What Are Required Minimum Distributions? Deadlines, Tables, Penalties

Required minimum distributions are the yearly withdrawals the IRS makes you take out of your tax-deferred retirement accounts once you reach a certain age. Under current law that age is 73, and the rule exists because money you deferred taxes on for decades has to eventually come out and be taxed as ordinary income. Miss a distribution and the penalty is steep, so it’s worth knowing when yours starts, how to figure the amount, and what your options are.

Which Accounts Are Covered

RMDs apply to nearly every tax-deferred retirement account: traditional IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457(b)s, SEP IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs.¹ If your contributions went in pre-tax, the account almost certainly falls under the rules.

Roth IRAs are the big exception. Original Roth IRA owners never have to take RMDs during their lifetime.¹ Starting in 2024, designated Roth accounts inside employer plans — Roth 401(k)s and Roth 403(b)s — are also exempt while the owner is alive, thanks to the SECURE 2.0 Act. Inherited Roth accounts are a separate matter, covered further down.

When You Have to Start

You must begin taking RMDs for the year you turn 73 if you reach that age after December 31, 2022, and before January 1, 2033. The starting age climbs again after that: if you turn 74 after December 31, 2032, your RMD age is 75.² People born in 1960 or later won’t face an RMD until 75.

The First-Year April 1 Rule

Your very first RMD doesn’t have to come out during the calendar year you turn 73. You get until April 1 of the following year.³ The catch: your second RMD is still due by December 31 of that same year. Doubling up in one year can push you into a higher tax bracket or trigger higher Medicare premiums. For most people, taking the first RMD in the actual year you turn 73 is the safer choice.

Every RMD after the first has a December 31 deadline.

The Still-Working Exception

Still working past 73 and participating in your current employer’s retirement plan? You can delay RMDs from that plan until the year you actually retire. Two conditions apply: you cannot own 5% or more of the business sponsoring the plan, and the exception only covers the plan at your current employer. A 401(k) sitting at a former employer still has to pay out on schedule. And the exception does nothing for IRAs — traditional IRA, SEP IRA, and SIMPLE IRA owners must start at 73 regardless of employment status.¹

How Much You Have to Take

The formula is simple. Take your account balance as of December 31 of the prior year, then divide by the life expectancy factor the IRS assigns to your age.⁴ Your custodian sends you the year-end balance, and the factors live in IRS Publication 590-B.⁵

A quick example. A 73-year-old with a $500,000 balance uses a factor of 26.5 from the Uniform Lifetime Table. That works out to $18,867.92. At 74, the factor drops to 25.5, so the required amount rises even if the balance held flat. You recalculate every year because both numbers change.

Which Table You Use

Most people use the Uniform Lifetime Table. It applies to unmarried owners and to married owners whose spouse is not both the sole beneficiary and more than ten years younger. If your spouse is your sole beneficiary and more than ten years younger, you switch to the Joint Life and Last Survivor Expectancy Table, which gives you a larger divisor and a smaller required withdrawal. Beneficiaries of inherited accounts use the Single Life Expectancy Table.⁴

Multiple Accounts

You calculate an RMD separately for each account, but the rules about where you can pull the money differ by account type:

Traditional IRAs: calculate each one separately, but you can pull the combined total from any single IRA or split it across several.¹
403(b) accounts get the same flexibility as IRAs among themselves.¹
401(k) and 457(b) plans do not aggregate. Each plan’s RMD has to come out of that specific plan.¹

You also cannot mix categories. An IRA RMD cannot be satisfied by pulling extra from a 401(k), and vice versa.

What Happens if You Miss One

Skipping an RMD, or taking less than required, triggers an excise tax of 25% on the shortfall.⁶ If you were supposed to withdraw $20,000 and only took $12,000, the penalty applies to the $8,000 gap. That’s $2,000 on top of the ordinary income tax you’ll still owe when the money eventually comes out.

SECURE 2.0 built in relief. Fix the shortfall during the “correction window” and the excise tax drops to 10%. The window generally runs from the date the tax is imposed until the end of the second tax year after the year you missed the distribution, though it closes early if the IRS sends a deficiency notice or assesses the tax first.⁶ To claim the reduced rate you have to take the missed amount and file a return reflecting the corrected tax during that window.

Asking for a Full Waiver

If you missed the distribution because of a genuine error — a custodian mistake, a medical emergency, bad advice from a financial institution — you can ask the IRS to waive the penalty entirely. File Form 5329 with a written explanation and evidence that you’ve corrected the shortfall.⁷ The IRS reviews these individually and generally grants them when the mistake is clearly unintentional and the money has been withdrawn.

Using a Qualified Charitable Distribution

If you give to charity, a qualified charitable distribution is often the most tax-efficient way to satisfy an RMD. Starting at age 70½ (earlier than the RMD age itself), you can direct up to $111,000 per year in 2026 from your traditional IRA straight to a qualifying charity.⁸ The transfer counts toward your RMD but stays out of your taxable income.⁵

That’s a real advantage over taking the RMD as cash and donating it. A normal RMD raises your adjusted gross income even if you later claim a charitable deduction, which can affect Medicare surcharges and how much of your Social Security gets taxed. A QCD never lands on the income line at all. Two requirements matter: the transfer has to go directly from your IRA trustee to the charity, and it cannot come from a SEP or SIMPLE IRA that’s still receiving contributions.⁹ QCDs are not available from 401(k) plans; you’d have to roll the money to a traditional IRA first.

Inherited Accounts Follow Different Rules

The rules for inherited retirement accounts changed sharply after the SECURE Act took effect in 2020, and how quickly you have to drain an inherited account depends on your relationship to the person who died.

The 10-Year Rule

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.¹⁰ If the original owner had already reached their required beginning date, the IRS also requires annual RMDs in years one through nine of the 10-year window, with the balance zeroed out by year ten. These annual distributions inside the 10-year period began being enforced in 2025 after several years of transitional relief.

If the original owner died before reaching their required beginning date, beneficiaries under the 10-year rule can time withdrawals however they want, as long as the account is empty by the end of year ten.

Eligible Designated Beneficiaries

Some beneficiaries are exempt from the 10-year rule and can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy:¹⁰

Surviving spouses, who can also roll the account into their own IRA or treat it as their own.
Minor children of the account owner, who can stretch distributions until they reach the age of majority; then the 10-year clock starts.
Disabled or chronically ill individuals.
Beneficiaries not more than ten years younger than the deceased, such as a close-in-age sibling.

Surviving spouses have the widest set of options. Rolling the inherited account into their own IRA is usually the best move when the money isn’t needed immediately, because it resets the RMD clock to the spouse’s own age and lets the account keep growing tax-deferred.

Taking the Distribution

The mechanics are easy. Contact your financial institution — most custodians and plan administrators have an online portal — and request the distribution. Many will let you set up automatic annual or monthly withdrawals so nothing slips past the December 31 deadline. If this is your first RMD and you’re using the April 1 grace period, tell the custodian so the transaction is coded to the right year.

After the distribution, the custodian reports it to the IRS on Form 1099-R, showing the gross amount and any federal tax withheld.¹¹ You get a copy for your records and use it when you file your return.

Withholding as a Tax-Planning Tool

RMDs from pre-tax accounts are taxed as ordinary income in the year you receive them. Your custodian can withhold federal income tax from the distribution, and you generally pick the percentage. One useful move for retirees who owe estimated taxes on other income: take the RMD late in the year and have enough withheld to cover the entire year’s tax bill. Tax withheld from retirement distributions is treated as paid evenly throughout the year, which can eliminate quarterly estimated payments and avoid underpayment penalties.

State income tax matters too. Most states with an income tax will tax your RMD, though several exempt retirement income partly or entirely, so where you live has a real effect on the amount you keep.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 401 – Qualified Pension, Profit-Sharing, and Stock Bonus Plans
3
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Reminds Retirees: April 1 Final Day To Begin Required Withdrawals From IRAs and 401(k)s
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
5
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions From Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
7
IRS.gov. 2025 Instructions for Form 5329 – Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts
8
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted for Changes in Cost-of-Living
9
Internal Revenue Service. Seniors Can Reduce Their Tax Burden by Donating to Charity Through Their IRA
10
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
11
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)