When Do I Have to Start Withdrawing From My 401(k)?

You generally have to start withdrawing from your 401(k) at age 73 if you were born between 1951 and 1959, and at age 75 if you were born in 1960 or later.¹ The first withdrawal is due by April 1 of the year after you reach that age, and every withdrawal after that must be out by December 31. These forced withdrawals, called required minimum distributions, exist because the government gave you a tax break on the money going in and now wants its share. Miss a deadline and the penalty can run to 25% of what you should have taken.

The Age That Applies to You

Both age thresholds come from the SECURE 2.0 Act, which amended the Internal Revenue Code in 2022.¹ The split is based strictly on birth year:

Born 1951 through 1959: your applicable age is 73. You’re in this group if you turned 72 after December 31, 2022, and will turn 73 before January 1, 2033.
Born 1960 or later: your applicable age is 75. This covers anyone who turns 74 after December 31, 2032.

If you reached 72 before January 1, 2023, you were already subject to the older rules and should have started distributions under those prior deadlines.

Your First Deadline and the April 1 Trap

The tax code calls the first deadline your “required beginning date.” For most people, that’s April 1 of the calendar year after you reach the applicable age.¹ Every distribution after the first must be completed by December 31 of its year.²

That April 1 grace period sounds generous, but it catches a lot of people. If you use it, you’ll owe a second distribution by December 31 of the same year. Two taxable payouts land on one tax return, which can push you into a higher bracket and inflate your bill. The cleaner move is to take your first distribution by December 31 of the year you reach the applicable age. Delaying into April doesn’t save any tax; it just compresses two payments into a single year.

If You’re Still Working

Reaching the applicable age doesn’t automatically trigger withdrawals if you’re still on the payroll. You can delay distributions from your current employer’s 401(k) until the year you actually retire, as long as two conditions hold: you’re still working for the employer that sponsors the plan, and you own less than 5% of that business.³ Owners of 5% or more must start at the applicable age no matter what.⁴ Once you do retire, your first distribution is due by April 1 of the following year.

The still-working exception only covers the plan at your current employer. Old 401(k) accounts sitting at former employers stay on the standard age-based schedule.⁴ People who have changed jobs several times often forget about dormant accounts, and each one independently owes its own distribution. Rolling old balances into your current employer’s plan before you hit the applicable age can bring them under the still-working umbrella, but not every plan accepts incoming rollovers, so ask the administrator well in advance.

Roth 401(k) Balances Don’t Count

If your contributions went into a designated Roth account inside your 401(k), there is no lifetime withdrawal requirement. The IRS does not require distributions from designated Roth accounts in a 401(k) or 403(b) while the account owner is alive.² The change took effect for tax year 2024 under Section 325 of the SECURE 2.0 Act. If you have both traditional and Roth money in the same 401(k), only the traditional balance goes into the calculation.⁵ Beneficiaries who inherit a Roth 401(k) still face distribution rules; the exemption only protects the original owner.

How Much You Have to Take Out

The math is simple. Take your account balance as of December 31 of the previous year and divide it by a life expectancy factor from an IRS table.³ The result is your minimum for the year.

Which table you use depends on your situation:

Uniform Lifetime Table: most people use this, including unmarried owners and married owners whose spouse is not the sole beneficiary or is fewer than 10 years younger.
Joint Life and Last Survivor Expectancy Table: use this if your spouse is both the sole beneficiary and more than 10 years younger than you. The divisor is larger, so the required withdrawal is smaller.

If your December 31 balance was $100,000 and your life expectancy factor is 25.0, your withdrawal for the year is $4,000.² The calculation has to be redone every year because both numbers change. Your plan administrator will often run the figure for you, but the legal responsibility to withdraw enough sits with you. Taking more than the minimum in one year does not reduce the next year’s requirement; each year stands on its own.³

Every dollar withdrawn from a traditional 401(k) counts as ordinary income on your federal return.²

If You Have More Than One 401(k)

Unlike IRAs, where you can total up your required amounts and pull from whichever account you want, 401(k) plans don’t allow aggregation. Each 401(k) has to calculate and pay out its own required amount independently.⁴ You also can’t cover a 401(k) requirement with an extra IRA withdrawal, or the other way around. The money has to come from the account that generated it.

Three old 401(k)s means three separate calculations and three separate withdrawals. Consolidating dormant plans into your current employer’s 401(k) or rolling them into a single IRA cuts down on the number of deadlines to track.

The Penalty for Missing a Withdrawal

The excise tax for failing to take enough is 25% of the shortfall, meaning the difference between what you were required to withdraw and what you actually took. On a $10,000 required amount that you skipped entirely, that’s $2,500 in penalty on top of eventually having to take the distribution.⁶

The penalty drops to 10% if you fix the mistake within a correction window. That window runs from the date the tax is imposed until the earliest of three events: the IRS mails you a notice of deficiency, the IRS assesses the tax, or the last day of the second tax year after the year the penalty was triggered.⁶ In practice, that gives you roughly two years to catch and correct the error.

You report the penalty, or claim the reduced rate, on IRS Form 5329, Part IX.⁵ The IRS can also waive the penalty entirely if you show the shortfall was due to reasonable error and you’re taking steps to fix it. Attach a letter explaining what happened, such as a serious illness or an administrative mistake by the plan custodian, along with supporting documentation.³ Simply forgetting is a harder case, but the waiver does get granted when facts support it.

Inherited 401(k) Accounts

When the account owner dies, the rules shift to the beneficiary, and the options depend on who that beneficiary is.

Surviving Spouse

A surviving spouse has the most flexibility. They can roll the inherited 401(k) into their own IRA and treat it as their own, which resets the clock to their own applicable age. They can also keep it as an inherited 401(k) and take distributions over their own life expectancy, or follow the 10-year rule if the original owner died before their required beginning date.⁷

Non-Spouse Beneficiaries

Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited a 401(k) from someone who died in 2020 or later must empty the entire account by the end of the 10th year after the year of the owner’s death.⁷ There’s no required schedule within those 10 years, but the balance has to hit zero by the deadline.

A narrow group of “eligible designated beneficiaries” can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy instead. That group includes minor children of the deceased owner (until they reach the age of majority), individuals who are disabled or chronically ill, and people who are not more than 10 years younger than the original owner.⁷ Once a minor child reaches adulthood, the 10-year clock starts on the remaining balance. Contact the plan administrator promptly after a death, because the plan document itself may limit which options are actually available.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 401 – Qualified Pension, Profit-Sharing, and Stock Bonus Plans
2
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
4
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Resource Guide – Plan Participants – General Distribution Rules
5
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 (2025)
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S.C. 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
7
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary