RMD Calculator (Required Minimum Distribution)

The divisor does the work

A Required Minimum Distribution is deliberately simple arithmetic: take your account balance on December 31 of last year and divide it by a life-expectancy divisor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. The IRS publishes that table in Publication 590-B, and this calculator carries the same divisors for ages 73 through 120. The number you get is the floor the government requires you to withdraw and pay ordinary income tax on this year. You can always take more. You just cannot take less without a penalty. Each year you age, the divisor shrinks, so the same balance forces out a larger and larger percentage over time.

Under SECURE 2.0, the starting age is 73 if you were born between 1951 and 1959, and 75 if you were born in 1960 or later. Roth IRAs are exempt during the original owner's lifetime, and SECURE 2.0 removed RMDs from Roth 401(k)s beginning in 2024, so the rules really bite on traditional IRAs and pre-tax workplace plans.

A $500,000 IRA at 73

Use the defaults: a $500,000 balance, age 73, and a 22 percent marginal bracket. The Uniform Lifetime divisor for 73 is 26.5. The math runs like this.

That first RMD is 3.77 percent of the balance. The chart shows why this is the start of a rising obligation: as the divisor falls with age, the required percentage of whatever balance remains climbs steadily.

Stacking two RMDs in your first year

The single most expensive RMD mistake is misreading the first-year deadline. Your very first distribution can be delayed until April 1 of the year after you turn the RMD age, the so-called required beginning date. Sounds generous, but if you wait, your second RMD is still due by December 31 of that same year. You end up taking two taxable distributions in one calendar year, which can shove you into a higher bracket, trigger higher Medicare premiums, and tax more of your Social Security. In most cases I would take that first RMD in the year you turn 73 rather than deferring into April, precisely to avoid the double stack.

Which table you use matters too, and this is where people quietly take the wrong amount. This calculator runs the Uniform Lifetime Table, which is correct for the vast majority of owners. But if your spouse is your sole beneficiary and is more than ten years younger than you, the IRS lets you switch to the Joint Life and Last Survivor Table, which uses a larger divisor and so produces a smaller required distribution. Inherited accounts are a separate world entirely: most non-spouse beneficiaries now fall under a 10-year rule that empties the account within a decade, those amounts can never be combined with your own RMD, and they are computed off different tables. If you have inherited an IRA, the number this tool returns does not apply to it.

Can a charitable gift count toward my RMD?

Yes. A Qualified Charitable Distribution lets someone 70 and a half or older send up to $108,000 in 2025 directly from an IRA to a qualified charity. The amount counts toward your RMD but is excluded from your adjusted gross income, which is better than taking the RMD and then deducting a donation, because it lowers the income figure that drives Medicare premiums and Social Security taxation. The transfer must go straight from the custodian to the charity to qualify.

If I am still working at 73, do I have to take RMDs?

From your IRAs, yes, working changes nothing. But there is a still-working exception for your current employer's 401(k) or 403(b): if you are not a 5 percent owner of the company and the plan allows it, you can delay RMDs from that specific plan until you actually retire. It does not cover IRAs or old 401(k)s from former employers, and rolling an old account into the current plan before you reach RMD age is one way to shelter more under this exception.