You can withdraw from an IRA without the 10 percent early distribution penalty starting at age 59½. That applies to both traditional and Roth accounts, though the two work differently: a traditional IRA withdrawal is taxable as ordinary income at any age, while a Roth IRA lets you pull out your own contributions at any time and requires both age 59½ and a five-year holding period before earnings come out tax-free. Several exceptions let you tap a traditional IRA earlier without the penalty, and separate rules eventually force you to start withdrawing whether you want to or not.
The 59½ Rule for Traditional IRAs
Age 59½ is the dividing line. Once you reach it, you can take as much as you want from a traditional IRA without owing the 10 percent additional tax that applies to earlier withdrawals.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 72 – Annuities; Certain Proceeds of Endowment and Life Insurance Contracts The penalty goes away, but the distribution itself still counts as taxable income for the year.
How much you owe depends on your total income. Federal rates for 2026 range from 10 percent on the first $12,400 of taxable income for single filers up to 37 percent on income above $640,600.2Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026 Your IRA distribution stacks on top of everything else you earn, so a large withdrawal in a single year can push part of the money into a higher bracket. Many states tax IRA distributions too. Sizing withdrawals with your other income in mind is often the difference between an efficient distribution and an expensive one.
How Roth IRA Age Rules Differ
Roth IRAs follow different rules because you already paid tax on the money going in. What comes out is split into layers, and the layers are treated differently.
Contributions: Any Age, Any Time
You can withdraw your own Roth IRA contributions at any age, tax-free and penalty-free. Roth distributions follow an ordering rule: regular contributions come out first, then any conversion or rollover amounts, and earnings come out last.3Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B – Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) Because of that ordering, most people who withdraw less than the total they have contributed owe nothing.
Earnings: 59½ Plus Five Years
To pull out investment earnings tax-free and penalty-free, you have to clear two hurdles. You must be at least 59½, and your Roth IRA must have been open for at least five tax years, counted from January 1 of the first year you contributed to any Roth IRA.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs Miss either one and the earnings portion can be hit with income tax and the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty.
Withdrawing Before 59½ Without the Penalty
If you need money from a traditional IRA before 59½, the law identifies specific situations where the 10 percent penalty does not apply. You still owe regular income tax on most of these distributions, but the extra penalty is waived. The most commonly used exceptions:5Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
- Total and permanent disability.
- Unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income (only the amount above that threshold qualifies).
- Health insurance premiums while unemployed, after you have received unemployment compensation for at least 12 consecutive weeks.
- Higher education expenses for you, your spouse, your children, or your grandchildren — tuition, fees, books, supplies, and room and board for at least half-time students at an eligible institution.
- First-time homebuyer costs, up to a $10,000 lifetime limit on IRA withdrawals used to buy, build, or rebuild a first home.
- Birth or adoption expenses, up to $5,000 per child within a year of the birth or finalized adoption.
- Terminal illness, when a physician has certified the condition.
- Emergency personal expenses, up to $1,000 per year under SECURE Act 2.0. If you do not repay that withdrawal within three years, you cannot use this exception again during that period.
Substantially Equal Periodic Payments
You can also skip the penalty by setting up a schedule of substantially equal periodic payments, sometimes called a 72(t) plan. You commit to a fixed stream of withdrawals based on your life expectancy, and the payments have to continue for at least five years or until you reach 59½, whichever comes later.6Internal Revenue Service. Substantially Equal Periodic Payments
The IRS accepts three calculation methods: the required minimum distribution method, which recalculates each year, and the fixed amortization and fixed annuitization methods, which generally produce larger annual payments. Change the schedule before the required period ends and the 10 percent penalty applies retroactively to every distribution you have already taken, plus interest. This is a long-term commitment, not a short-term fix.
When You Must Start Withdrawing
At the other end of life, the government eventually forces distributions from a traditional IRA so it can collect the income tax that has been deferred all along. These required minimum distributions start at an age set by your birth year:7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 401 – Qualified Pension, Profit-Sharing, and Stock Bonus Plans
- Born 1951 through 1959: RMDs begin at age 73.
- Born 1960 or later: RMDs begin at age 75.
Your first RMD is due by April 1 of the year after you reach the applicable age. Every RMD after that is due by December 31. Delaying the first one to that April 1 deadline means taking two RMDs in the same calendar year, which can push you into a higher tax bracket.
Miss an RMD and the excise tax is 25 percent of the shortfall. Correct the mistake within a two-year window by taking the missed amount and filing an updated return, and the penalty drops to 10 percent.8Federal Register. Required Minimum Distributions
Roth IRAs are the exception here. They have no required minimum distributions during the original owner’s lifetime.9Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) You can leave money in a Roth for as long as you live and let it keep growing tax-free.
How the Annual Amount Is Calculated
Your RMD equals your IRA balance on December 31 of the prior year divided by a life expectancy factor from IRS tables. Most owners use the Uniform Lifetime Table in IRS Publication 590-B.10Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B – Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) If your sole beneficiary is a spouse more than 10 years younger than you, you use the Joint and Last Survivor Table instead, which produces a smaller annual distribution.
Charitable Transfers Starting at 70½
Once you turn 70½, before RMDs even begin, you can transfer up to $111,000 per person directly from your IRA to a qualified charity in 2026.11Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted These qualified charitable distributions count toward your RMD once you reach RMD age, and the amount transferred is excluded from your taxable income. The money must move directly from your IRA custodian to the charity; withdrawing it yourself and then donating does not qualify.
Inherited IRAs Follow Different Rules
If you inherit an IRA, the age rules above generally do not govern your withdrawals. A surviving spouse who is the sole beneficiary can roll the inherited IRA into their own IRA, which resets the timing to match their own age.12Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited from someone who died in 2020 or later must empty the account by the end of the tenth year after the year of death, and if the original owner had already started RMDs, annual distributions during that 10-year window are generally required as well. A narrow group of eligible designated beneficiaries — minor children of the original owner, people who are disabled or chronically ill, and beneficiaries not more than 10 years younger than the deceased — can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy instead.