When do required minimum distributions start?

At age 73 under the current rules, which is the start age this calculator uses throughout. A later start age is already legislated to take effect further out and is not modelled here. Your first distribution may be delayed into the following calendar year, but doing so means two distributions land in one tax year.

Do Roth accounts have required distributions?

A Roth IRA does not, while the original owner is alive — the balance can be left untouched indefinitely. Inherited Roth accounts do have required withdrawals for the beneficiary. This is a real, present-tense advantage of a Roth that most comparison calculators leave out entirely.

How is the amount actually calculated?

Your account balance on the last day of the previous year, divided by the distribution period for your age from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. Nothing else enters the formula — not your income, not your return, not your other accounts. This page shows both halves in the table so you can check the arithmetic.

What if I have several retirement accounts?

Work out the required amount for each account separately, then apply the aggregation rules. IRA amounts can be added together and taken from whichever IRA you choose, but each 401(k) must satisfy its own requirement from that plan. Entering a combined balance here gives you the correct total, not the correct split.

What happens if I miss one?

An excise tax applies to the amount you should have withdrawn and did not. Correcting the shortfall promptly reduces it substantially, and there is a process for requesting a waiver where the failure was reasonable and is being fixed. It is one of the few retirement deadlines where acting immediately materially changes the cost.

Can I reduce my future required distributions?

Mainly by shrinking the traditional balance before the requirement starts. Roth conversions in the low-rate years between retiring and turning 73 are the usual route — you pay tax on your terms instead of the table’s. Once distributions have begun, qualified charitable distributions can satisfy the requirement without adding to your taxable income.

RMD Calculator — Required Minimum Distributions

Year-by-year schedule

The required withdrawal at every age in the projection, with the divisor it came from and what the balance does around it.

Required minimum distributions on a $900,000 traditional balance growing at 5.0% a year.
Age	Balance at start	Divisor	Required	Balance at end
73	$945,000	26.5	$35,660	$954,807
74	$954,807	25.5	$37,443	$963,231
75	$963,231	24.6	$39,156	$970,279
76	$970,279	23.7	$40,940	$975,806
77	$975,806	22.9	$42,612	$979,854
78	$979,854	22.0	$44,539	$982,081
79	$982,081	21.1	$46,544	$982,314
80	$982,314	20.2	$48,629	$980,369
81	$980,369	19.4	$50,534	$976,326
82	$976,326	18.5	$52,774	$969,729
83	$969,729	17.7	$54,787	$960,689
84	$960,689	16.8	$57,184	$948,681
85	$948,681	16.0	$59,293	$933,858
86	$933,858	15.2	$61,438	$916,041
87	$916,041	14.4	$63,614	$895,048
88	$895,048	13.7	$65,332	$871,202
89	$871,202	12.9	$67,535	$843,850
90	$843,850	12.2	$69,168	$813,416

Gross withdrawals before income tax. Divisors come from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table; the balance grows at the return you set, with no contributions and no fees.

Required distributions start at 73 for traditional 401(k) and IRA balances. A Roth IRA is exempt while the original owner is alive.
The amount is the prior year-end balance divided by a table figure that shrinks with age, so the required share of the account rises every single year.
An RMD is a floor, not a ceiling. You can always take more, but the required portion cannot be rolled into another retirement account — it has to leave the system.
Missing one is expensive. There is an excise tax on the amount you failed to take, reduced if you correct the shortfall promptly, so the deadline matters more than the arithmetic.

How the RMD calculator works

A required minimum distribution is the amount the IRS makes you take out of a traditional 401(k) or IRA each year once you reach the start age, which is 73. The money comes out and is taxed as ordinary income, whether you needed it or not. Roth IRAs are exempt while the original owner is alive, which is one of the few concrete, non-speculative advantages a Roth has over a traditional account.

The amount is not a percentage anyone chooses. It is your balance at the end of the previous year divided by a distribution period read off the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table for your age. That period shrinks every year, so the share of the account you have to take rises every year: a divisor of 26.5 at age 73 is about 3.8% of the balance, and a divisor of 12.2 at 90 is about 8.2%. The direction is one-way.

The part that surprises people is what this does to the balance. For the first several years the required percentage is smaller than a reasonable return, so the account keeps growing despite the withdrawals. It peaks somewhere in the late seventies or early eighties, when the shrinking divisor finally forces out more than the account earns, and only then starts to fall. Seeing that curve is usually the point of running this — the forced withdrawals arrive alongside Social Security and can push a retiree into a higher bracket.

The math

The projection grows your balance at the return you set, takes the required distribution at each age from the start age through the last age you choose, and grows what is left. Below the start age no distribution is taken and the balance simply compounds, which is why entering an age under 73 still produces a schedule — it just begins later. The distribution period shown in the table is not a second copy of the IRS table living on the marketing site: it is recovered by dividing the balance by the computed distribution, so the page and the product cannot drift apart.

The Uniform Lifetime Table covers almost everyone, and it is the only table applied here. If your sole beneficiary is a spouse more than ten years younger than you, a joint-life table applies instead and produces a smaller required amount — that case is deliberately not modelled rather than approximated. Also outside the model: inherited accounts, which follow their own rules entirely; the option to delay your very first distribution into the following calendar year, which means taking two in one year; and qualified charitable distributions, which can satisfy the requirement without adding to your taxable income.

Every figure is a gross withdrawal, before income tax. The balance is assumed to be one pot growing at one rate, with no contributions and no fees. If you hold several accounts, the aggregation rules differ by type: IRA distributions can be totalled and taken from any one IRA, while each 401(k) has to satisfy its own requirement separately. Running the total balance here gives you the right total; it does not tell you which account to take it from.

Worked example

On the defaults — a $900,000 balance at age 72, projected through 90 at a 5% return — nothing is required at 72, so the balance simply grows to $945,000. The first distribution falls at 73: $945,000 divided by the table’s 26.5 gives $35,660, and that single number is what most people came for.

Run it to 90 and the shape emerges. Eighteen withdrawals total $937,183 — more than the balance you started with — and the account still ends at $813,416. That is not a rounding artifact: at 73 the required 1/26.5 is about 3.8% against a 5% return, so the balance climbs. It peaks around age 80, where the required share and the return roughly meet, and declines from there as the divisor keeps shrinking. Drop the return to 3% and the peak disappears entirely; the account falls from the first year.

Key terms

Required minimum distribution: The amount you must withdraw from a traditional retirement account each year once you reach the start age. It is taxed as ordinary income in the year it is taken.
Distribution period: The divisor applied to your balance, read off an IRS table by age. A shorter period means a larger required withdrawal, and it shortens every year.
Uniform Lifetime Table: The IRS table that supplies the distribution period for most account owners. A different, more generous table applies only if your sole beneficiary is a spouse much younger than you.
Prior year-end balance: The account value on the last day of the previous year. That figure, not the current balance, is what this year’s required amount is calculated from.

RMD Calculator (US, 2026)