Inherited IRA RMD Calculator — 10-Year Rule & Life Expectancy (2026)

It depends on whether the owner had reached their required beginning date (see below) when they died. If they died before it, and for any Roth IRA, no yearly amount is required: the account only has to be empty by December 31 of the tenth year after the death. If they died on or after it, the beneficiary must also take a required amount in each of the years before that (26 CFR § 1.401(a)(9)-5(d)(1)(i)), and the rest by the end of year 10.

Example from this calculator: a beneficiary who is 46 in 2026 inherits $500,000 from an owner who died in 2025 after their required beginning date. The 2026 divisor is 40.0 (the beneficiary's own life expectancy, which is longer than the owner's), so at least $12,500 is due by December 31, 2026, and the account must be empty by December 31, 2035. If the owner had died before their required beginning date, nothing would be required until 2035, when the whole account is due.

The final regulations that spell this out apply to distribution years beginning in 2025 (§ 1.401(a)(9)-1(d)). Publication 590-B (2025) also notes that the IRS said it would not assert the excise tax in 2024 for missed required distributions if certain requirements are met (Notice 2024-35).

Someone who, at the owner's death, is: the owner's surviving spouse; the owner's child who has not reached 21; disabled; chronically ill; or not more than 10 years younger than the owner, judged by dates of birth (26 CFR § 1.401(a)(9)-4(e)). These beneficiaries may take yearly amounts over their own life expectancy instead of being bound by the 10-year rule. A child stops being eligible on their 21st birthday, and the account must then be emptied within 10 years of it.

Anyone else who is an individual (an adult child, a grandchild, a much younger friend) is a designated beneficiary but not an eligible one, so the 10-year rule applies. An estate, a charity or a trust that does not pass through to individuals is not a designated beneficiary at all (Publication 590-B explains when a trust's beneficiaries can be looked through).

It is April 1 of the year after the owner reached the applicable age (26 CFR § 1.401(a)(9)-2(b), § 1.408-8(b)): 70½ if born before July 1, 1949; 72 if born July 1, 1949 through 1950; 73 if born 1951 through 1958; 75 if born in 1960 or later. The final regulation leaves birth year 1959 open (the statute can be read two ways); this calculator uses 73, the age the IRS proposed.

An owner who died before that date is treated as not having started distributions, which is what frees a 10-year-rule beneficiary from yearly amounts. A Roth IRA owner never has one, so the rules treat every Roth IRA owner as having died before it.

A spouse who is the sole beneficiary can generally treat the IRA as their own, or stay a beneficiary (Publication 590-B). Treating it as your own means the ordinary required-distribution rules for owners apply to you from then on (this site's RMD calculator). Staying a beneficiary means life-expectancy payments where your life expectancy is looked up again each year, and if the owner died before their required beginning date you may wait until the year they would have reached the applicable age before starting. You are also treated as having chosen to treat it as your own if you make a contribution to it or fail to take a required beneficiary distribution. This calculator shows the beneficiary path; the choice between the two depends on your own age, needs and taxes.

Yes. After a Roth IRA owner dies, the rules apply as though the owner died before their required beginning date (26 CFR § 1.408-8(b)(1)(ii)), so a beneficiary under the 10-year rule has no yearly amount, only the empty-by deadline, and an eligible designated beneficiary can take life-expectancy payments. This calculator works out the timing only; it does not compute income tax on any distribution.

From the IRS Single Life Table (26 CFR § 1.401(a)(9)-9(b); Publication 590-B Table I). A non-spouse beneficiary looks up their age in the year after the death and subtracts one for each later year. A surviving spouse looks up their current age each year. When the owner died on or after their required beginning date, the divisor is the longer of the beneficiary's and the owner's remaining life expectancy (the owner's: their age in the year of death, less one per later year). Each year's required amount is the previous December 31 balance divided by that divisor. Publication 590-B's own example: an eligible beneficiary who turns 57 in 2026 uses 29.8.

When the owner died on or after their required beginning date, the beneficiaries are responsible for the owner's required amount for the year of death, to the extent the owner hadn't taken it (Publication 590-B). It is figured as if the owner lived the whole year, from the previous December 31 balance and the Uniform Lifetime Table. The regulation's own example (26 CFR § 1.408-8(e)(4)(iii)): an owner who died at 75 with $150,000 on the prior December 31 owed $150,000 ÷ 24.6 = $6,098 for that year. The calculator above works this out for your numbers when it applies.

The IRS can charge an excise tax of 25% of the amount that should have come out, reduced to 10% if you take the distribution and file within the correction window, and you can ask for it to be waived if the shortfall was a reasonable error and you are fixing it (Form 5329; Publication 590-B, “Excess Accumulations”). Anything left after the 10-year deadline is treated the same way.

This calculator follows the final regulations published July 19, 2024 (T.D. 10001). The same day, Treasury and the IRS proposed further changes, including the applicable age for people born in 1959, the surviving-spouse election for employer plans and trust beneficiaries. In Announcement 2026-7 the IRS said that final regulations amending §§ 1.401(a)(9)-4, -5 and -6 are anticipated to apply no earlier than the distribution year that begins six months after they are issued, and that until then taxpayers must use a reasonable, good-faith interpretation of the statute. As of September 22, 2026, the current regulations on eCFR still show T.D. 10001 as the latest amendment to those sections.

The rules are stable in outline (10-year rule, eligible designated beneficiaries, yearly amounts when the owner had begun distributions), but details can move, so check the current publication before relying on a figure.

Custodians may use their own balance dates or rounding, and an IRA agreement may allow fewer choices than the regulations do (for example, whether an eligible beneficiary may elect the 10-year rule). If you inherited several IRAs from the same person, you work out each one's amount and may take the total from any of them (Publication 590-B). An employer plan such as a 401(k) can be stricter: a plan may require the 10-year rule even for eligible beneficiaries (26 CFR § 1.401(a)(9)-3(c)(5)), so check the plan document. Ask your custodian which figure it will report; custodians must report information about the required amount to the IRS (26 CFR § 1.408-8(f)).