Inherited IRA RMD Calculator

For an IRA owner who died in 2020 or later, two facts decide what a beneficiary must take out: who the beneficiary is, and whether the owner died before or after their required beginning date, the April 1 after the year they reached RMD age.

Eligible designated beneficiaries (the owner's spouse, the owner's child under 21, someone disabled or chronically ill, or someone not more than 10 years younger than the owner) can spread payments over their life expectancy. Any other person must empty the account by the end of the 10th year after the year of death. An estate or charity is not a designated beneficiary at all.

If the owner had already reached the required beginning date, the RMDs they were taking cannot simply stop: beneficiaries take a yearly RMD from the year after death, even under the 10-year rule. If the owner died before that date, a beneficiary on the 10-year rule owes nothing until the final year. The owner's own RMD for the year of death, if they had not taken it, still has to come out that year.

The life-expectancy method modeled here uses the IRS Single Life Table (Table I in Publication 590-B). A beneficiary other than the spouse looks up their age on their birthday in the year after the owner's death, then subtracts 1 for each later year. Under the Table I method modeled here, a surviving spouse who is the sole beneficiary looks the factor up again every year at their new age. For the separate Table III choice, see the spouse method guide. Each year's RMD is the December 31 balance of the year before divided by the factor.

If the owner died on or after the required beginning date, the beneficiary may use the owner's remaining life expectancy instead when it is longer: the table value at the owner's age in the year of death, less 1 each later year. With no designated beneficiary, that owner's figure is the only one. Once the factor falls to 1 or less, whatever remains must come out that year.

Worked example: a parent born in 1945 dies in 2024 at 79, after the required beginning date, and an adult child born in 1975 inherits. The child is 50 in 2025 and the table gives 36.2; the parent's figure, 11.9 less 1, is shorter. So the child takes yearly RMDs from 2025 and must empty the account by 2034.

Treat it as your own. A spouse who is the sole beneficiary with an unlimited right to withdraw can redesignate the IRA in their own name. Any surviving spouse, even one who is not the sole beneficiary, can roll a distribution other than a required distribution into their own IRA within 60 days. Your own RMD age and the Uniform Lifetime Table then apply, which the RMD calculator works out. Withdrawals before 59½ lose the beneficiary exception to the 10% additional tax. A spouse who could make this choice is treated as having made it if money is added to the inherited IRA or if an RMD owed as a beneficiary is missed. Publication 590-B counts rollover contributions as adding money; the regulation excludes a rollover of a distribution from the deceased spouse's own retirement plans.

Stay a beneficiary. For the Table I beneficiary method modeled here, you take life expectancy payments with the Single Life Table factor looked up again every year. If your spouse died before the required beginning date, the first one can wait until the year your spouse would have reached RMD age; in Publication 590-B's example, a spouse who died in 2022 at 65 means no RMD until December 31, 2030. If you die before then, the rules apply to your beneficiaries as if you had been the owner.

Take the 10-year rule if the owner died before the required beginning date and the IRA allows it. Publication 590-B also describes use of Table III, the Uniform Lifetime Table, by a spouse who remains a beneficiary. This calculator models the Table I beneficiary method only; it does not implement that Table III election or decide which spouse option applies. Confirm the election and applicable denominator with the IRA custodian before using this estimate. Treating the IRA as your own is a different choice, with your own RMD rules.

Taxable distributions from an inherited traditional IRA count as income in the year you receive them. Distributions to a beneficiary after the owner's death do not owe the 10% additional tax, at any age.

An RMD not taken owes a 25% excise tax on the shortfall, cut to 10% if you take it and file within the correction window. The IRS waives the tax automatically when a beneficiary takes the owner's unpaid year-of-death RMD by the beneficiary's tax filing deadline, including extensions (or the end of the next year, if later), and when an eligible designated beneficiary of an owner who died before the required beginning date, on life expectancy payments only by default, misses one and then elects the 10-year rule by the end of the 9th year after the year of death. Inherited IRAs from the same owner can be combined for the RMD, traditional with traditional and Roth with Roth, but never with your own IRAs or with IRAs inherited from someone else.

A nonspouse beneficiary cannot convert an inherited traditional IRA into their own Roth IRA. For a separate portfolio spending scenario, the retirement withdrawal calculator models fixed-return withdrawals; it does not enforce inherited-IRA minimums or payout deadlines. For penalty-free withdrawals from your own IRA before 59½, see the 72(t) calculator.