When Can I Access My IRA? Age 59½, Exceptions, and RMDs

You can access your IRA at any age, but timing changes what it costs you. Once you reach age 59½, withdrawals from a Traditional IRA carry no early withdrawal penalty, though the money still counts as ordinary income for tax purposes. Before 59½, every dollar you take out generally faces a 10% penalty on top of income tax unless your situation fits one of more than a dozen federal exceptions. Roth IRAs work differently: you can pull out your contributions anytime, but earnings have their own rules. And eventually the government requires you to start taking money out whether you want to or not.

Age 59½: The Main Dividing Line

Age 59½ is the age at which the 10% early withdrawal penalty stops applying to Traditional IRA distributions.¹ After that birthday you can withdraw for any reason, in any amount, without justifying the purpose to the IRS.

Losing the penalty does not mean losing the tax bill. The IRS treats every dollar of a Traditional IRA distribution as ordinary income taxed at your marginal rate.² For 2026, federal rates run from 10% on the first $12,400 of taxable income for single filers up to 37% on income above $640,600.³ A large single distribution can push you into a higher bracket for the year.

Your IRA custodian withholds 10% of nonperiodic distributions by default for federal taxes. You can adjust that anywhere from 0% to 100% by filing Form W-4R.⁴ If your bracket is higher than 10%, the default won’t cover your liability, and you’ll owe the balance at tax time.

One boundary worth knowing: the “age 55 rule” that lets some workers tap employer plans penalty-free after leaving a job at 55 or later does not apply to IRAs. That exception is limited to qualified plans like 401(k)s.¹

Exceptions That Waive the Penalty Before 59½

If your circumstances fit one of the situations below, you can withdraw before 59½ without the 10% penalty. Income tax on Traditional IRA distributions still applies; only the extra 10% goes away.

Medical and Disability

Unreimbursed medical expenses exceeding 7.5% of your adjusted gross income for the year, up to that excess amount.¹
Health insurance premiums for you and your family, if you received unemployment compensation for 12 consecutive weeks.¹
Total and permanent disability, defined as a condition preventing substantial work and expected to result in death or last indefinitely.¹
Terminal illness certified by a physician, for distributions taken on or after the certification date.¹

Life Events

First-time home purchase, up to $10,000 over your lifetime. The money must be used within 120 days, and “first-time” covers anyone who hasn’t owned a principal residence in the previous two years. The purchase can be for you, your spouse, a child, grandchild, or parent.⁵
Higher education expenses (tuition, fees, books, supplies, required equipment) at an eligible postsecondary institution, for you, your spouse, children, or grandchildren.¹
Birth or adoption, up to $5,000 per child within one year of the birth or finalized adoption. You have the option to repay the amount within three years.¹

SECURE 2.0 Emergency Withdrawals

For distributions after December 31, 2023, the SECURE 2.0 Act added several new exceptions:

Emergency personal expenses: one withdrawal per year, up to the lesser of $1,000 or your vested balance minus $1,000, for unforeseeable personal or family emergencies. If you don’t repay within three years, you cannot take another emergency distribution during that period.¹
Domestic abuse by a spouse or domestic partner: up to the lesser of $10,000 or 50% of the account balance, within 12 months of the incident. Self-certification is all that’s required, and the distribution can be repaid within three years.¹
Federally declared disaster: up to $22,000 per disaster if you live in the affected area and suffered an economic loss. The income can be spread evenly across three tax years, and repaying within three years undoes the tax hit.⁶

Other Situations

IRS levy: amounts the IRS seizes from your IRA to collect unpaid taxes are not subject to the 10% penalty.¹
Qualified military reservists called to active duty for at least 180 days can take penalty-free distributions during the active duty period.¹

Substantially Equal Periodic Payments (72(t))

If nothing above fits but you need regular income before 59½, a 72(t) plan lets you take a fixed annual amount from your IRA based on your life expectancy, using one of three IRS-approved calculation methods.⁷

Payments must continue for five years or until you reach 59½, whichever comes later. Start at 52, and you keep paying yourself until roughly 59½. Start at 57, and you must continue until 62, because five full years haven’t passed by the time you turn 59½.⁷

Changing the amount or stopping early is expensive. The IRS retroactively applies the 10% penalty to every distribution taken since the plan began, plus interest on each year’s unpaid penalty.⁷ A 72(t) is a long-term commitment, not a short-term workaround.

Roth IRA Withdrawals Are Different

Because you already paid income tax on Roth contributions, the rules split by what you’re pulling out.

Contributions: Anytime, No Tax, No Penalty

You can withdraw your original Roth contributions at any age with no taxes and no penalties. The IRS orders Roth withdrawals as follows: regular contributions come out first, then conversion and rollover amounts (oldest first), and earnings last.² Most people exhaust their after-tax contributions before touching any taxable earnings.

Earnings: Two Conditions

Earnings come out tax-free and penalty-free only if you’re at least 59½ and at least five years have passed since January 1 of the tax year you made your first Roth contribution. Open your first Roth at age 58, and you wait until age 63 for earnings to qualify, even though you passed 59½ earlier.²

Withdraw earnings before meeting both conditions and you owe ordinary income tax on those earnings. If you’re also under 59½, the 10% penalty stacks on top.⁸

Conversions Have Their Own Five-Year Clock

Each Roth conversion carries its own separate five-year holding period for penalty purposes. Wait five years from January 1 of the conversion year and the converted amount escapes the 10% penalty. Touch it earlier and the penalty applies to the taxable portion, even though you already paid income tax when you converted.² This matters most for people under 59½ planning to use conversions as an early retirement income source.

Inherited IRAs

If you inherit an IRA, the 10% early withdrawal penalty does not apply no matter your age, but distribution timing rules do.

A surviving spouse who is the sole beneficiary has the most flexibility. You can roll the inherited account into your own IRA and treat it as always yours, meaning normal age rules and RMD timing apply based on your own age. You can also keep it as an inherited account and take distributions based on your own life expectancy.⁹

Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited from someone who died in 2020 or later must empty the account by December 31 of the year containing the tenth anniversary of the owner’s death. Certain eligible designated beneficiaries, including minor children, disabled individuals, and beneficiaries not more than ten years younger than the deceased, can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy. Non-individual beneficiaries such as estates generally must withdraw everything within five years.²

Inherited Roth IRAs follow the same distribution timetables as inherited Traditional IRAs, even though original Roth owners never had to take lifetime RMDs. Distributions from an inherited Roth are typically tax-free if the original owner’s account met the five-year rule, but you still must take them on schedule.⁹

When You Must Start Withdrawing

Eventually, the government requires you to draw down Traditional IRA balances. Required Minimum Distributions must begin by April 1 of the year after you turn 73.¹⁰ For people born in 1960 or later, the age moves to 75.¹¹ Original Roth IRA owners have no lifetime RMDs.

Your annual RMD is your total Traditional IRA balance as of December 31 of the prior year, divided by a life expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table in Publication 590-B.¹²

Miss an RMD or take less than required, and the shortfall faces a 25% excise tax. The penalty drops to 10% if you correct it within two years.¹⁰ To fix a shortfall, withdraw the missing amount as soon as possible and file Form 5329 with a written reasonable-cause explanation. The IRS reviews waiver requests individually.¹³

A Note on SIMPLE IRAs

If your IRA is a SIMPLE IRA through an employer, the early withdrawal penalty is higher during your first two years in the plan. Instead of 10%, distributions taken within that two-year window face a 25% penalty.¹⁴ The clock starts on the date your employer first deposited contributions. After two years, the standard 10% penalty and the same exceptions above apply.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
4
Internal Revenue Service. Pensions and Annuity Withholding
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 72 – Annuities; Certain Proceeds of Endowment and Life Insurance Contracts
6
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8915-F
7
Internal Revenue Service. Substantially Equal Periodic Payments
8
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 557, Additional Tax on Early Distributions from Traditional and Roth IRAs
9
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
10
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
11
Federal Register. Required Minimum Distributions
12
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
13
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329
14
Internal Revenue Service. SIMPLE IRA Withdrawal and Transfer Rules