How much should you withdraw from drawdown each year?

How much pension drawdown to take is your choice, and what lasts turns on your pot, investment returns, charges, lifespan, other income and tax.

The amount is your choice within the tax rules, and this page sets out what decides whether a given level lasts. Before deciding, MoneyHelper offers Pension Wise appointments to people with a UK defined contribution pension who are 50 or over; it describes the service as free, impartial and government-backed. For a level of withdrawal weighed against your own pots, tax and health, an FCA-authorised adviser can take a look once you have sent a few lines via the form on this page.

Is there a safe withdrawal rate?

Whether a yearly amount is safe depends on your own pot rather than on a single percentage. In MoneyHelper's drawdown guide, the things that decide how long the money lasts are how much you take out, how well the investments perform, what your provider deducts in charges and how long you live, and because the pot stays invested, the sum you can take may turn out higher or lower than you expected. One suggestion when growth is slower than planned is changing the amount you take, so a level is something to review as you go rather than fix once. The guide also has a calculator that estimates how long a regular drawdown income could last, and the FCA's figures further down show the rates people actually withdraw, which is not the same as what would last for you.

Money left in drawdown stays invested, so its worth can swing down as well as up and you may finish with less than you put in. How drawdown itself works is in our pension drawdown guide.

What decides whether a withdrawal level lasts

MoneyHelper says you can usually choose how often to access your pension and how much to take each time: "This means you need to plan carefully to reduce the risk of running out of money." It names three ways a pot can fall short:

• "live longer than you expect – many underestimate the length of their retirement"
• "take out too much in the early years"
• "do not adjust the amounts you take if your invested pension grows less than you’ve planned for."

Putting those with the other points the sources make gives five things to weigh:

1. The size of the pot. The pot's worth comes down to contributions, investment performance and provider charges.
2. Investment returns. With the money still invested, "the amount you can take out might be higher or lower than expected", and it is "important to regularly check how well it’s performing", in MoneyHelper's words. If growth is slower than planned, the responses it lists are "adjusting the amount you’re planning to take each time", "choosing a different way of taking your money" and "changing how your pension is invested". How to choose the investments is on investing a drawdown pension.
3. Charges. They come off the pot, and GOV.UK notes that withdrawals may carry a provider fee. Ask yours. See pension charges.
4. How long it has to last. This is the risk the first warning above says many people underestimate. The ONS calculator below gives an average lifespan for your age and sex, and only an average. When money can first be taken is in our guide to the minimum pension age.
5. Other income. GOV.UK says your taxable income can include the State Pension, earnings, and other income such as money from renting out a property, savings interest or investments. The more of your spending those cover, the less you need from the pot, and they also decide how much of each withdrawal is taxed. The State Pension is covered in our State Pension guide, and what you may want to spend in how much pension you need.

Two choices also change the picture. The tax-free cash you take first reduces what stays invested: a larger tax-free withdrawal at the start leaves less for later income. And if you decide a guaranteed income matters more than flexibility, an annuity is the alternative; annuity or drawdown sets the two side by side, and switching from drawdown to an annuity covers changing course later.

What people actually withdraw: the FCA's data

The FCA collects data from pension firms on how the pension freedoms are used and publishes it as counts, without saying what anyone should take. Its 2025/26 release (first published 24 September 2026, "based on submitted data as of 7 August 2026") includes Table 7, "Number of plans where the plan holder(s) made regular partial withdrawals by annual rate of withdrawal and age band". The row for all ages:

Source: FCA, Retirement income market data 2025/26, underlying data tables, Table 7, total row.

What the table counts matters more than the numbers. Its notes define the rate as "% of pot withdrawn during the year" and the plans as those with "a regular drawdown or UFPLS payment set up" where at least one withdrawal was made and the money "remained invested at the period end", as reported by firms with at least 750 such plans. Where someone with a regular payment "also took an ad-hoc payment in the year, the ad-hoc payments are reported here also", so the top band includes one-off withdrawals taken on top of a regular income. The FCA counts plans, not people, because "some consumers have multiple pension plans", and the table shows nothing about anyone's other savings or income or whether their level of withdrawal lasted. It records what was taken, not what is sustainable.

Tools for testing a withdrawal plan

MoneyHelper's pension drawdown guide offers a calculator to estimate how long a regular drawdown income could last. Our page on which pension calculator to use covers the wider choice.

For life expectancy, the Office for National Statistics has an interactive life expectancy calculator. It gives "average life expectancy and the likelihood of living to be aged 100 years for someone of your age and sex, given assumed future mortality improvements". The ONS adds a caution: it is "average cohort life expectancy which does not consider other factors that may affect life expectancy such as lifestyle or health conditions." So it is a starting point, not a planning end date.

A calculator works on its own assumptions and cannot see your whole position. An FCA-authorised adviser can test a withdrawal plan against your pots, State Pension, tax and health together; to be rung or emailed by one, complete the form on this page. It costs nothing.

How the amount you take changes your tax

Each tax year's taxable withdrawals are added to the rest of your income, so the level you choose also sets the tax on it. This is the general UK position for the 2026/27 tax year; Scottish taxpayers pay Scottish rates. The full mechanics of how drawdown income is taxed are in our pension drawdown guide; four points bear directly on how much to take.

• The tax-free part. GOV.UK gives the usual tax-free amount as up to a quarter of the pot, to a maximum of £268,275; a protected allowance can raise that, it adds. MoneyHelper notes that a pot can go into drawdown with none of this taken, or any amount up to 25%, and that a quarter of later lump sums can be tax-free within the same limits. Claiming it is covered on taking your tax-free lump sum.
• Large years cost more. GOV.UK warns that a large withdrawal can push income into a higher tax rate, with extra tax possibly owing once the year closes. MoneyHelper points out that drawdown lets you stagger withdrawals over several tax years to stay out of a higher band. The bands are on GOV.UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland).
• Too much tax on a first lump sum. A provider may use an emergency tax code on a first lump sum, so the payment can arrive smaller than expected; HMRC's pension refund guidance and cashing in a pension explain how to get it back.

If you are still paying in

The fourth point is the money purchase annual allowance (MPAA). MoneyHelper says contributions from you and your employer normally "must be less than £60,000", and that after taxable money comes out of a defined contribution pot, such as money taken after the pension has been put into drawdown, the limit falls to £10,000. HMRC's Pensions Tax Manual gives the same £10,000 from tax year 2023-24 onwards (PTM056510), and lists the first income withdrawal from a flexi-access drawdown fund among the trigger events (PTM056520); the lower limit then applies for that tax year and each one after it. For anyone still working or planning to save, that is worth raising with the provider before the first taxable payment. The allowance has its own guide, the money purchase annual allowance, and relief on contributions is in pension tax relief.

Questions about drawdown withdrawals

Is there a legal maximum I can take from drawdown each year?

GOV.UK describes a yearly maximum for older capped drawdown funds, where the provider sets the most you can take out each year. For flexi-access drawdown its list of what you can do starts with "make withdrawals"; for any limit your own provider sets, ask it. See flexi-access versus capped drawdown, and for the opposite question, whether there is a minimum.

Should I take drawdown monthly or once a year?

MoneyHelper says you can usually choose how often to access your pension and how much to take each time, though GOV.UK tells savers to ask which options a provider offers and says the way a pension is taxed depends partly on "whether the payments are a regular income or a lump sum", and a lump sum may be emergency-taxed at first, as above. The practical steps are in setting up pension drawdown, and the wider risks in the risks of drawdown.

Can I work out the income from a pot of a given size?

Not as one safe figure, because the result depends on the five factors above. For the size of pot a given lifestyle might need, see how much pension you need.

How long will my money last once inflation and tax are counted?

MoneyHelper's calculator, inside the guide linked above, is built to estimate how long a regular drawdown income could last, and its answer is only as good as what it assumes for growth, inflation, charges and tax. On tax, GOV.UK says "Tax is taken off the remaining amount before you get it", so the figure to plan with is what arrives after tax.

Your next step

Your own level of withdrawal rests on your pot, your other income, how long it must last and your tax. Pension Wise explains the options free. When you want that level tried against your whole position, an FCA-authorised adviser can do it in one conversation; your number goes in the form on this page, after which the decision stays yours.

Sources: MoneyHelper, pension drawdown explained (archived copy, June 2026); FCA, Retirement income market data 2025/26; ONS, Life expectancy calculator; GOV.UK, Tax when you get a pension; GOV.UK, Personal pensions: how you can take your pension; HMRC Pensions Tax Manual, PTM056510 and PTM056520; HMRC, Claim a tax refund on your pension by post. Accessed 18 October 2026.