RMD Calculator

What Is an RMD?

Deferral was always a postponement, not an exemption. Every dollar inside a traditional IRA or a 401(k) went in untaxed and grew untaxed, and it carries an unpaid income tax bill. The RMD rules are the schedule on which that bill gets collected.

Why the Rule Exists at All

Congress did not cap how long money can sit in a tax-deferred account by naming a deadline. It capped it with a divisor. Each year's applicable denominator is a life-expectancy figure, so dividing by it distributes roughly one year's worth of a remaining lifetime, every year, until the account is mostly gone. The design goal is that tax-deferred money is actually spent during a lifetime rather than passed on intact.

The distribution itself is ordinary income in the year you receive it. It is not a capital gain, it gets no preferential rate, and it stacks on top of Social Security, pensions and everything else on the return. That is why RMD planning exists as a discipline at all: the amount is fixed by arithmetic, the deadline is fixed by statute, and only the surrounding decisions are negotiable.

Publication 590-B puts the responsibility plainly — "you or your trustee must figure the required minimum distribution for each year." Most custodians do calculate and report it. The liability for getting it wrong still sits with the account owner.

Which Accounts Have RMDs and Which Do Not

The IRS states the scope directly: "The RMD rules apply to all employer sponsored retirement plans, including profit-sharing plans, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, and 457(b) plans. The RMD rules also apply to traditional IRAs and IRA-based plans such as SEPs, SARSEPs, and SIMPLE IRAs."

• On the schedule: traditional IRA, SEP IRA, SARSEP, SIMPLE IRA, 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), profit-sharing and other defined contribution plans.
• Off the schedule during the owner's life: Roth IRAs, and since 2024 designated Roth accounts inside a 401(k) or 403(b). The IRS wording is that the rules "do not apply to Roth IRAs or Designated Roth accounts while the owner is alive."
• On a different schedule: inherited accounts of every kind, including inherited Roth IRAs. Beneficiaries use the Single Life table or the 10-year rule, never the table behind this calculator.

A Roth IRA's lifetime exemption is the largest structural difference between the two account types after retirement, and it is the reason conversions get discussed years before anyone turns 73. It is also why the account type matters for whether you owe anything, but not for how much: the Uniform Lifetime Table asks only for an age.

To compare what the same money would look like in an account with no lifetime distributions, run the Roth IRA Calculator.

The Age RMDs Start: 73 Now, 75 Later

IRS.gov states the current rule in one line: "You generally must start taking withdrawals from your traditional IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, and retirement plan accounts when you reach age 73." The Treasury regulation behind it is more precise about who that covers. The applicable age is 73 for anyone who attains age 72 after December 31, 2022 and age 73 before January 1, 2033, and 75 for anyone who attains age 74 after December 31, 2032.

One birth year sits in the gap between those two sentences. The 2024 final regulations acknowledge that SECURE 2.0 "includes an ambiguity relating to the definition of applicable age for employees born in 1959" — the statute makes their applicable age both 73 and 75 at once. Treasury reserved the paragraph and proposed to settle it at 73. If you were born in 1959, plan on 73 and confirm with the plan or custodian before that year closes.

There is exactly one delay available, and it does not apply to IRAs. An employer plan may let a participant who is still working postpone that plan's RMD until the year they retire — only for the current employer's plan, only if the plan document permits it, and never for anyone who owns more than 5% of the business. For IRAs, the IRS notes you must begin "even if you're still employed."

How Do You Calculate Your RMD?

One division. No interest rate, no growth assumption, no compounding — both numbers the formula needs are already fixed before the year begins, which makes this the rare retirement calculation with an exactly right answer.

The RMD Formula, Written Out

The IRS instruction is "divide your account balance at the end of 2025 by the applicable denominator from the table." Stated generally:

RMD = balance ÷ denominator

balance     = the account's value on December 31 of the PREVIOUS year
denominator = the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table figure for the age you
              reach on your birthday THIS year

Age 73 → 26.5        Age 85 → 16.0
Age 75 → 24.6        Age 90 → 12.2
Age 80 → 20.2        Age 100 → 6.4

Two details inside those definitions cause most wrong answers. The balance is a snapshot, not a current value: an account that has fallen since December 31 still owes the year-end figure. And the age is the age you reach during the distribution year, not the age you are on the day you calculate — someone with a December birthday uses the December age from January onward.

Share of the account withdrawn = 1 ÷ denominator

Age 73:  1 ÷ 26.5 = 3.77%
Age 90:  1 ÷ 12.2 = 8.20%

The percentage line is the same division restated as a rate, and it is the number worth tracking year to year, because it is the only part of the formula that moves without anyone touching the account.

Step by Step

A full run by hand — age 73, with $500,000 in a traditional IRA at last December 31:

• Find the age you will reach on your birthday this year: 73.
• Look up the applicable denominator for 73 in the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table: 26.5.
• Take the account's closing balance from last December 31: $500,000.
• Divide: $500,000 ÷ 26.5 = $18,867.92.
• State it as a rate if you want the context: 1 ÷ 26.5 = 3.77% of the account.
• Withdraw at least $18,867.92 from that account by December 31 this year.
• Next year, repeat with the new December 31 balance and the denominator for age 74, which is 25.5.

The division is exact, so the only way to reach a different answer is to use the wrong balance or the wrong age. Rounding the denominator or the balance early is what separates a hand figure from the custodian's; the calculator carries the full division and rounds once, at the end, to cents.

Worked Example: $500,000 at Age 73

The first RMD most people ever calculate, run through the tool:

Inputs: age 73 · account balance $500,000 at last December 31

$18,867.92 — $500,000.00 ÷ 26.5, or 3.77% of the balance

Nothing in that figure is an estimate. $500,000 ÷ 26.5 = $18,867.9245…, which rounds to $18,867.92, and any tool holding the same table has to produce the same cents. Withdraw $18,868 and you are compliant with eight cents to spare. Withdraw $18,000 and you have a shortfall of $867.92 exposed to an excise tax.

Move only the age and the whole future schedule appears on the same balance. The identical $500,000 requires $19,607.84 at 74, $20,325.20 at 75, $24,752.48 at 80, $31,250.00 at 85 and $40,983.61 at 90 — a 117% increase in the dollar requirement between 73 and 90 on an account that never grew by a cent.

RMD Chart: IRS Uniform Lifetime Table Denominators

The complete table this calculator uses, matching Publication 590-B, Appendix B, Table III. The percentage column is 1 ÷ denominator; the three dollar columns are the tool's own output at those balances.

Every dollar figure above came from running the calculator at that age and balance. The balance appears once, linearly, in the only operation the formula performs, so the underlying division scales exactly with it: a $1,000,000 account divides to four times what $250,000 divides to at every age. Each printed cell is rounded to cents on its own, though, so multiplying a printed figure can land a cent away from the column beside it — $9,124.09 at 72 multiplied by four gives $36,496.36, against the $36,496.35 the tool returns on $1,000,000.

Why the Percentage Climbs Every Year

The denominator falls by roughly nine-tenths of a year through your seventies and by half a year in your late nineties. Because the balance sits on top of a shrinking number, the fraction leaving the account rises without anyone choosing it:

Age 74 is the only row between 70 and 100 where the denominator drops by exactly 1.0, and that has a consequence worth knowing. With no growth, a balance reduced by exactly last year's RMD produces exactly the same dollar RMD again: $500,000 at 73 gives $18,867.92, and the $481,132.08 left over gives $18,867.92 at 74, to the cent. Every other drop is smaller than 1.0, so on that same no-growth chain the dollar requirement never rises at all: the balance falls faster than the denominator does, and the figure edges down every year from 75 onward even as the percentage climbs.

What One Birthday Adds

Holding the balance at $500,000 and advancing only the age isolates the part of the increase you cannot influence:

Each increase comes from the unrounded divisions rather than from the printed dollars, so at 76 and 80 it reads a cent below what subtracting the column beside it would suggest. In life the balance moves too, so the real year-to-year jump is this plus whatever the account earned. Frozen, the pattern is roughly $700 to $1,060 of additional forced income per $500,000 held, per year, purely from getting older.

Twenty-Eight Years of RMDs Do Not Empty the Account

Start with $500,000 at 73, assume the account earns nothing whatsoever, and withdraw exactly the RMD every year through 100 — the harshest possible case for the balance:

Twenty-eight withdrawals totaling $449,428.34 leave $50,571.66 behind — 10.11% of the starting balance still in the account, with zero growth assumed. Dividing by a life expectancy that also shrinks can never reach zero, which is why the dollar RMD in this scenario peaks at $18,867.92 in the first two years and declines from there even as the percentage more than quadruples.

Using This RMD Calculator Online

Two fields, both required, and a short list of things the tool will not accept. Knowing the bounds saves guessing at why a run returns a notice instead of a number.

The Two Inputs

• Your Age This Year — a whole number from 70 to 100. Enter the age you reach on your birthday during this calendar year, not the age you are on the day you run it. A decimal is rounded to the nearest whole year, so 74.6 is treated as 75 and returns the age-75 denominator.
• Account Balance (prior Dec 31) — that account's closing value on December 31 of the previous year, in dollars. Not today's value, not an average for the year, and not a household total across several accounts.

There is no field for account type, beneficiary age, filing status or state, because the Uniform Lifetime Table asks for none of them. The same age and balance produce the same required distribution whether the money sits in a traditional IRA, a 401(k) or a 457(b).

What It Rejects, and Why

Three cases return a notice rather than a figure:

• An age below 70 or above 100 returns "Enter an age from 70 to 100 (see IRS tables beyond)." Table III itself runs to "120 and over" with a denominator of 2.0; this tool stops at 100.
• A blank field never reaches the formula at all. Leave the age empty and the panel reads "Enter a value for Your Age This Year." Leave the balance empty and it reads "Enter a value for Account Balance (prior Dec 31)." Leave both and it names both: "Enter a value for: Your Age This Year, Account Balance (prior Dec 31)." Neither box is optional, so an empty one is never read as a zero.
• A typed zero or a negative balance does reach the formula, and its own guard stops it there: "Enter the account balance (prior Dec 31 value)." An account with nothing in it has no required distribution, so there is nothing to divide.

The two range limits are not validation for its own sake. Each marks a point where one division stops describing the law: above 100 you need the rest of the published table, and below 73 there is no lifetime RMD obligation to calculate at all. The blank-field notice is a different thing — it exists so a missing figure cannot quietly become a zero and be answered anyway.

Running It for More Than One Account

Each account gets its own run, because each has its own December 31 balance. Publication 590-B is explicit that the calculation is per-account: "If you are the owner of more than one traditional IRA, you must determine a separate required minimum distribution for each IRA. However, you can total these minimum amounts and take the total from any one or more of the IRAs."

At age 78 with a $420,000 IRA, a $180,000 IRA and a $300,000 401(k), the tool returns $19,090.91, $8,181.82 and $13,636.36. The two IRA figures total $27,272.73, and that combined amount may come out of either IRA in any split — the same $27,272.73 the tool gives for a single $600,000 IRA at 78, because the division is linear. The $13,636.36 has to come out of the 401(k) itself.

403(b) accounts follow the IRA pattern and may be aggregated among themselves. 401(k) and 457(b) plans may not: the IRS instruction is that "you must calculate and satisfy your RMDs separately for each plan and withdraw that amount from that plan." Old 401(k) accounts left behind at former employers are the usual source of a missed distribution.

To see what a workplace balance is on track to become before the first RMD is ever due, run the 401(k) Calculator.

How to Read Your Result

Four lines come back. The first is the only one with a legal obligation attached; the other three exist so you can check it.

Line by Line

• The headline dollar figure — the minimum you must withdraw from that account by the deadline. More is always allowed; less leaves a shortfall exposed to an excise tax.
• The division shown — your balance, the denominator, and the age it belongs to. Check the age here first when a result looks wrong, because using next year's age is the most common mistake.
• The percentage — 1 ÷ denominator, the share of the account leaving this year. It reads 3.77% at 73 and 8.20% at 90.
• The scope note — a reminder that traditional IRAs and 401(k)s are covered, that Roth IRAs are not during the owner's life, and that spousal-beneficiary cases use a different IRS table. Below age 73 that line changes to say the figure is a projection, because nothing is required yet.

Nothing in the output is a recommendation. It is the floor the law puts under one account for one year.

The Number Is a Floor, Not a Ceiling

Taking more than the RMD is always permitted and never banks credit toward a later year. Publication 590-B is blunt: "if you receive more than your required minimum distribution in 1 year, you can't treat the excess... as part of your required minimum distribution for any later year."

The extra withdrawal does change next year, but indirectly, by shrinking the balance the next division works on. In the age-73 case, leaving $481,132.08 after the required $18,867.92 produces $18,867.92 again at 74; drawing the account down to $400,000 instead produces $15,686.27. The saving is real, and it arrives through the balance rather than any carryforward.

The mirror image is worth naming too. A distribution taken earlier in the year for unrelated reasons still counts — the requirement is that total distributions for the year reach the minimum, not that one transaction be labeled an RMD. The IRS confirms the year's amount "can be taken in a series of installments (monthly, quarterly, etc.)" as long as the total clears the minimum.

What You Actually Keep

The whole distribution is ordinary income unless the account holds nondeductible contributions, and it is a one-way door. Publication 590-B: "You can never make a rollover contribution of a required minimum distribution." It cannot go into another retirement account and it cannot be converted to a Roth — the year's RMD has to come out first, and the conversion does not count toward it.

That makes RMD size a lever on things well outside the IRA. Ordinary income determines how much Social Security becomes taxable and which Medicare premium tier applies two years later. A $40,983.61 distribution at age 90 is not merely $40,983.61 of tax exposure; it is $40,983.61 of income sitting underneath every threshold on the return.

The calculator reports the gross required amount. What reaches the bank is that figure minus federal withholding, any state withholding, and whatever the marginal rate finally claims at filing.

For a view of what the account has to support alongside this forced withdrawal, use the Retirement Calculator.

RMD Examples at Real Balances

Every figure in this table is the tool's own output for the age and balance shown.

Read down the percentage column and the design of the rule shows itself in one glance: the same account surrenders a larger slice every year, by construction rather than by choice.

What Each $100,000 Requires at Your Age

Because the formula is linear in the balance, one column covers every account size. Find your age, then multiply by however many hundred-thousands you hold:

A $340,000 IRA at 80 works out to 3.4 × $4,950.50 = $16,831.70 by the shortcut, against $16,831.68 when the tool divides $340,000 by 20.2 directly. The two-cent gap is the rounding already baked into the column, not a difference in method — scale from the denominator rather than from a rounded dollar figure if you need the exact cents.

Checking the Tool Against the IRS's Own Example

Publication 590-B works one in full: an owner turning 75, with $100,000 at the prior year end and a spouse six years younger as sole beneficiary, uses Table III and a denominator of 24.6. The IRS gives the answer as "$4,065 ($100,000 ÷ 24.6)."

Entering age 75 and $100,000 here returns $4,065.04, dividing by the same 24.6. The four cents are the IRS rounding to whole dollars in a printed example; the calculation is identical. Any RMD calculator that disagrees with that example is holding a different table.

That is the entire test for a tool like this. There is no model to argue with and no assumption to tune — either it carries the current Table III or it does not.

When the Market Falls After December 31

The balance in the formula is frozen on December 31 and never updates. An account worth $600,000 at year end and $480,000 by autumn still owes the year-end figure: at age 76 the tool returns $25,316.46 on $600,000, against $20,253.16 on the $480,000 the account actually holds.

That gap — the $120,000 the balance lost, divided by the same 23.7, or $5,063.29 — is not a flaw in the tool, it is the rule working as written. The requirement turns out to be 5.27% of what the account is currently worth rather than the 4.22% the table nominally calls for, and the shares sold to raise it are sold at the lower price.

Ordinary years carry no relief provision for this. The practical responses are the boring ones: keep enough cash inside the account to cover the coming year's requirement before the market gets a vote, or ask the custodian about distributing securities in kind to a taxable account rather than selling them, which most custodians support.

RMD Deadlines and the 25% Penalty

The amount is arithmetic. The deadline is where money is actually lost, because the excise tax lands on the shortfall regardless of why it happened.

April 1 Once, December 31 Forever After

Your required beginning date is April 1 of the year following the year you reach 73. That extension covers the first RMD and nothing else. Publication 590-B: "The required minimum distribution for any year after the year you reach age 73 must be made by December 31 of that later year."

Employer plans get one variation. There the required beginning date is April 1 following the later of the year you turn 73 or the year you retire, if the plan permits the delay and you are not a 5% owner. IRAs have no equivalent option at all.

The year's requirement can be met in pieces — monthly, quarterly, or in one transfer in December — as long as total distributions from that account reach the minimum by the deadline. A distribution taken in the year you turn 73 is also credited toward the amount due by the following April 1.

The Two-RMD Year the April 1 Option Creates

Deferring the first RMD does not cancel it, it relocates it into the same tax year as the second. Start with $500,000 at the end of the year you turn 72, which sets the first requirement at $18,867.92.

Take that $18,867.92 during the year you turn 73 and the balance closes the year at $481,132.08, so the age-74 requirement comes to $18,867.92 again — one distribution per tax year. Defer to April 1 instead and the year you turn 73 shows no distribution at all, the balance closes at $500,000, the age-74 requirement rises to $19,607.84, and both distributions land in a single calendar year: $38,475.77 of ordinary income, taking the two divisions at full precision.

So the deferral costs twice: $739.92 more in required distribution because the balance was never reduced, plus the bracket, Social Security taxation and Medicare tier consequences of doubling one year's income. It makes sense in a narrow case — a first RMD year with unusually high income followed by a much leaner one — and rarely otherwise.

The 25% Excise Tax, and How It Becomes 10%

Miss the deadline and Publication 590-B applies "a 25% excise tax for that year on the amount not distributed as required." On the $18,867.92 example that is $4,716.98 — charged on top of the ordinary income tax still owed when the money finally comes out.

The rate drops to 10%, or $1,886.79 on the same shortfall, if you take the missed amount and file a return reflecting the tax within the "correction window." The IRS defines that window as ending on the earliest of the date a deficiency notice is mailed, the date the tax is assessed, or "the last day of the second taxable year that begins after the end of the taxable year in which the additional tax is imposed."

The tax is reported on Form 5329, Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts. Where the shortfall was "due to reasonable error" and you are already fixing it, the same form carries a waiver request with a statement of explanation attached. Asking for the waiver is standard practice; counting on it is not.

Limits: When This Calculator Does Not Apply

One table, one division, two inputs. Everything the RMD rules do beyond that division falls outside this tool, and four of those cases are common enough to check before trusting the number on screen.

Two Other IRS Tables This Tool Does Not Use

Table III is the default, not the only option. If your spouse is both the sole designated beneficiary of the account and more than ten years younger than you, the applicable denominator comes from Table II, the Joint and Last Survivor table, and it is larger — which makes the required distribution smaller.

The IRS runs both versions at the same age. A 75-year-old with $100,000 and a spouse six years younger uses 24.6 and owes $4,065. The same 75-year-old whose spouse turns 64 uses 25.3 from Table II and owes $3,953, about 2.8% less. This calculator will always hand you the first figure.

Inherited accounts are further out of scope again. A beneficiary uses Table I, the Single Life table, or the 10-year rule, depending on when the owner died and which kind of beneficiary they are. Nothing on this page computes an inherited IRA distribution.

Ages 70 and 71 Are Below the Published Table

The tool accepts an age as low as 70 and returns a figure for it. The current IRS table does not go that low. Table III in Publication 590-B begins at age 72 with a denominator of 27.4, and the 2020 Treasury regulation that created the table begins at 72 as well.

For ages 70 and 71 the calculator continues the same curve using denominators of 29.1 and 28.2 — a preview of the shape rather than a figure lifted from the table. In practice it is harmless, because nobody carries a lifetime RMD obligation at 70 or 71 under current law; the earliest applicable age is 73. Treat any result below 73 as a projection, which is exactly what the output's own last line calls it.

At the far end the same caution applies in reverse. Table III continues to "120 and over" with a denominator of 2.0, while this tool stops at 100 and returns a notice above it. Past 100, read the requirement straight off the published table.

Balance Adjustments the Tool Cannot See

The December 31 balance is not always the number printed on the statement. Publication 590-B: "The IRA account balance is adjusted by outstanding rollovers that aren't in any account at the end of the preceding year" — a rollover still in transit at year end is added back to the receiving account before the division. A contribution made after December 31, by contrast, raises this year's balance and not last year's, so it is disregarded for this year's requirement.

Annuity contracts inside an IRA get separate treatment altogether. The IRS allows an election to combine an annuity contract's value with the remaining account balance and then reduce the RMD by the annuity payments already made — arithmetic this tool does not perform. If part of the account has been annuitized, use the custodian's figure.

The everyday version of the problem is simpler than either: enter one account's own year-end value. A household total across several accounts produces a number that matches nothing, unless you are deliberately computing a combined IRA requirement you intend to satisfy from those IRAs.

It Is Not a Tax Calculator, and Not a Withdrawal Plan

The result is a gross dollar amount, before withholding and before tax. It has no knowledge of your bracket, your filing status, your state, or whether this distribution tips Social Security into taxability or moves you up a Medicare premium tier two years out.

It also holds no opinion on whether the required amount is the right amount to withdraw. An RMD is a statutory floor, not a drawdown strategy — often less than a portfolio could safely support in the early years, and more than you want to take in the later ones.

The levers that shrink future RMDs all sit outside this arithmetic as well. A qualified charitable distribution sends up to an indexed limit — $111,000 for 2026, $108,000 for 2025 — straight from an IRA to a qualifying charity from age 70½, counts toward the RMD, and stays out of income. Roth conversions before the applicable age shrink the pile the denominator will later divide. The still-working exception defers a current employer's plan. None of them change today's division.

Federal employees and service members running this same calculation on a Thrift Savings Plan balance can start with the TSP Calculator.