Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP)
✓ Last verified 14 Sep 2026
The short version
An SWP is the reverse of a SIP - instead of investing a fixed amount every month, you withdraw a fixed amount every month from an existing investment, commonly used to generate a regular income stream, especially in retirement.
With an SWP, you set up a fixed monthly withdrawal (say ₹20,000) from a mutual fund investment, while the remaining balance stays invested and continues to (hopefully) grow. This is a common way to convert a lump-sum retirement corpus into a regular monthly income stream while keeping the rest of the money invested, rather than withdrawing everything at once and losing further growth potential. As with any withdrawal strategy, the withdrawal rate needs to be sustainable relative to the corpus size and expected returns - withdrawing too aggressively can deplete the corpus faster than it grows. See our retirement planning articles for how this fits into a broader drawdown strategy.
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