What you need, and what you have
Enter the amount these pots must provide after your State Pension and other income. Those incomes are added separately to the total shown below.
Defined contribution, uncrystallised.
Withdrawals are tax-free.
Taxable. Capital gains apply on the profit.
40% of it is gain.
Defined benefit pension, rent, part-time work.
Across all your pensions. Reduce this for tax-free lump sums already taken; use your confirmed protected allowance if applicable. Excess is taxable.
Turn UFPLS off if you have already taken your tax-free lump sum separately, which makes the rest of the pension fully taxable.
To take home £40,000, withdraw £40,630
Cheapest of the four withdrawal orders below: Fill the personal allowance, then ISA.
The same income, four ways
Every row delivers £40,000 after tax. What changes is which pot it comes from, and what that costs. The gap between best and worst is £6,424 this year.
| Order | Withdraw | Tax | Rate | From pension |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Fill the personal allowance, then ISA Draw enough pension each year to use the personal allowance at 0% tax, then top up from the ISA. Usually the cheapest way to fund a given income, because the allowance does not carry forward. | £40,630 | £630 | 1.6% | £630 |
ISA first Spend the tax-free pot before touching anything taxable. Simplest, and leaves the pension growing outside your estate, but wastes your personal allowance in the years the ISA covers everything. | £40,630 | £630 | 1.6% | £630 |
Proportional Take the same fraction from every pot, based on its starting size, and increase the total withdrawal to cover the tax. | £46,447 | £6,446 | 13.9% | £43,006 |
Pension first Run the pension down before the ISA. Costs more tax now, but from April 2027 unused pensions fall inside the estate for inheritance tax, which changes the calculation for larger pots. | £47,054 | £7,054 | 15.0% | £47,054 |
One year is not the whole story. Spending the ISA first costs nothing in tax today, and that is exactly why it can be the wrong answer: it leaves the pension growing and wastes a personal allowance that does not carry forward. From April 2027 unused pensions are expected to fall inside the estate for inheritance tax, which pushes larger pots the other way. Use the tax column to see the price of each order, not to pick a lifetime strategy.
What this does and does not cover
Modeled
- Income tax including the £100,000 allowance taper
- Capital gains tax on the gain portion of GIA withdrawals
- The 25% tax-free element of pension withdrawals
- State pension stacking under other income
Not modeled
- Scotland, which sets its own income tax bands
- Couples, who have two allowances and two CGT exemptions
- Whether the money lasts, which is a projection not a tax question
- Inheritance tax, and the April 2027 pension changes
2026/27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. National Insurance is not charged on pension drawdown, so none is applied. Calculations run in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere. This is an illustration, not regulated financial advice.
Before the drawdown question comes the allocation one
How much you can safely take depends on what you are holding. Build the portfolio on published return forecasts from twenty houses, then come back and price the income it has to fund.
Open the optimizer