Inherited IRA RMD Calculator

An inherited IRA follows a different set of rules from the one its owner used. Three facts decide which rule applies to you: who you are in relation to the owner, whether the owner died before or after their required beginning date, and whether the account is a traditional or a Roth IRA. The calculator above asks for exactly those, plus the year of death and the two birth years that set the life-expectancy divisor. Everything on this page applies to deaths from 2020on, when the SECURE Act replaced the old lifetime “stretch” for most heirs, and uses the final regulations (T.D. 10001) that govern RMDs from 2025.

Our guide to inherited IRAs and the 10-year rule covers the background and how to plan your own beneficiary designations. This page is the working companion: how the minimum is calculated, year by year, for each kind of heir, and how to choose how much to take beyond it.

The table shows the rule for each class of beneficiary, for an owner who died in 2025.

Two details matter more than they look. First, the class is judged on the date of death: a child who turns 21 the week after, or a sibling who is 11 years younger, does not qualify for the more generous rule. Second, if several people are named on one IRA, each can usually use their own rule only if the account is split into separate inherited IRAs by December 31 of the year after the death (IRS Publication 590-B).

The tax code sorts heirs into three groups. An eligible designated beneficiary can still take the account out slowly, over a life expectancy. There are five kinds:

• the owner’s surviving spouse;
• the owner’s own child who is under 21 (not a grandchild, niece or nephew);
• a person who is disabled under the tax-code definition, generally unable to work because of a long-lasting condition;
• a person who is chronically ill, typically certified as unable to perform at least two activities of daily living;
• anyone not more than 10 years younger than the owner, which includes anyone older.

Every other person, including the adult children who make up most heirs, is an ordinary designated beneficiaryunder the 10-year rule. An estate, a charity or a trust that does not meet the “see-through” requirements is not a designated beneficiary at all, and falls under the 5-year rule or the owner’s remaining life expectancy (IRS: Retirement topics, beneficiary).

If you choose a class in the calculator that the birth years rule out, such as a “minor child” who was 21 at the death or a “close in age” heir more than 10 years younger, it reclassifies you as an ordinary designated beneficiary and says so.

Under the 10-year rule the account must be empty by December 31 of the tenth year after the year of death. Whether you must also take something every year in between depends on one date: the owner’s required beginning date, April 1 of the year after they reached RMD age.

If the owner died before that date, there are no annual RMDs: you can take any amount in any year, or nothing at all until year ten. If the owner died on or after it, the final regulations add annual RMDs in years one to nine, so the account keeps paying out at least as fast as it was. The divisor is the longer of two life expectancies from the IRS Single Life Table: yours, looked up at your age in the year after the death and reduced by one each year, and the owner’s remaining one, looked up at their age in the year of death and reduced the same way. For a younger heir yours is almost always longer.

Worked example: Karen

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

Karen, born 1968, inherited her mother’s traditional IRA. Her mother, born 1936, died in 2024 at 88, long after her required beginning date in the spring of 2008 or 2009. Karen is an ordinary designated beneficiary, so she must empty the account by December 31, 2034, and take annual RMDs from 2025. Her divisor starts from her age in 2025, 57, and drops by one a year: in 2026 it is 28.8. With $600,000 in the account on December 31, 2025, her 2026 RMD is $20,833. If she takes only the minimum and the account earns 5% a year, it still holds $640,231 at the start of 2034, all of which must come out that year.

When the owner died before RMDs began

Change one fact: the owner was born in 1958 and died in 2025 at 67, before their required beginning date of April 1, 2032. The heir’s 2026 RMD is $0, and the only requirement is that the account is empty by December 31, 2035. That freedom is useful, but it is also how heirs end up with one very large taxable year.

The annual-RMD requirement surprised almost everyone. The SECURE Act was widely read as a simple 10-year rule, and the IRS only proposed annual RMDs in 2022. It then waived them, year by year: no penalty applied to a missed annual RMD under the 10-year rule for 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024, and those amounts never have to be made up. Notice 2024-35 granted the last of these waivers and confirmed that the final regulations apply from 2025 (IRS Notice 2024-35).

Two points are easy to miss. The waiver did not extend the 10-year deadline: Karen’s is still 2034, ten years after a 2024 death. And it covered only heirs under the 10-year rule whose owner died after the required beginning date. A spouse, minor child or other eligible designated beneficiary taking life-expectancy payments was never excused, so a missed year there should be corrected now.

For a traditional IRA every withdrawal is ordinary income, taxed in the year you take it. The minimum path keeps the early years light but stores up a deadline-year withdrawal that can land in the top bracket. Spreading the account evenly over the remaining years usually costs less, because federal brackets are progressive.

Suppose Karen earns $90,000 a year and files as single. Using 2026 brackets for every year, the table shows the federal tax each path adds on top of what she owes on her salary.

The minimum path withdraws more in total, because more money stays in the IRA longer, but it pays $81,321 more federal tax: an average of 30% of each dollar withdrawn, against 24% on the even path. The fair test is what each leaves her: if she invested every after-tax withdrawal at the same 5%, the even path would leave $712,442 at the end of 2034 and the minimum path $652,957, before tax on that outside growth, which narrows the gap somewhat. In 2034the minimum path’s last withdrawal reaches the 37% bracket; the even path tops out at 24%. Real brackets rise with inflation, and your income will change, so treat this as the shape of the answer, not the figure. The tax bracket calculator shows how much room you have before the next bracket in a given year; filling that room each year is the usual approach.

Medicare premiums: the second cost of a big year

Heirs who are 63 or older should also watch IRMAA, the Medicare surcharge set by income from two years earlier. Karen is 66 in 2034. On the minimum path her income that year puts her in IRMAA tier 5, adding $6,936.00 to her premiums two years later at 2026 rates; on the even path she is in tier 3 ($4,620.00). The surcharge is a cliff, so a withdrawal sized to stop just below a threshold can save more than the tax table suggests. The IRMAA calculator shows the room before each tier.

Charitable gifts from an inherited IRA

If you are 70½ or older, you can make a qualified charitable distribution straight from an inherited IRA, up to $111,000 in 2026across all your IRAs. It counts toward the year’s inherited RMD but never enters your adjusted gross income, so it lowers both income tax and the income IRMAA is measured on. For an older sibling or spouse who already gives to charity, it is often the cheapest way to meet the minimum. Our guide to qualified charitable distributions covers the mechanics.

A spouse who is the sole beneficiary has a choice no one else has. You can keep the account as an inherited IRA, or treat it as your own, by rolling it into your IRA or retitling it. You can also start with the first and switch later; you cannot go back.

• Inherited IRA: withdrawals are never subject to the 10% early-withdrawal penalty, whatever your age. If your spouse died before their required beginning date, you can wait to start RMDs until the year they would have reached RMD age. RMDs use the Single Life Table, looked up again at your age each year.
• Your own IRA: RMDs wait for your own RMD age and use the Uniform Lifetime Table, which has much longer divisors. But withdrawals before 59½ usually carry the 10% penalty, and the account passes to your beneficiaries as your IRA.

The younger spouse: inherited first, then your own

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

Maria, born 1970, inherited $800,000 from her husband, born 1962, who died in 2025. She is 56 in 2026. As an inherited IRA, she owes nothing until 2037, the year he would have turned 75, and can draw on it penalty-free in the meantime. As her own IRA, her RMDs would not start until 2045, at 75, but anything she took before 59½ would cost an extra 10%. The common answer is to keep it inherited while she might need it, then treat it as her own after 59½, before 2037.

The older spouse: usually your own

Ruth, born 1948, inherited $800,000 from her husband, born 1944, who died in 2025. At 78 the penalty no longer matters. Kept as an inherited IRA, her 2026 RMD is $63,492 (a divisor of 12.6). Had she treated it as her own in 2025, it would be $36,364, using the Uniform Lifetime factor of 22: $27,128less taxable income this year, and smaller RMDs every year after. In the year a spouse makes the election, that year’s RMD is still figured as a beneficiary, so deciding early helps. For own-IRA projections, use the RMD calculator.

The owner’s minor child: life expectancy to 21, then 10 years

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

A child of the owner who is under 21 takes annual RMDs over their own life expectancy, which is long, so the amounts are small. At 21 the 10-year rule starts, and the account must be empty by the end of the year they turn 31; the annual RMDs continue until then. Take a parent, born 1975, who died in 2025 leaving $400,000 to a child born 2012. The child is 14 in 2026, with a divisor of 70.9 and an RMD of $5,642. The account must be empty by December 31, 2043. A custodian or trustee usually manages the account until the child is an adult.

Heirs not more than 10 years younger

Siblings and partners close in age keep the old stretch. A sister born 1943 who inherited $300,000 from her brother, born 1938, who died in 2024, takes $33,708 in 2026, using a divisor of 8.9. Because he had passed his required beginning date, her divisor is the longer of her life expectancy and his remaining one. There is no deadline: the payments run until the account is empty.

Disabled or chronically ill

The same life-expectancy payout applies, with no deadline. The condition must exist at the date of death, and IRA custodians may ask for documentation. When the heir relies on means-tested benefits, the account normally goes to a special-needs trust instead, which is a question for an estate attorney.

A Roth IRA owner never has lifetime RMDs, so the owner is always treated as dying before the required beginning date. For most heirs that means the 10-year rule with no annual RMDs: had Karen’s inheritance been a Roth, her 2026 RMD would be $0 and the deadline still 2034. Eligible designated beneficiaries still take annual life-expectancy payments, which are tax-free, and a spouse who treats an inherited Roth as their own has no RMDs at all.

Withdrawals are tax-free once the owner’s first Roth contribution is at least five years old, counted from January 1 of the year it was made. Before then, the owner’s contributions still come out tax-free and the earnings come out last. Because tax-free growth is the prize, many heirs leave an inherited Roth untouched until the deadline year.

When the beneficiary is an estate, a charity or a trust that is not a see-through trust, the rule depends only on the owner’s required beginning date. If the owner died before it, the 5-year rule applies: no annual RMDs, and the account must be empty by December 31 of the fifth year after the death. A $300,000 IRA left to the estate of an owner born 1962 who died in 2025 must be paid out by 2030.

If the owner died after it, payments continue over the owner’s remaining life expectancy, from the Single Life Table at their age in the year of death, less one each year. For an owner born 1940 who died in 2025, the 2026 divisor is 7.1, so the estate must take $42,254, and the account runs out within 8 years.

A see-through trust, one that is valid, irrevocable at death and has identifiable beneficiaries, is looked through to those beneficiaries, and its rule follows theirs. Conduit and accumulation trusts are treated differently; the 10-year rule guide explains both, and estate planning basics covers why naming people, not the estate, usually leaves heirs more.

If the owner died on or after their required beginning date without taking that year’s full RMD, the rest is still due, and the beneficiary must take it by December 31 of the year of death. It is the owner’s amount, figured on the owner’s own table, not the beneficiary’s. Beneficiary RMDs begin the following year. A death late in the year can leave only weeks, so ask the custodian early. Proposed regulations published with the final rules would waive the penalty automatically if the beneficiary takes it by the due date, with extensions, of their tax return; until they are final, take it as soon as you can and explain any delay on Form 5329.

Since SECURE 2.0, the excise tax on a missed RMD is 25% of the amount that should have come out, cut to 10% if you take it within the correction window, generally by the end of the second year after it was due and before the IRS assesses the tax. You report it on Form 5329 and can ask for a full waiver if the shortfall came from a reasonable error and you have fixed it (IRS RMD FAQs). The same penalty applies to whatever is left after the deadline under the 10-year or 5-year rule. Missed annual RMDs for 2021 to 2024 under the 10-year rule are the exception: they were waived.

If you die before emptying an inherited IRA, your own beneficiary, the successor, takes over. A successor never gets more time than you had. If you were under the 10-year rule, the successor keeps your deadline. If you were an eligible designated beneficiary taking life-expectancy payments, the successor must empty the account within 10 years after your death, and keep taking annual RMDs in the meantime. Name successor beneficiaries on the inherited IRA as soon as it is set up.