RMD Calculator (Required Minimum Distribution)

Divide your account balance on 31 December 2025 by the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table factor for your age at the end of 2026. At age 73 the factor is 26.5, so a $500,000 traditional IRA requires a distribution of about $18,868. The factors come from IRS Publication 590-B, Appendix B, Table III, and fall each year — at 75 the factor is 24.6, at 80 it is 20.2 — so the required percentage of your balance rises as you age.

Age 73 if you were born between 1951 and 1959, and age 75 if you were born in 1960 or later, under the SECURE 2.0 Act. Your first RMD is for the year you reach that age, and you may delay taking it until 1 April of the following year. Every subsequent RMD must be taken by 31 December of its own year.

If you turn 73 in 2026, your first RMD is for 2026 but can be delayed until 1 April 2027. The catch: your 2027 RMD is still due by 31 December 2027, so delaying means taking two taxable distributions in one year, which can push you into a higher bracket, increase the tax on your Social Security and raise Medicare IRMAA surcharges. Many first-year filers are better off taking the first RMD in its own year.

An excise tax of 25% of the amount you failed to withdraw, reported on Form 5329. SECURE 2.0 reduces it to 10% if you correct the shortfall within the correction window — broadly two years, ending earlier if the IRS assesses first. The IRS can also waive the penalty entirely for reasonable cause if you withdraw the shortfall and attach an explanation, and custodian error or a recently inherited account are commonly accepted grounds.

No — Roth IRAs have no required distributions during the owner's lifetime, which makes them the last account most retirees should spend. Designated Roth accounts in a 401(k) or 403(b) also have no RMDs for 2024 and later years. Beneficiaries who inherit a Roth IRA do face distribution requirements, generally emptying the account within 10 years.

RMDs from pre-tax accounts are ordinary income, taxed at your marginal federal rate — 10% to 37% for 2026 — plus state income tax where applicable. An RMD cannot be converted to a Roth or rolled over to another retirement account. Large RMDs can also make more of your Social Security taxable and trigger higher Medicare premiums two years later, so the true marginal cost is often higher than the headline bracket.

Yes. Only the annual total matters — you can take it monthly, quarterly, or in one payment at any point before the deadline. Retirees using RMDs for living costs often take monthly instalments; those who don't need the money often wait until December to maximise tax-deferred growth, or complete the withdrawal early in the year to remove market-timing risk on the deadline.

It depends on the account type. Traditional, SEP and SIMPLE IRA RMDs are calculated per account but can be aggregated and taken from any one IRA. Employer plans are the opposite: each 401(k) requires its own RMD, taken from that plan. This is a common reason retirees consolidate old 401(k)s into an IRA — one calculation, one withdrawal, one deadline.

Only for your current employer's plan, and only if you own 5% or less of the business: you can delay those RMDs until 1 April of the year after you retire. The exception never covers IRAs or plans left with former employers. Some workers roll old 401(k)s into their current employer's plan before their RMD age to bring those balances under the exception.

The main levers all involve acting early: Roth conversions in lower-income years before RMDs begin permanently shrink the pre-tax balance; qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from an IRA — up to an inflation-indexed cap of just over $100,000 per person per year — count toward the RMD without entering taxable income for those 70½ or older; and qualifying longevity annuity contracts (QLACs) remove up to $210,000 from the RMD calculation until as late as age 85. Once an RMD year has started, that year's amount is fixed.

Twice, with a credit. As a US citizen or Green Card holder you report the RMD on your US return as normal. As a UK resident, periodic IRA and 401(k) withdrawals are also taxable in the UK under the US-UK treaty, and HMRC's Self Assessment will tax them at up to 45%. Relief comes through the foreign tax credit system so the same income is not taxed twice in full — but the ordering matters, and lump-sum withdrawals follow a different treaty rule than periodic ones. Cross-border RMD planning is worth doing before, not after, the first withdrawal.

Yes, under separate rules this calculator does not model. Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited after 2019 must empty the account within 10 years, and if the original owner had already started RMDs, annual distributions are also required in years 1-9. Spouses have more options, including treating the IRA as their own. Inherited-account mistakes are among the most penalised RMD errors, so take advice in the year of death rather than year nine.

The year-of-death RMD must still be taken if the owner had not yet withdrawn it — by the beneficiaries, by 31 December of that year. After that, the beneficiaries' own distribution rules take over. Executors and beneficiaries frequently miss the year-of-death RMD in the administrative confusion, and the 25% excise tax applies to it like any other missed distribution, though the IRS grants an automatic waiver where it is taken by the beneficiary's tax filing deadline.

No. RMDs are ordinary income for tax purposes but not earned income, so they cannot support IRA or Roth IRA contributions, and they do not reduce Social Security benefits under the earnings test. They do, however, count in the income tests that matter to retirees: the taxation of Social Security benefits, Medicare IRMAA surcharges, and — for Americans in the UK — the UK's own income tax bands and the £100,000 personal allowance taper.