Take the defaults: age 35, retiring at 60, AED 180,000 of annual spending, a 4 percent withdrawal rate, and 6 percent expected growth. The tool needs an AED 4.5 million pot at 60, and discounting that back 25 years gives a Coast FIRE number of about AED 1,048,494 today. With AED 250,000 already invested, the gap is roughly AED 798,494.
| Step | Figure |
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The curve shows that single AED 1,048,494 lump growing untouched to AED 4.5 million by age 60.
How sensitive the answer is to your assumptions
Two inputs swing this number hard. The growth rate is the obvious one: nudging expected return from 6 percent to 7 percent shrinks the coast number meaningfully, because more years of compounding do more of the work. The quieter trap is the withdrawal rate. Dropping from 4 percent to 3 percent, which many planners now favour for a long retirement, lifts the target pot from 25 times spending to 33 times, and the coast number rises with it. A sensible habit is to run a conservative pair, a lower return and a lower withdrawal rate, and aim for that tougher figure.
A caution expats should not skip
This model assumes your money simply compounds and your spending in retirement matches today’s, in real terms, with the return treated as a real rate. It does not bake in inflation separately, currency moves if you retire outside the UAE, or the fact that many expats eventually leave and face their home country’s tax on the same pot. If you plan to retire somewhere that taxes investment gains, the untaxed-growth assumption no longer holds and you should plan for a larger number. The tool is for mid-career savers who want a single honest target to coast toward.
If I have already hit Coast FIRE, should I really stop investing?
You can stop saving specifically for retirement, but stopping all investing is a different question. Reaching the coast point assumes a particular return that may not materialise, so many people keep contributing as a buffer, or redirect savings toward shorter goals like a home or sabbatical. Think of Coast FIRE as removing the obligation, not as a hard instruction to halt.
What return should I assume in the input box?
Because this calculator treats the figure as a real, after-inflation return and applies no tax drag, a long-run global equity assumption of 5 to 7 percent real is a defensible range, with the lower end being the more cautious choice. Higher figures make the maths flatter and the coast number smaller, which is exactly when it pays to be conservative rather than optimistic.