Real Rate of Return Calculator
This calculator turns a stated annual return into your real return after the tax on the gains and inflation, so you see what your money actually gained in buying power. Use it before comparing two investments, two accounts, or two years by the number that gets quoted.
Real Rate of Return
What an investment return actually keeps, after taxes and inflation take their share.
After taxes
After taxes and inflation (real return)
Want to walk through what this means for you? Let's talk about it
Educational estimate only, using flat assumed rates. Nothing is saved or sent.
The number on your statement isn't the number that matters
A 7% return sounds like a 7% return. It rarely is, once two things quietly take their cut: taxes on the gain, and inflation eating into what that gain can actually buy. What's left after both is the "real" return, and it's often smaller than people expect, sometimes uncomfortably so.
This matters most when you're comparing choices: a taxable account against a tax-advantaged one, a "safe" low-yield option against something with more volatility, a decision to sell versus hold. The nominal number can make a mediocre choice look fine, and a genuinely good one look unremarkable.
None of this argues for chasing the highest possible nominal number. It argues for knowing which number you're actually looking at before you decide anything based on it.
More free tools: Financial Calculators · The Investable Date Calculator · The Squeeze Test · Then vs. Now · The Financial Pyramid · The Wealth Builder Tax Leak Audit · The Retirement Tax Leak Audit · The Wealth Builder Decision Matrix · The Retirement Decision Matrix