FIRE glossary
Bridge Period (Bridging)
The years between retiring and your pensions or state benefits starting — the stretch your investable portfolio alone has to cover.
How the bridge pot is sized
The bridge years run from your retirement age to the age your earliest pension starts paying. Ember prices that stretch as an annuity — your annual spend, funded at your real return assumption, for exactly that many years — plus a second, smaller pot sized to cover any residual shortfall once pensions do start but don't fully cover your spend on their own.
Pensions net of tax, not gross
The bridge accounts for the tax owed on each pension at its own source-country and treaty routing, not a single blended rate. A pension paid to a resident of a low-tax country nets more than an identical pension paid to a resident of a high-tax one, and the bridge pot and post-pension shortfall are both sized on that net figure — see the tax-drag-on-withdrawals term for the underlying mechanics.
Lump sums shrink the bridge
Any tax-free (or partially tax-free) lump sum a pension pays at its start age is subtracted from the total required pot, since it lands just as the bridge would otherwise still be drawing down. Where a UK lump-sum allowance applies, lump sums are processed in the order they're taken, so earlier ones consume the allowance first.
A closed-form approximation
This is a single-residence model: it prices the whole bridge window at one tax residency, anchored at the point you retire. A residency move that happens strictly inside the bridge window — after you retire but before the first pension starts — is priced more accurately by Ember's year-by-year residency simulator, which reprices each year at its own residence rather than one fixed anchor. The bridge figure on this page is the honest approximation, not the final word, for anyone moving mid-bridge.
Worked example
Retiring at 55 with a $20,000/yr pension starting at 67
Bridge years
12
55 → 67
Bridge pot
US$354,530
Post-pension pot
US$500,000
Total required
US$854,530
Fixed illustrative inputs, not your data — for the exact maths behind your own numbers, use the free calculator or build a plan. Educational modelling, not financial advice.
Across borders
Bridging is inherently a cross-border-relevant idea for anyone retiring before a state pension becomes claimable — claim ages, deferral rules and early-claim reductions vary a great deal by country. See the Social Security equivalent term and /countries for state-pension claim ages by country.
Common questions
What if I have no pensions at all?
The bridge calculation falls back to the ordinary required-pot figure for your full life expectancy — there's no pension income to bridge toward, so the whole retirement is funded the same way.
Does the bridge change if I move country mid-bridge?
Yes, and the closed-form bridge described here is an approximation for that specific case — Ember's residency-driven simulator, which reprices each year at its own tax residence, is the more accurate path when a move happens inside the bridge window.
Do multiple pensions all count toward the bridge?
The bridge window is set by the EARLIEST pension start age; later-starting pensions are counted once they begin, reducing the post-pension shortfall from that point on.
Related terms
See bridge period (bridging) in your numbers
The free calculator gives a rough estimate; the full planner models your actual accounts, pensions, residency moves and taxes — with the maths behind every figure shown.