How much is my required minimum distribution?

What is a Required Minimum Distribution?

A Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) is the minimum amount the IRS requires you to withdraw each year from retirement accounts where taxes have been postponed — traditional IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and similar plans — once you reach a certain age. The government deferred tax on this money for decades; RMDs force it back into taxable income on a schedule, whether or not you need the cash.

Your RMD each year is calculated as:

• RMD = prior December 31 account balance ÷ the IRS life-expectancy number for your age

The life-expectancy number comes from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (the table used by nearly everyone; a longer Joint Life table applies only if your sole beneficiary is a spouse more than 10 years younger). The divisor shrinks every year you age, so the required percentage of your balance grows over time — starting around 3.8% at age 73 and climbing past 10% by your late 90s.

Worked example: calculating an RMD amount

Take a 73-year-old with $600,000 in a traditional IRA on December 31 of last year. The divisor at 73 is 26.5, so:

Three details decide the answer, and each is a common mistake. Use the December 31 balance of the prior year, not today's balance. Use the age you turn during the distribution year, not your age on January 1. And run the division for each account type separately before applying the aggregation rules below.

Calculating a 401(k), 403(b), or IRA RMD

The arithmetic is identical for every account type — prior-year balance ÷ divisor. What differs is which account the money has to leave. Say the same 73-year-old holds three accounts:

The two IRAs are calculated separately but satisfied together — their combined $600,000 ÷ 26.5 = $22,642 can come entirely from one of them. The 401(k)'s $11,321 cannot: plan RMDs must be taken from that plan. A 403(b) follows the IRA-style rule but only among other 403(b) accounts. Total required for the year: $33,963.

When do RMDs start?

Current federal retirement rules set the RMD start age in stages:

• Age 73 — for those born 1951 through 1959.
• Age 75 — for those born 1960 or later.

Your very first RMD can be delayed until April 1 of the year after you reach your start age, but every RMD after that is due by December 31 of the same year — so if you delay the first one, you'll take two RMDs in that second year, which can push you into a higher tax bracket.

The IRS Uniform Lifetime Table

This is the table behind the projection above — the divisor for each age, and the percentage of your balance it forces out. Nearly every account owner uses it; the exception is an owner whose sole beneficiary is a spouse more than 10 years younger, who uses the Joint Life and Last Survivor table instead and gets a larger divisor, meaning a smaller RMD.

The right-hand column holds the balance at $600,000 each year purely to show the shape: the required percentage more than quadruples between 73 and 100. That escalation, not the first year's amount, is what pushes retirees into higher brackets late in life.

Which accounts have RMDs — and where the money must come from

The aggregation rules trip up more people than the arithmetic does:

• Traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs — calculate the RMD for each account separately, then take the total from any one of them or any combination.
• 401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) plans — each plan's RMD must come out of that plan. You cannot cover a 401(k) RMD from an IRA. (403(b) accounts may be aggregated with each other, but with nothing else.)
• Roth IRAs — no RMDs at all during the original owner's lifetime.
• Roth 401(k) and Roth 403(b) — no longer subject to lifetime RMDs under SECURE 2.0, from 2024 onward. Guidance saying otherwise is out of date.
• Inherited accounts follow separate rules entirely — most non-spouse beneficiaries must empty the account within 10 years, and where the original owner had already begun RMDs, annual withdrawals are required during those 10 years too.

One useful exception: if you're still working past your start age and don't own more than 5% of the business, your current employer's plan can usually delay RMDs until you actually retire. It never applies to IRAs, or to old plans from previous employers — which is a real argument for rolling an old 401(k) into your current plan rather than into an IRA.

What happens if you miss one?

Missing an RMD — or taking less than required — triggers a 25% excise tax on the shortfall. That drops to 10% if you correct it promptly: withdraw the missed amount and file Form 5329 within the two-year correction window. The IRS will often waive the penalty entirely for reasonable cause if you fix the shortfall and attach an explanation, so a missed RMD is a problem to report rather than hide.

Ways to make RMDs smaller or cheaper

• Roth conversions before your start age. The window between retiring and your first RMD is often the lowest-income stretch of your life, which makes it the cheapest time to convert pre-tax money. Every dollar converted is a dollar that never generates an RMD — our guide to building a Roth conversion ladder covers how much to convert each year without spilling into the next bracket.
• Qualified charitable distributions. From age 70½ you can send money straight from an IRA to a qualifying charity. It counts toward your RMD but is excluded from income entirely, which beats taking the RMD and claiming a deduction. There is an annual per-taxpayer limit, indexed for inflation and currently a little over $100,000.
• Withhold your tax out of the RMD itself. Withholding is treated as paid evenly across the year whenever it happens, so a December RMD with a large withholding can settle a whole year's tax without an underpayment penalty.
• A QLAC — a qualified longevity annuity contract bought inside an IRA — is excluded from the balance used to compute RMDs and can defer that income to as late as age 85. SECURE 2.0 caps the premium at $200,000, indexed for inflation. Our annuity payout calculator shows the lifetime income a premium of that size buys.
• Take it in kind, not in cash, if you don't need to spend it. Transferring securities to a taxable brokerage account satisfies the RMD, is taxed identically, and keeps you invested.

The mistakes that cost the most

• Delaying the first RMD to April 1 without doing the arithmetic. It's allowed, but you then take two RMDs in one calendar year — which can lift your bracket, tax more of your Social Security, and raise your Medicare IRMAA surcharge two years later.
• Covering a 401(k) RMD from an IRA. Not permitted, and the shortfall carries the excise tax.
• Using the wrong year's balance. The RMD is always based on the prior December 31 balance, not today's.
• Assuming a Roth 401(k) still has RMDs. It doesn't, from 2024 — though rolling it to a Roth IRA before your start age remains the cleanest way to be certain.
• Leaving it to late December. Custodian processing at year end is the single most common cause of a missed deadline.
• Ignoring the knock-on effects. An RMD raises taxable income, which can tax more of your Social Security, trip IRMAA, and change the rate on capital gains realised the same year.

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