Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Calculator

This page works out the amount you must withdraw and the shape of the schedule ahead of you. If what you want is the tax bill that withdrawal creates, the IRA RMD Tax Calculator takes the same three facts and runs them the other way, through federal and state rates and the charitable offset.

The basic formula

RMD = account balance (December 31 of previous year) ÷ distribution period

The IRS publishes a Uniform Lifetime Table that gives the divisor for each age. At age 73, the distribution period is 26.5 years. So a $500,000 traditional IRA balance generates a required withdrawal of $500,000 ÷ 26.5 = $18,868 that year.

Each year, the distribution period gets shorter, which means the RMD percentage grows. At age 80, the divisor drops to 20.2 (about 4.95% of balance). At age 90, it’s 12.2 (8.2%). At age 100, it’s 6.4 (15.6%). The government wants the money out by the time you’re statistically gone, and tax-collected.

The starting age has changed twice recently

This is important because outdated articles online still cite 70½ or 72:

Born in 1955? You start RMDs at age 73, in 2028. Born in 1962? Your RMDs start at age 75, in 2037. The April-1-after-72-or-73-birthday “first RMD year” rule still applies (you can defer your first RMD to April 1 of the year after, but then take two that year, which usually causes a tax problem).

Accounts subject to RMDs

The Roth 401(k) change in 2024 is significant. Previously, Roth 401(k)s had RMDs, which seemed inconsistent with Roth IRAs not having them. SECURE 2.0 fixed that. Many retirees roll Roth 401(k) into a Roth IRA partly because of the cleaner rules.

The miss-the-RMD penalty

The penalty for failing to take an RMD on time was reduced under SECURE Act 2.0:

• Old penalty (pre-2023): 50% of the missed amount, which was brutal
• Current penalty (2023+): 25% of missed amount
• Reduced if corrected promptly: 10% if the missed RMD is taken within 2 years and Form 5329 filed

So a missed $18,868 RMD costs $4,717 in penalty, dropping to $1,887 if corrected within the 2-year window. The penalty applies on top of the regular income tax you’d owe on the distribution anyway.

Which account the money comes out of

If you have several traditional IRAs, work out the required amount for each one and then take the whole total from whichever you like. 401(k)s do not pool that way. Each employer plan has to pay its own, which is a good reason to roll old ones into a single IRA before the distributions start.

Reducing what the withdrawal costs you in tax is a separate exercise, and it has its own page: the IRA RMD Tax Calculator covers Roth conversions in the pre-distribution window, the qualified charitable distribution, state rates, and the first-year deferral trap.

RMDs do not have to be sold to cash

You can transfer the dollar amount of the RMD in-kind to a taxable brokerage account. The IRS only requires the value leave the tax-deferred account, not that you sell. This avoids realizing capital gains/losses inside the IRA. Useful if you don’t actually need the cash and just want to satisfy the requirement.

Final RMD before death

The RMD for the year of death must still be taken (by the heirs, if the original owner didn’t). Beneficiaries then operate under their own RMD rules. For non-spouse beneficiaries since 2020, the entire inherited IRA must be distributed within 10 years (with some narrow exceptions for disabled, minor, or chronically ill heirs). Inherited accounts use the Single Life table rather than the Uniform Lifetime table this page works from, so the figure above does not apply to one.