Does my inherited IRA need annual withdrawals, and when must the account be emptied?
Determine supported inherited traditional or Roth IRA annual distributions and account-emptying deadlines for an original beneficiary of an owner who died in 2020 or later. The flow calculates the owner's IRA required beginning date from birth date and compares it with death date. A current-year Single Life divisor is separate from any five- or ten-year deadline; neither uses the owner Uniform Lifetime Table.
inherited IRA RMD calculator
Quick answer
Determine supported inherited traditional or Roth IRA annual distributions and account-emptying deadlines for an original beneficiary of an owner who died in 2020 or later. The flow calculates the owner's IRA required beginning date from birth date and compares it with death date. A current-year Single Life divisor is separate from any five- or ten-year deadline; neither uses the owner Uniform Lifetime Table.
Also answers
- inherited IRA 10 year deadline
- eligible designated beneficiary RMD
- inherited Roth IRA withdrawal deadline
- single life inherited IRA divisor
Good fit when
- Original nonspouse beneficiaries of post-2019 deaths
- Separating annual withdrawals from full-account deadlines
- Confirmed eligible beneficiaries and simple estate cases
Have ready
- Distribution year and original-owner death/birth dates
- Original beneficiary birth date and confirmed legal classification
- Account type, confirmed election and prior December 31 balance
- Completed year-of-death RMD and single-beneficiary scope
Result you get
Annual RMD or final-year balance baseline, owner RBD classification, Single Life divisor and annual/final deadlines.
How this calculation works
- Compare actual death date with the original IRA owner's DOB-based required beginning date; inherited Roth owners are treated as before RBD.
- Classify ordinary individuals, nonspouse eligible beneficiaries, confirmed minor children, and estates separately.
- Use Single Life factors for beneficiaries and remaining-owner life expectancy; decrement fixed periods annually.
- Maintain annual-payment requirements separately from ten-year, five-year or child age-21 account-emptying deadlines.
- Default 2026 scenario: owner born in 1945 died in 2025, beneficiary turns 56 in 2026, $100,000 balance; factor 30.6 produces about $3,267.97 and final deadline December 31, 2035.
- 2027 uses existing final nonindexed distribution rules, not invented new life tables.
Common mistakes and caveats
- One original beneficiary; no trusts, successors, surviving-spouse elections, multiple beneficiaries, employer plans or annuities.
- Only post-death distribution years 2025-2027 and deaths beginning in 2020. The owner's year-of-death RMD must already be satisfied or not required.
- The verified final regulation reserves the 1959 applicable-age cohort; cases requiring that owner's RBD are blocked.
- No income-tax, Roth qualified-distribution determination, penalty correction, disaster extension, or custodian-specific faster payout rule.
FAQ
Can every beneficiary wait until year ten without withdrawals?
No. An ordinary individual beneficiary of an owner who died on or after the required beginning date generally has annual life-expectancy RMDs as well as the ten-year deadline. When the owner died before that date, the ten-year rule generally has no annual minimum before the final year. This calculator covers distributions in 2025-2027 and does not recreate earlier annual-RMD relief determinations.
Who is an eligible designated beneficiary?
Supported categories include an individual not more than ten years younger than the owner, a confirmed disabled or chronically ill beneficiary, and the owner's child who was under 21 at death. Disability and illness eligibility and required documentation must be determined independently. Surviving spouses are also eligible under law, but their elections and special commencement rules are outside this calculator.
How is a nonspouse life-expectancy divisor calculated?
The engine uses the beneficiary's age in the year after death and subtracts one for each later year. After the owner's RBD it also considers the owner's remaining expectancy. When the applicable remaining factor reaches one or less, the entire remaining account must be distributed by that year end, including later earnings; the tool explicitly reports that earlier exhaustion deadline.
What happens when the owner's minor child turns 21?
For a confirmed original minor-child beneficiary using life-expectancy payments, the engine continues annual distributions and sets the final deadline to December 31 ten years after the year the child turns 21. A grandchild does not qualify merely by being young. The account must be emptied earlier if a separate applicable rule requires it; successor-beneficiary changes are not modeled.
Are inherited Roth IRAs and estates treated the same?
An inherited Roth IRA treats its owner as dying before the RBD, so an ordinary individual generally uses the ten-year rule without intervening annual RMDs. An estate with no designated beneficiary generally has a five-year deadline when death occurred before RBD, or the owner's remaining life expectancy after RBD. Whether a Roth withdrawal is income-tax-free is a separate five-year question not calculated here.
Does the final-year result equal the entire payment I must make?
The final-year display uses the entered prior December 31 value only as a baseline, not as the legal maximum or a guaranteed payoff. The actual entire remaining account, including subsequent investment earnings, must be distributed by the deadline. Trusts, successors, multiple unseparated beneficiaries, spouse elections, pre-2020 deaths, and overdue corrections produce blocking errors rather than guessed amounts.
Last updated & sources
Last updated October 13, 2026.
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