Retirement Corpus Needed by State in India (2026 Data)

A retired couple living comfortably in urban India needs about ₹3.0 crore to ₹5.1 crore on the day they retire at 60, if they are 35 today, depending on the state. That is a budget of roughly ₹22,000 to ₹37,000 a month at today's prices, based on what the top fifth of urban households in each state actually spend. Urban Chandigarh, a Union Territory, needs about ₹7.4 crore.

These numbers come from the government's own household spending survey, which reports figures by state, not by city. Below is the ranked table for 11 large states and Chandigarh, three findings, and the full method so you can check every step. For the general tables by age and monthly spend, read our guide on how much money you need to retire in India; this post adds where you live. To run the maths with your own budget, use FinPlann's retirement corpus calculator.

Illustrative, not a forecast. Spending is in today's rupees, inflation is 6% a year, your money earns 7% a year after you retire, it has to last until age 90, and each year's spending is withdrawn at the start of that year. This is the same method as our resident guide and our guide to retiring in India as an NRI.

How much money do you need to retire in each state? The ranked table

States are ranked by the comfortable budget. Each row covers urban households across the whole state; the cities in brackets are only there to help you find your row. "Modest" is what the average urban household in that state spends per person, for two people. "Comfortable" is what the top 20% of urban households spend. The corpus columns assume you are 35 now and retire at 60.

Budgets are 2023-24 survey spending raised to June 2026 prices and rounded to ₹100. Each figure is for all urban areas of the state or UT, not for the city named in brackets. SIP assumes 10% a year before retirement. Illustrative.

"In today's money" is the corpus at 60 divided back by 25 years of 6% inflation, so you can compare it with prices you know. A comfortable couple in urban Karnataka needs about ₹4.5 crore at 60, which buys roughly what ₹1.0 crore buys now.

Three findings from the data

1. Urban Telangana needs the most of the large states

Urban Telangana households spent ₹8,978 per person a month in 2023-24, the highest of the 11 large states here, and Telangana's urban prices have risen fastest since, with an urban CPI of 109.19 in June 2026. A comfortable couple there spends about ₹37,400 a month and needs about ₹5.1 crore at 60. Urban Maharashtra, at about ₹4.0 crore, sits eighth, just behind urban Punjab.

A state figure averages the state capital with every smaller town. If you live in the most expensive part of a big city, your own budget is a better guide than any state average.

2. The top state needs 1.7 times the bottom one

Among the 11 large states, a comfortable couple in urban Telangana needs about ₹5.1 crore, against about ₹3.0 crore in urban Uttar Pradesh. That is 1.71 times the monthly budget and a gap of about ₹2.1 crore. Add Chandigarh, where urban households spend the most of any state or UT in this list, and the spread widens to 2.50 times: about ₹7.4 crore against ₹3.0 crore.

3. Renting can move the number more than the state does

The survey budgets already include rent, but only as an average across owners and tenants: ₹460 of the ₹6,996 an average urban Indian spent a month in 2023-24, or 6.58%. So the table is closer to a couple who own their home. If you will rent in retirement, add your rent on top. As an illustration, assuming rent of ₹20,000 a month today that rises 6% a year, you would need about ₹2.7 crore more at 60. That is more than the ₹2.1 crore gap between the top and bottom large states.

Illustrative rent amounts, not survey data. Rent rises 6% a year. Age 35 now, retire at 60, same method as above.

If you are weighing buying against renting, the rent vs buy calculator runs both sides.

What does a comfortable budget actually cover?

The survey counts everything a household spends on consumption: food, fuel, transport, medical bills, clothes, household goods, services and rent where it is paid. It does not count income tax, insurance premiums, loan repayments or savings.

Two things change once you retire. Education spending, which is 5.97% of the average urban budget, mostly falls away. Medical spending, 5.85% of that budget today, usually goes the other way, and medical costs can rise faster than general prices. Our main retirement guide shows what happens to the corpus if your health costs rise 10% a year instead of 6%, along with tables for ages 30, 40 and 50.

If your own spending is higher than the comfortable column, use your own number. At ₹50,000 a month today, someone aged 35 needs about ₹6.8 crore at 60, or ₹1.6 crore in today's money, with a monthly SIP of about ₹54,400.

How was this calculated? Methodology

Why states and not cities?

The official source for what Indian households spend, MoSPI's Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), publishes its figures for the rural and urban parts of each state and Union Territory. It does not publish figures for individual cities. Rather than invent a city budget or lean on crowd-sourced cost-of-living sites, this post reports the state's urban figure and labels it that way. Chandigarh and Delhi come closest to a city figure, because the UT and NCT are almost entirely one urban area.

Every figure comes from a Python script with its output saved. The steps:

1. Spending per person. HCES 2023-24, fact sheet Statement 7, gives the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) for urban areas of every state and UT. We used the estimates without the imputed value of free items from welfare schemes. The survey ran from August 2023 to July 2024 and covered 1,07,596 urban households.
2. Modest and comfortable. Modest is the state's urban average. For comfortable, we took the all-India urban spending of the top 20% of people (the 80-90%, 90-95% and 95-100% fractile classes in Figure 1U, weighted 10:5:5), which averages ₹13,351, and divided by the all-India urban average of ₹6,996. That gives a multiple of 1.908, applied to each state. The fact sheet does not break fractile classes down by state, so this assumes each state's spread looks like India's.
3. Couple. Per-person spending times two.
4. To 2026 prices. Each state's urban Consumer Price Index for June 2026, on the new base of 2024 = 100. We treated the survey's prices as 2024 prices. The survey period starts five months before 2024, so this slightly understates today's cost.
5. Corpus. The site method stated at the top: 6% inflation, 7% return after retirement, to age 90, withdrawals at the start of each year. For a 35-year-old retiring at 60 the corpus works out to 26.3 times the first year's spending.
6. SIP. 10% a year before retirement, invested at the start of each month for 25 years.

The inputs, for anyone who wants to redo the sums:

What this method gets wrong

• A state's urban average mixes its largest city with smaller towns, so it will usually understate costs in the biggest metros.
• Per-person spending in a two-person home is usually higher than in a larger family, because rent, fuel and appliances are shared among fewer people. Doubling MPCE probably undershoots a couple's real budget.
• Using India's top-20% multiple for every state is an approximation.
• Everything after today depends on 6% inflation and 7% returns. If inflation runs at 5% instead, the urban Karnataka comfortable corpus drops from about ₹4.5 crore to ₹3.1 crore. At 7%, it rises to ₹6.5 crore.

Retiring at 55 instead of 60?

Five years earlier means five fewer years of saving and five more years of withdrawals. For a 35-year-old, a comfortable couple in urban Karnataka would need about ₹3.8 crore at 55, which is ₹1.2 crore in today's money, against ₹1.0 crore for retiring at 60. The monthly SIP rises from about ₹36,000 to ₹52,700. If you are in your thirties and still deciding, our guide to retirement planning in your 30s covers where to start.

What to do with this number

Use the table to find a sensible range, then replace it with your own budget. Write down what you spend today on everything except EMIs, savings and costs that stop at retirement, such as children's fees. Add rent if you will pay it. Then put that number into the retirement corpus calculator, which uses the same assumptions as this post and lets you change each one. The resident retirement guide has the full tables by age and monthly spend if you want to compare.