How long will I live?
Death clock: life expectancy calculator
Your birth month, year and sex give your estimated life expectancy, from real US data.
Example: born in June 2010, female
82 years
Around January 2092, about 65.2 years from now.
- 65 summers
- 3,403 weekends
- 65 birthdays
That is about how many you have left. Make them good ones.
An estimate from US averages, for fun. Not a prediction and not medical advice.
Your habits (optional)
How to add years
- +1.6 years: Move for 150 minutes a week or more: about 20 minutes a day of sports, walking, cycling or dancing.
- +1.1 years: Eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. A serving is about a handful.
How the death clock works
Pick your birth month, birth year, and sex. The death clock reads the US Social Security life table of 2023 and shows your estimated life expectancy, a live countdown, and about how many summers, weekends, and birthdays that is. Four habits move the estimate, each by the size a published study found. It is an estimate from averages, for fun, not a prediction and not medical advice.
- The life table of the US Social Security Administration gives, for each age from 0 to 119, the chance of living to the next birthday. The calculator uses the period table of 2023, as used in the 2026 Trustees Report.
- From your age on, it counts how many people out of a group your age are still alive each year, and adds up the years they live.
- Your habits make those yearly chances a little better or worse, by the hazard ratio of a study.
- The estimated date is your birth date plus that age. The summers count each 1 July before it, and the weekends each Saturday.
A period table keeps the death rates of one year for the whole life. Most people born today will likely live longer than it says, because medicine keeps getting better. Source: Social Security Administration, Actuarial Life Table.
The habits and their studies
We only use a habit when a large study measured its link to how long people live. The number is how much the study found the yearly death rate changes: ×1.25 is 25% higher, ×0.86 is 14% lower. The default answers keep the table as it is.
| Habit | Answers: yearly death rate (women / men) |
|---|---|
| Do you smoke cigarettes? | No: ×1.0Yes: ×3.0 / ×2.8 |
| How much do you move for fun (sports, walks, dancing)? | Hardly at all: ×1.25A bit: ×1.0150+ minutes a week: ×0.86 |
| How much do you sleep most nights? | Under 7 hours: ×1.127 hours or more: ×1.0 |
| Servings of fruit and vegetables a day? | 0 to 1: ×1.112 to 4: ×1.05 or more: ×0.9 |
- Jha et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2013: In over 200,000 US adults, people who smoked died at about 3 times the rate of people who never smoked, and lost more than 10 years.
- Arem et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015: In 661,137 adults, people who did some activity had a 20% lower death rate than people who did none, and people who did 150 to 300 minutes a week had a 31% lower rate.
- Cappuccio et al., Sleep, 2010: Across 16 studies of 1.4 million people, short sleepers had a 12% higher death rate.
- Wang et al., BMJ, 2014: In 833,234 people, each daily serving of fruit and vegetables went with a 5% lower death rate, up to about 5 servings.
The studies find links in large groups, and they do not prove that one habit alone causes the change. The calculator multiplies the ratios of your answers together, which treats the habits as separate. We left out habits that we could not tie to a published number.
US life expectancy by age
The average age that people reach in the US, by their age today, from the 2023 period life table. The older you are, the higher it gets, because you have already lived through the years before.
| Age today | Women: expected age | Men: expected age |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 81.1 | 75.8 |
| 10 | 81.6 | 76.4 |
| 13 | 81.6 | 76.4 |
| 16 | 81.7 | 76.5 |
| 18 | 81.7 | 76.6 |
| 20 | 81.7 | 76.7 |
| 25 | 81.9 | 77.1 |
| 30 | 82.1 | 77.5 |
| 40 | 82.6 | 78.6 |
| 50 | 83.5 | 79.9 |
| 60 | 84.7 | 81.8 |
| 70 | 86.8 | 84.7 |
| 80 | 89.8 | 88.5 |
| 90 | 94.8 | 94.1 |
| 100 | 102.2 | 102.0 |
Questions
Is the death clock accurate?
No calculator can tell when one person will die. This one gives an average: how long people of your age and sex live on average in the US, at the death rates of 2023, moved a little by four habits. Your genes, your health, where you live, and luck all matter too. Use it for fun and as a nudge, not as a prediction.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the period life table of the US Social Security Administration: the death rates of 2023, as used in the 2026 Trustees Report. It has one row for each age from 0 to 119, for women and for men. The habits come from four studies, named under the calculator.
What is the average life expectancy in the US?
At birth, 81.1 years for women and 75.8 years for men, in the Social Security life table of 2023. A person who is already 16 can expect to reach about 81.7 (women) or 76.5 (men), because they have already lived through the first years.
Why does my estimated age go up as I get older?
Because each year you live through is a year that no longer counts against you. The average at birth includes everyone; the average at 60 includes only the people who reached 60. That is why a 70-year-old can expect to live past the average at birth.
Why might I live longer than this?
A period life table keeps the death rates of one year, 2023, for the whole life. Medicine and living conditions usually improve, so most people born today will likely live longer than a period table says. The Social Security Administration also makes cohort tables that project those changes.
How do the habits change the estimate?
Each answer has a hazard ratio from a study: how much higher or lower the yearly death rate of a group was. The calculator multiplies the death rates of the table by the ratios of your answers, from your age on, and counts the years again. The default answers keep the table as it is. Studies find links, so the numbers are estimates, not promises.
Why are there only two sexes?
Because the Social Security life table has two columns, female and male. Pick the one closer to you, or try both: women live about 5 years longer on average.
Is my birth date saved?
No. The calculator runs in your browser and sends nothing to a server. The share link holds your birth month and year, the sex, your habit answers, and a first name if you add one. Anyone who opens the link sees them.