IRS Single Life Expectancy Table for Inherited IRA RMDs

The IRS Single Life Expectancy Table for inherited IRA RMDs, published as Table I in the appendix of IRS Publication 590-B, gives you the divisor you need to calculate each year’s required withdrawal. Find your age in the table, divide the account balance as of December 31 of the prior year by the factor next to it, and that’s your required minimum distribution for the year.¹ What changes year to year, and who has to take an RMD at all, depends on your relationship to the person who died and when they died.

Table I: Selected Life Expectancy Factors

The IRS updated all three life expectancy tables beginning with the 2022 tax year to reflect longer lifespans. The current factors are larger than the old ones, which means smaller required withdrawals. Selected ages from Table I appear below; for every age from 0 to 120, consult the appendix of Publication 590-B directly.

Age 20: 65.0
Age 25: 60.2
Age 30: 55.3
Age 35: 50.5
Age 40: 45.7
Age 50: 36.2
Age 55: 31.6
Age 60: 27.1
Age 65: 22.9
Age 70: 18.8
Age 72: 17.2
Age 73: 16.4
Age 74: 15.6
Age 75: 14.8
Age 80: 11.2
Age 85: 8.1
Age 90: 5.7
Age 95: 4.0

A higher factor means a smaller required withdrawal. A 30-year-old beneficiary with a factor of 55.3 withdraws a much smaller percentage of the account each year than an 80-year-old with a factor of 11.2. The factor represents roughly how many years the IRS expects distributions to continue.

Running the Calculation

Take the inherited account balance as of December 31 of the prior year and divide it by your life expectancy factor. Suppose you inherited an IRA worth $100,000 at the end of last year and your Table I factor is 36.2 (age 50). Your RMD for this year is $100,000 ÷ 36.2 = $2,762.² You can always withdraw more, but you cannot withdraw less without triggering an excise tax. The calculation uses the actual account balance each year, so if investments grow, the RMD rises even as the factor shrinks.

The annual deadline is December 31. Beneficiaries of inherited accounts do not receive the April 1 extension that original account owners get for their very first RMD.³ Your financial institution issues a Form 1099-R reporting the distribution, and you report the income on your federal return.⁴

If you inherited multiple IRAs from the same person, calculate a separate RMD for each one. You can add those amounts together and take the total distribution from any one of the inherited accounts.² You cannot aggregate RMDs across accounts inherited from different people, and you cannot satisfy an inherited IRA’s RMD by withdrawing from your own IRA.

Annual Recalculation vs. the Subtract-One Method

How you use Table I in later years depends on what type of beneficiary you are. Using the wrong method produces an incorrect RMD.

Surviving spouses who remain as beneficiaries of an inherited IRA look up their current age in Table I each year and use the new factor. This annual recalculation resets the factor each year based on the spouse’s actual age rather than declining mechanically.⁵

Non-spouse beneficiaries use the subtract-one method. They look up their age in Table I only once, in the first year distributions are required. In every year after that, they subtract one from the prior year’s factor. A 50-year-old non-spouse beneficiary starts with a factor of 36.2. In year two, the factor becomes 35.2, then 34.2 the following year, and so on. The account is drawn down on a fixed schedule set by that initial lookup.

Getting the initial age right matters. You use the age you reach by December 31 of the year in which your first distribution is required, and every subsequent year’s factor depends on it.

Who Actually Has to Use This Table

Under the SECURE Act of 2019, beneficiaries fall into categories that determine how quickly the account must be emptied. Eligible designated beneficiaries can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy using Table I. That group includes surviving spouses who choose to remain as beneficiaries rather than roll the account into their own IRA, minor children of the account owner (until they reach age 21), individuals who are disabled or chronically ill, and people not more than ten years younger than the deceased owner.⁶

Most other individual beneficiaries fall under the 10-year rule and must withdraw the entire account by December 31 of the year containing the tenth anniversary of the owner’s death. But the 10-year rule does not always let you wait until year ten to withdraw everything. If the original owner died on or after their required beginning date (generally April 1 of the year after turning 73), the beneficiary must take annual RMDs during the 10-year period using Table I, and then distribute whatever remains by the end of the tenth year.⁷ If the owner died before that date, no annual RMDs are required during the 10-year window; the entire balance simply has to be out by the end of year ten.

This distinction catches people. A beneficiary who assumed the account could grow untouched for a decade may owe excise taxes for each year they missed a required annual distribution. The IRS finalized these regulations in 2024 after years of transitional relief.

Choices That Change Which Table You Use

A surviving spouse has more flexibility than any other beneficiary, and the choice affects which table applies.⁶

Roll the account into their own IRA. The inherited account becomes the spouse’s own retirement account, and RMDs follow the Uniform Lifetime Table (Table III) starting at age 73. Table I no longer applies.
Remain as a beneficiary. The spouse keeps the account as an inherited IRA and takes distributions based on their own life expectancy using Table I, recalculated each year. This can make sense if the spouse is under 59½ and needs access to the funds without the 10% early withdrawal penalty.
Elect the 10-year rule if the owner died before their required beginning date.

A spouse who rolls the account into their own IRA and later needs money before 59½ faces the standard 10% early withdrawal penalty. Keeping the account as an inherited IRA avoids that penalty, which is why younger surviving spouses sometimes prefer the beneficiary option despite its less favorable factors.

Minor Children of the Account Owner

A minor child of the deceased owner qualifies as an eligible designated beneficiary and takes life expectancy distributions using Table I while still a minor. Under SECURE Act rules, “minor” means under age 21 for this purpose.²

Once the child reaches 21, the 10-year clock starts. The remaining balance must be distributed by December 31 of the year containing the tenth anniversary of reaching majority, which in practice means the account has to be emptied by age 31. Annual RMDs may still be required during that 10-year period depending on whether the original owner had begun taking distributions.

This rule applies only to the account owner’s own children. Grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other minor relatives do not qualify as eligible designated beneficiaries and fall under the standard 10-year rule from the start.

Penalties If You Take Too Little

If you withdraw less than the required amount, the IRS imposes an excise tax equal to 25% of the shortfall under Section 4974 of the tax code.⁸ That rate was reduced from 50% by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. If you correct the shortfall within the correction window, which generally runs through the end of the second year after the year of the missed distribution, the penalty drops to 10%.⁹

If your required distribution was $5,000 and you withdrew nothing, the 25% penalty would be $1,250. Catch the error and withdraw the $5,000 before the correction window closes, and the penalty drops to $500.

Requesting a Waiver for a Missed RMD

If you missed an RMD for a legitimate reason, the IRS can waive the excise tax. You request the waiver by filing Form 5329 with a written explanation of why the distribution was missed and what you’ve done to fix it. The instructions walk you through entering the shortfall amount and marking the waiver request with “RC” on the relevant line.¹⁰

The IRS looks for two things: reasonable cause for the missed distribution, and evidence you’ve taken steps to remedy it. Withdrawing the missed amount as soon as you discover the error helps. Situations where waivers are commonly granted include serious illness during the distribution year, incorrect advice from a financial institution, and administrative errors during an account transfer. The IRS reviews each request individually and notifies you if the waiver is denied.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B – Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498
5
Internal Revenue Service. Required Minimum Distributions for IRA Beneficiaries
6
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
7
Federal Register. Required Minimum Distributions
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
9
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2024-35, Certain Required Minimum Distributions
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329