RMD calculator

Work out your required minimum distribution from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table — and see the withdrawal rate it quietly forces higher every year you age.

How the math works

An RMD is one division. You take your account balance on December 31 of last year and divide it by a number the IRS assigns to your age — the distribution period from the Uniform Lifetime Table.

At age 73, the distribution period is 26.5. At 80 it drops to 20.2. At 90 it's 12.2. The divisor shrinks every year, so the fraction you're forced to withdraw grows every year. That's the part most calculators leave out: the RMD isn't a flat percentage, it's a rate that ratchets up. The implied withdrawal is 3.77% at 73, 4.95% at 80, and 8.20% at 90.

One table caveat the widget above assumes away: if your spouse is your sole beneficiary and more than 10 years younger, you use the Joint Life and Last Survivor table instead, which gives a larger divisor and a smaller RMD. Everyone else uses the Uniform Lifetime table shown here.

Worked example

Take a retiree who reaches 73 with $1,200,000 in a Traditional IRA. The Uniform Lifetime divisor at 73 is 26.5. The math:

So the first RMD is about $45,283, and every dollar of it is taxed as ordinary income. That's 3.77% of the balance. Seven years later, at 80, the same $1,200,000 would divide by 20.2 — a required 4.95%. The dollar figure and the percentage both climb, even if the balance never grows.

Compare that to the withdrawal rate a retiree would choose voluntarily. The 4% rule, from the Trinity Study, sets a first-year withdrawal and adjusts it for inflation. The RMD ignores your spending entirely. It starts below 4% and then pushes past it in your early 80s, whether you need the money or not. The distribution is mandatory; spending it is not.

When this calculator is wrong

The single division above is correct. What trips people up is which accounts it applies to, one account at a time.

• The multi-account trap. If you have several IRAs, you calculate the RMD for each, then take the total from any one of them or any mix — IRA RMDs aggregate. But 401(k) and other workplace plans do not. Each 401(k) must take its own RMD from that plan, and a 401(k) RMD can never be satisfied out of an IRA. Pool the wrong pair and you've under-distributed one account.
• The penalty for getting it wrong is steep. Miss an RMD and the excise tax is 25% of the shortfall — cut from the old 50% by the SECURE 2.0 Act. Fix the shortfall and file Form 5329 inside the correction window and it drops to 10%. Still a real number on a missed distribution.
• The first year has two deadlines. Your first RMD can wait until April 1 of the year after you turn 73. Delay it, and your second RMD is still due that same December 31 — two taxable distributions stacked into one year, which can push you into a higher bracket or raise Medicare premiums.
• A Roth IRA has no RMD during the original owner's lifetime. If the balance you typed includes Roth money, the required figure is lower than the widget shows. The RMD rules bind Traditional IRAs and pre-tax workplace plans, not Roth IRAs.

Most retirement calculators also understate how long this goes on. The default planning age on many tools is 85 or 90, but the SSA period life table puts roughly 25% of 65-year-old women alive at 90 and 10% alive at 95. RMDs run for every one of those years, and the divisor keeps shrinking — down to 2.0 at age 120, a required 50% of the balance.

What to do with the result

The RMD sets a floor on what leaves the account, not a ceiling on your tax bill. If the required withdrawal is more than you want to spend, the money still has to come out — but you get to decide where it lands.

One lever worth knowing: a qualified charitable distribution. From age 70½ you can send up to $108,000 in 2025 ($111,000 in 2026) directly from an IRA to a charity. It counts toward the RMD and is excluded from taxable income, which is better than taking the distribution and deducting the gift — the QCD keeps the income off your return entirely, where it can't raise the taxation of Social Security or your Medicare premium. If you give anyway, giving from the IRA first is the tax-efficient order.

If you don't give and don't need the cash, the practical move is reinvesting the after-tax proceeds in a regular brokerage account. The RMD forces the money out of the tax shelter; it doesn't force you to spend it.

Common questions

What age do RMDs start now?

73, for anyone who reached 72 after December 31, 2022. SECURE 2.0 raised it from 72, and it rises again to 75 starting in 2033. If you turned 72 before 2023, you're already on the old schedule.

Which balance do I use — today's or last year's?

Last year's. The RMD is always the prior year's December 31 balance divided by this year's distribution period. A market drop after year-end doesn't lower the current RMD.

Do Roth accounts have RMDs?

A Roth IRA has no RMD during the original owner's lifetime. Roth 401(k)s used to require them, but SECURE 2.0 removed the Roth 401(k) RMD starting in 2024. Traditional IRAs and pre-tax 401(k)s still require them.

Can I take more than the RMD?

Yes. The RMD is a minimum, not a cap. But taking extra in one year does not reduce next year's RMD — next year's is still last year's ending balance divided by the new divisor.

What happens if I miss it?

The excise tax is 25% of the amount you failed to withdraw, reduced to 10% if you take the missed distribution and file Form 5329 within the correction window. Before SECURE 2.0 the penalty was 50%.