How to Read Your RSU Vesting Schedule (Without Guessing) in 2026

Your RSU grant letter is not a payout schedule

When you're handed a Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) grant, the letter usually states a number of shares or a dollar value, plus a vesting schedule described in a sentence or two. What it rarely gives you is the thing you actually need: a timeline showing exactly how many shares are yours on exactly which date. Understanding that timeline matters for tax planning, for deciding when to sell, and for knowing what you'd walk away with if you left the company tomorrow.

The standard 4-year, 1-year cliff structure

The most common RSU structure at large tech and public companies is a four-year schedule with a one-year cliff. Practically, that means:

• Nothing vests for the first 12 months — this is the cliff. If you leave before month 12, you typically forfeit the entire grant.
• At month 12, a lump sum vests all at once — usually 25% of the total grant.
• The remaining 75% vests in equal increments — monthly or quarterly, depending on the company — over the following 36 months.

By month 48, 100% of the grant has vested. The math behind each tranche is simple in theory (divide the remaining shares evenly across the remaining periods) but easy to get wrong by hand, especially when your grant includes a fractional share count derived from a dollar value divided by the grant-date price.

Why the cliff catches people off guard

The cliff is the single most consequential date in your vesting schedule, and it's also the one most people misunderstand. Before month 12, your vested balance is exactly zero — not a partial amount, not a prorated fraction. This is precisely why job-change timing around a one-year mark matters so much: leaving at month 11 and leaving at month 13 can be the difference between forfeiting an entire grant and keeping a full quarter of it.

Grant price versus current price — where the real numbers live

Your grant letter almost always lists a value based on the grant-date share price — the price on the day the RSUs were awarded. But the shares that actually vest are valued (and taxed) at their price on the vest date, which could be dramatically different if the stock has moved. A grant modeled at $25/share that vests when the stock is at $41.50 is worth far more than the number printed on your offer letter — or far less, if the stock has fallen. Tracking both figures side by side, tranche by tranche, is the only way to see your real economic outcome rather than the number from the day you signed.

Custom schedules exist too

Not every company uses the standard 4-year/1-year-cliff model. Some use no cliff at all with pure monthly vesting from day one. Some use a shorter 3-year schedule. Some vest quarterly instead of monthly after the cliff. Whatever your specific terms, the underlying math is the same: total shares divided proportionally across defined vesting events, reconciling to exactly 100% by the final date.

Common vesting math mistakes

1. Rounding each tranche independently. If you round every monthly tranche to a whole share, the sum across 36+ periods can drift away from your actual total grant — you end up with phantom fractional shares unaccounted for.
2. Forgetting the cliff is a lump sum, not a head start. The cliff tranche isn't “the first monthly vest” — it's typically a full 25% chunk that lands all at once.
3. Using grant price to estimate current value. Always separate what your grant was modeled at from what it's actually worth today.

Bottom line

A vesting schedule is really just a proportional allocation problem with a hard deadline at the end — but getting the cliff, the tranche sizing, and the price comparison right by hand is tedious and error-prone. Mapping out the full timeline once, with both price points shown at every tranche, turns a vague grant letter into a concrete plan you can actually act on.