RMD Calculator: Your Required Minimum Distribution, by Age

01Your Required Minimum Distribution

Each year's RMD is the account balance on December 31 of the year before, divided by a number from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table for the age you reach that year. Enter your year of birth and the balance; the projection shows what you would have to take every year after that.

Projected RMD each year (bars) and the account balance at the end of each year after the withdrawal (line), assuming the growth rate you chose and that you take only the minimum. In today's tax rules; not adjusted for inflation.

02Inherited IRAs and 401(k)s

The rules depend on who you are to the person who died. Most children and other heirs who are not a spouse must empty the account by the end of the tenth year after the death, and if the owner had already started RMDs they must also take a minimum each year along the way. A spouse, a minor child of the owner, a disabled or chronically ill heir, or one no more than 10 years younger than the owner can instead stretch withdrawals over their own life expectancy.

For deaths in 2020 or later, under the SECURE Act. Heirs who are not people, such as an estate or some trusts, have different rules. For an inherited Roth IRA there is no yearly minimum under the 10-year rule, because a Roth owner is always treated as having died before RMDs began; the account still has to be emptied by the end of the tenth year. The IRS did not penalize missed annual withdrawals under the 10-year rule for 2021 to 2024; they are required from 2025. When the owner had already started RMDs, the yearly minimum is based on the owner's remaining life expectancy instead if it is longer than the heir's; this calculator uses the heir's.

03When RMDs Start

The starting age has gone up twice and is set to rise again: from 70½ to 72 under the SECURE Act of 2019, then to 73 under SECURE 2.0 in 2022, and under that same law to 75 from 2033, for people born in 1960 or later. The first RMD can wait until April 1 of the following year, but every later one is due by December 31, so waiting means taking two in the same tax year. If you are still working, you can usually wait until you retire to start RMDs from your current employer's plan, unless you own more than 5% of the company; the exception does not apply to IRAs.

04How Much You Must Take at Each Age

IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, used by most account owners since 2022. If your spouse is your only beneficiary and more than 10 years younger, the IRS Joint Life and Last Survivor Table gives a smaller RMD. The table continues to 2.0 at 120 and older.

05Which Accounts Have RMDs

06Ways to Handle RMDs

Give it to charity. From age 70½ you can send up to $111,000 in 2026 straight from an IRA to a charity as a qualified charitable distribution. It counts toward your RMD but is not taxed as income, which can also keep your adjusted gross income below Medicare surcharge and Social Security tax thresholds. A one-time gift of up to $55,000 can go to a charitable gift annuity or charitable remainder trust. QCDs are not available from 401(k)s, 403(b)s or SEP and SIMPLE IRAs that are still receiving employer contributions.

Convert to Roth before RMDs start. Converting part of a traditional IRA to a Roth in the years before your RMD age shrinks the balance future RMDs are figured on. Once RMDs start, the year's RMD has to come out first; it cannot be converted.

Take more than the minimum. You can take as much as you like, with no early-withdrawal penalty after 59½, but extra withdrawals in one year do not count toward next year's RMD.

07If You Miss an RMD

The penalty is an excise tax of 25% of the amount you should have taken, cut to 10% if you take the missed amount and file a corrected return within the correction window, generally two years. Before SECURE 2.0 it was 50%. You report it on IRS Form 5329, and the IRS can waive it entirely if the shortfall was a reasonable error and you are fixing it; you ask for the waiver on the same form.

08What the Numbers Show

The first RMD is small. At 73 the divisor is 26.5, so the RMD is 3.8% of the account, less than many retirees withdraw anyway. At 75 it is 4.1%.

It grows with age. The share passes 5% at 81 (5.2%), reaches 8.2% at 90 and 15.6% at 100, because the table assumes fewer years left to spread the money over.

The balance can keep growing. If investments earn more than the RMD percentage, the account can still get bigger through your 70s and into your 80s even while you take the minimum each year, which is why projections matter for planning taxes in later years.

09How the Calculator Works

The age used is the age you reach by December 31 of the RMD year. The RMD is the prior year-end balance divided by the Uniform Lifetime Table divisor for that age, as in IRS Publication 590-B. The projection grows the balance after each withdrawal at the rate you choose. For inherited accounts, the heir's divisor comes from the Single Life Table for the heir's age in the year after the death, reduced by one for each year after that. A spouse who is the only beneficiary and keeps the account as inherited uses the Single Life Table for their own age each year, and a spouse who treats the account as their own follows the owner rules in section 01 instead. This is a guide, not tax advice: your plan administrator or IRA custodian reports the official figure, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.

10Questions People Ask

11Sources

• 26 CFR 1.401(a)(9)-9: Life expectancy and distribution period tables
• IRS Publication 590-B: Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements
• IRS: Retirement plan and IRA required minimum distributions FAQs
• IRS Form 5329
• Congressional Research Service: Qualified Charitable Distributions from IRAs

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