How Much Do I Have to Withdraw From an Inherited IRA This Year?

The required minimum distribution for a year is the account's balance at the end of the prior year divided by a life expectancy factor from the IRS tables. Which table, which age and whether an amount is required at all depend on who inherited the account and whether the owner had reached the required beginning date.

Account Type

Traditional IRA

Includes SEP and SIMPLE IRAs

Roth IRA

Employer plan

401(k), 403(b), or governmental 457(b)

Account Owner's Date of Birth (MM/DD/YYYY)

Account Owner's Date of Death (MM/DD/YYYY)

Your Relationship to the Owner

Surviving spouseChild of the owner

Another individual

Grandchild, sibling, partner, friend

A trust

The account names a trust as beneficiary

Estate or charity

No individual is named, or a charity is

Account Balance at the End of Last Year

Year

See this year's required amount

Select the account type, enter the owner's dates of birth and death, your relationship and date of birth, and the balance at the end of last year. The panel shows the amount for the year and the factor it rests on.

Examples:

General information about the required minimum distribution on an inherited retirement account, not legal or tax advice. The amount is the balance entered divided by the applicable denominator the Treasury regulations set for the beneficiary, the owner and the year; the curve holds the balance flat and withdraws each year's amount, with no growth projected. Income tax on the distribution is not computed. Consult a licensed tax professional for tax questions. Data verified Oct 29, 2026

The amount for a year is the account balance as of the last valuation date in the preceding calendar year divided by the applicable denominator, a life expectancy read from the Single Life Table at the age the regulation names, and it never exceeds the balance on the day of the distribution. The current tables apply to distribution calendar years from 2022; an earlier year is computed on the tables that governed it.

Every post-death life expectancy comes from the Single Life Table, which runs to age 120 and over. A beneficiary other than the spouse reads it at the beneficiary's age in the calendar year after the owner's death and reduces that figure by one for each later year; a sole-beneficiary spouse reads it at the spouse's age each year. Where the owner died on or after the required beginning date, the denominator is the greater of the beneficiary's and the owner's remaining life expectancy. The owner's own distribution for the year of death comes from the Uniform Lifetime Table, which begins at age 72.

It depends on whether the owner had reached the required beginning date, April 1 of the year after the year the owner reached the applicable age (up to 75 for the youngest cohort). A designated beneficiary of an owner who died before that date has no annual amount under the 10-year rule: the account must be emptied by the end of the year that includes the tenth anniversary of the death. Where the owner died on or after that date, an annual distribution is required every year on the life expectancy factor, and the 10-year deadline is layered on top. Which case applies is the inherited IRA withdrawal rules page's answer, and the amount panel prints it under the figure.

In the year by whose end the entire account must be distributed, the required amount is the whole remaining balance, whatever the life expectancy factor would give. The curve marks that year and the figure for it is the entire balance. The same is true in any year where the reduce-by-one count brings the factor to one or below.

The Code imposes a tax of 25% of the amount that should have been distributed and was not. The rate drops to 10% where the shortfall is withdrawn from the same plan (for an IRA, from any IRA that could have satisfied the requirement) and a return reflecting the tax is filed inside the correction window, which ends 2 years after the year the tax applies to, or earlier on a notice of deficiency or an assessment. Both figures print beside the year's amount.

Where these figures come from

The required minimum distribution on an inherited account is federal arithmetic: Treasury Regulation section 1.401(a)(9)-5 divides the prior year-end balance by an applicable denominator, and section 1.401(a)(9)-9 publishes the tables the denominator is read from. The Single Life Table runs from birth to age 120 and over and supplies every post-death life expectancy; the Uniform Lifetime Table, from age 72, supplies the owner's own distribution for the year of death. The current tables apply to distribution calendar years from 2022.

Which rule applies, and so which age and whose life expectancy, is the question the inherited IRA withdrawal rules tool answers from the same regulations: the beneficiary's status, whether the owner died before or after the required beginning date, the 10-year or 5-year deadline. This calculator reads that answer and prints it under the amount. A missed amount carries a 25 percent tax under section 4974 of the Internal Revenue Code, reduced where it is corrected in the window.