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Life Expectancy Calculator: Your Average, and the Odds Behind It
This reads one published table and gives you two things: the average number of years left at your exact age, and the odds of reaching 80, 90 and 100.
The second part is the one worth having. An average is a number that half of people beat, and a plan built around it quietly assumes you will not be one of them.
No health quiz and no forty questions about your diet. Two fields, and the source is named under the result.
Nothing is saved and nothing is sent anywhere. The numbers stay in your browser.
What is your life expectancy?
Two fields. The optional second person adds the figure that matters most if you are planning together.
Planning this with someone else?
An estate usually passes on the second death, not the first, so the useful figure for a couple is the odds that at least one of you is still here.
Average age reached
Enter an age to read the table.
Out of everyone your age today
- Enter an age above.
An average is not a forecast. It is drawn from everyone at your age, and it knows nothing about you. Half of people pass it, which is the part worth keeping in mind: a plan written today may well have to hold up for longer than the headline figure suggests.
Figures from Social Security Administration, Office of the Chief Actuary, Period Life Table, 2023, as used in the 2026 Trustees Report.
This hypothetical example is used for illustrative purposes only. Actual results will vary.
This information is not intended as tax, legal, investment, or retirement advice or recommendations, and it may not be relied on for the purpose of avoiding any federal tax penalties. You are encouraged to seek guidance from an independent tax or legal professional. The content is derived from sources believed to be accurate.
These figures describe a population, not a person. The published table is sorted by age and by two columns, male and female, and contains nothing about health, family history, occupation or where you live.
Reading the result
Four figures, and why the first one is the weakest
Average age reached
Your age plus the average years left at that exact age. It climbs as you get older, which catches people out: having already reached 70 means you did not die at 40, and the table knows that.
Where half of people your age get to
The median. Half the people at your age today are still counted at this age and half are not. It usually sits a little above the average, and it is the fairer of the two to plan around.
The odds of reaching 80, 90 and 100
Taken from the survivors column of the same table: how many of the original hundred thousand are still counted at that age. A fact about a population, not a prediction about you.
At least one of you at 90
For a couple this is the line that decides when an estate actually passes, because it passes on the second death. Two people aged 65 have a better than even chance that one of them sees 90.
Why the average is the weakest number in the table
Life expectancy at birth in the United States is 75.8 years for men and 81.1 for women. Those two figures get quoted everywhere, and for planning purposes they are close to useless.
Here is why. In the same table, the single most common age of death is 87 for men and 89 for women. More people die at 87 than at any other single age, and that is more than a decade past the number everyone repeats.
The two are not in conflict. Life expectancy at birth is pulled down by everyone who never reaches old age at all. Once you have already lived to 40, or to 65, the table stops averaging you with them and your figure climbs.
The average also hides the spread, and the spread is the part that matters. Of the men who reach 65, 24 out of 100 are still here at 90. For women it is 35 out of 100. A plan built for the average leaves exactly those people without one.
Where the numbers come from
The life expectancy table this calculator reads
There is no model here and no guesswork. The figures come from the period life table published by the Social Security Administration, and the exact edition is printed under the result so you can see how current it is.
A period life table follows a hypothetical group of 100,000 births through the mortality rates of one year. Two of its columns do all the work:
- Number of lives. How many of the original 100,000 are still counted at each exact age. Divide one age by another and you have the odds of getting from the first to the second.
- Life expectancy. The average number of years remaining at that exact age.
The published table has two columns, male and female, and no others. It knows nothing about your health, your family history, your work or where you live. That is a genuine limit, and it is the reason this page does not ask you forty questions and then present the answer as though it were about you.
For a couple, the second date is the one that counts
An estate usually passes on the second death, not the first. So the arithmetic that matters to a couple is not either life on its own.
Two people aged 65 today have a better than even chance that one of them is still here at 90. That is twenty-five years for a document written this afternoon to stay accurate.
The conclusion is not a dramatic one. Names change. Executors move away, marriages end, children have children of their own, and the person who made obvious sense as a guardian five years ago may be unreachable in twenty. A plan written well does not need redoing every few years. It does need reading.
Common questions
Questions the table can answer
What percentage of 70 year olds live to 90?
Of men aged 70, 26.5 out of 100 are still counted at 90. For women it is 37 out of 100. Both come straight from the survivors column of the table named under the calculator.
Why does my life expectancy go up as I get older?
Because the average stops including the people who did not reach your age. At birth the figure carries everyone. At 65 it carries only the people who made it to 65, and that is a different group.
How accurate is this for me personally?
It is not personal, and no page reading a public table can honestly claim otherwise. It reports what happened across a large population, sorted by age and by the two columns the table publishes. Your own health, habits and family history are not in it.
What is the difference between the average and the median?
The average is the mean number of years remaining. The median is the age by which half the people at your age have died. Here the median usually sits a little above the average, because a smaller number of early deaths pulls the mean down. Given the choice, plan around the median.
How often does the table change?
The Social Security Administration republishes it roughly once a year alongside the Trustees Report. The edition in use is printed under the result, so you can always see whether you are reading a current one.