RMD Calculator

RMDs apply to Traditional IRAs, SEP IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, Traditional 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and most other employer-sponsored pre-tax retirement accounts. Roth IRAs have no RMDs during the original owner's lifetime. Roth 401(k)s no longer have lifetime RMDs as of 2024 (under SECURE 2.0).

RMDs begin in the year you reach age 73 (or 75, for those born in 1960 or later — the threshold rises in steps under SECURE 2.0). The first RMD can be deferred until April 1 of the following year, but doing so means taking two RMDs that following year and bunching the income — usually a tax-efficiency mistake.

The formula is simple: prior year-end account balance ÷ a life-expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (or the Joint Life Table if your spouse is more than 10 years younger and is sole beneficiary). Each year's factor depends on your age that year.

At age 73, the Uniform Lifetime Table factor is 26.5, meaning the RMD is roughly 3.77% of the prior year-end balance. The percentage rises each year — at 80, it's about 4.95%; at 90, about 8.20%. Don't try to memorize the table; pull the current-year factor from the IRS publication and apply it.

If you have multiple Traditional IRAs, you compute the RMD for each but can take the total from any one of them. The same flexibility applies across multiple 403(b) accounts. 401(k)s are different: each 401(k) RMD must be taken from that specific 401(k). Inherited IRAs follow their own rules and cannot be aggregated with your own IRAs for RMD purposes.

This aggregation rule is useful for planning: consolidate small IRAs, then satisfy the full RMD from a single account that holds your most fungible investments (cash, short bonds, or appreciating positions you want to harvest).

Once you reach age 70½, you can direct up to $105,000/year (2024 figure, indexed for inflation) from a Traditional IRA directly to a qualifying public charity as a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD). The QCD counts toward your RMD but is excluded from gross income — so you don't even need to itemize to get the tax benefit.

QCDs are particularly powerful because they reduce AGI rather than just lowering taxable income. Lower AGI can preserve eligibility for IRMAA-related Medicare premiums, reduce the taxation of Social Security, and avoid pushing you into Net Investment Income Tax. For charitably inclined retirees with large pre-tax balances, QCDs are often the single most tax-efficient way to give.

Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherit an IRA after 2019 must fully distribute the account within 10 years. Final IRS regulations (issued 2024) clarify that for beneficiaries inheriting from someone who had already started RMDs, annual distributions are required during years 1–9 plus a full distribution by year 10.

This is a substantial change from the prior "stretch IRA" regime, in which beneficiaries could stretch distributions over their own lifetime. For larger inherited balances, the 10-year rule can push beneficiaries into much higher tax brackets during their working years — sometimes wasting decades of pre-tax savings the original owner accumulated.