Form 8915-D: Qualified Disaster Retirement Distributions

Form 8915-D is the IRS form for reporting qualified disaster retirement plan distributions and repayments connected to federally declared disasters that occurred in 2019.¹ The distribution windows for all 2019 disasters have closed, so today the form has one real job: reporting repayments of withdrawals you already took. If your disaster happened in 2020 or later, you need Form 8915-F instead.

What the Form Still Does

No new qualified disaster distributions can be taken under Form 8915-D. The last covered event was the 2019 Puerto Rico Earthquakes, for which the window to take a qualifying distribution ran through June 24, 2021.² What’s left is the back end of the program. If you took a qualified distribution for a 2019 disaster and are now putting money back into a retirement plan, Form 8915-D is where that repayment is reported.

The form also still matters if you elected to spread a 2019 distribution over three years and need to reconcile a later repayment against income you already picked up.

Who Was Eligible in the First Place

Qualified disaster distributions were created by the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2019.³ To qualify, two things had to be true at the time of the disaster: your main home sat inside the area covered by the federal disaster declaration during FEMA’s incident period, and you suffered an economic loss because of the event, such as property damage, displacement, or a job loss.⁴ Living in the area alone did not qualify you.

The distribution had to come from an eligible retirement plan: a traditional or Roth IRA, a 401(k), a 403(b), or a governmental 457(b). The total across all your plans for any single 2019 disaster was capped at $100,000.⁵ That cap applied per disaster, not per plan.

The Tax Treatment the Form Tracks

Two features of a qualified disaster distribution still drive how Form 8915-D works today.

The first is the three-year income spread. By default, you include one-third of the taxable distribution in income for the year you received it and one-third in each of the next two years.⁶ You could instead elect to report the full amount in the year of distribution, but once that election was made, it covered every qualified disaster distribution you received that year.

The second is the penalty exemption. The 10% additional tax on early withdrawals (25% for certain SIMPLE IRA distributions) does not apply to a qualified disaster distribution, regardless of your age.⁷ Regular income tax still applies unless you repay the money.

How Repayments Work

You have three years from the day after you received the distribution to put the money back into an eligible retirement plan.⁸ The repayment is treated as a trustee-to-trustee transfer, so it does not count against your annual contribution limits.⁹

Some distributions cannot be repaid. You cannot repay a distribution you took as a beneficiary unless you are the surviving spouse. Required minimum distributions and distributions that are part of a series of substantially equal periodic payments are also off the table.⁸

Reporting the Repayment

Report the repayment on Form 8915-D for the tax year in which the repayment occurred. The form reduces the distribution income that would otherwise carry forward under the three-year spread. On a 2024 return, for example, a repayment of a 2019 Puerto Rico Earthquakes distribution gets reported on the 2024 Form 8915-D and can reduce income on your 2021, 2022, or 2023 returns as applicable.⁴

If You Already Filed and Paid Tax on the Amount

If you already filed a return that included part of the distribution in income and you later repay that amount, you have to go back and fix the earlier return. File Form 1040-X for the year you want to adjust.⁶ The amended return removes the income you already reported and the IRS recalculates your tax. This step is easy to miss. People repay the distribution, file the current year’s 8915-D, and never claim the refund they are owed on an earlier year.

Filing the Form

You will need your Form 1099-R from the plan that made the original distribution. On Form 8915-D you enter the total qualified distribution, subtract repayments, and calculate the taxable portion. If you elected the three-year spread, the form walks you through dividing the remaining amount into the correct annual inclusion.

Attach Form 8915-D to your Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR.⁶ Tax software handles the attachment on electronic returns. If you are not otherwise required to file a return but still need to report a repayment, you can file Form 8915-D by itself. Fill in the address section, sign the form, and mail it to the same IRS address you would use for your 1040.¹⁰

For 2020 and Later Disasters, Use Form 8915-F

Form 8915-D does not cover any disaster that happened after 2019. The IRS replaced the lettered series (8915-A through 8915-E) with a single permanent form, 8915-F, used for both initial reporting and all later years of income inclusion or repayment. The structure is similar, but the dollar limit differs. For 2020 disasters the cap stayed at $100,000 per disaster. For any disaster declared in 2021 or later, the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 set a permanent limit of $22,000 per disaster across all your retirement plans.⁸ The three-year income spread, the penalty exemption, and the three-year repayment window all carry over.

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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8915-D, Qualified 2019 Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8915-D Qualified 2019 Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments (2021)
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Congress.gov. Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2019
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8915-D
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8915-D Qualified 2019 Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments (2020)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8915-D
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Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8915-F (Rev. December 2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Disaster Relief Bill Includes Retirement Plan Distribution and Loan Options
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 8915-D Qualified 2019 Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments (2024)