Roth IRA Withdrawal Calculator: Tax, 10% Penalty, 5-Year Rule

The IRS counts a withdrawal as coming out in a fixed order, whichever account you actually sold from: first your regular contributions, then your conversions and rollovers, oldest first, and last the earnings (26 CFR 1.408A-6, Q&A 8). Inside one conversion, the part you paid income tax on when you converted comes before the part that was never taxed. All your Roth IRAs are treated as one, everything withdrawn in a year is added together, and the order is settled at the end of the year, so a contribution made later the same year is already in the pot.

Publication 590-B's own example: Amelia converted $80,000 in 2021 ($20,000 of it never taxed), put $5,000 in a Roth IRA in 2025 and withdrew $7,000 at 60. The first $5,000 is her contribution; the next $2,000 is part of the conversion she paid tax on in 2021, so it is not taxed again. The calculator reproduces that, and the Form 5329 and regulation examples, in its tests.

Yes. Because contributions come out first, a withdrawal up to the total you put in is not income and has no 10% tax, at any age and in any year. Someone who contributed $12,000, $7,000 and $8,000 can take out $27,000 at 30 with a cost of $0. Take $35,000 instead and the extra $8,000 is earnings: it is taxed as income and, before 59½, the 10% additional tax adds $800 (unless an exception applies). What counts is what you put in, not the balance today, so keep a record of each year's contribution and conversion; Form 8606 is where the IRS has you work out the taxable part.

Two clocks, and they are not the same. (1) For a distribution to be qualified (no tax on earnings), it must come after a 5-tax-year period that begins on January 1 of the first year any Roth IRA of yours received a contribution, a conversion included, and be made on or after 59½, because of disability, to a beneficiary after death, or up to $10,000 for a first home (26 U.S.C. 408A(d)(2); 26 CFR 1.408A-6, Q&A 1 and 2). You have one such clock for all your Roth IRAs. A contribution for 2021 made as late as April 15, 2022 starts it on January 1, 2021, so the period ends on December 31, 2025 and 2026 is the first year that qualifies.

(2) Each conversion has its own 5-year clock, starting on January 1 of the year you converted. It decides only whether the 10% additional tax applies to the part of that conversion you paid income tax on (26 U.S.C. 408A(d)(3)(F); Q&A 5). Publication 590-B's example: a conversion on February 25, 2025 and a regular contribution for 2024 on the same day start two different clocks, on January 1, 2025 and January 1, 2024. A 2025 conversion therefore stops being exposed to the 10% tax in 2030. From 59½ the 10% tax does not apply at all.

Because the law wants conversions to stay put for 5 years before you are under 59½. If you take out the taxed part of a conversion inside its 5 years, you do not pay income tax a second time, but the 10% additional tax applies to it (unless an exception does). The Form 5329 instructions give the example this calculator is tested against: $20,000 converted in 2021 and $10,000 in 2022, $2,000 of contributions in each year, and a $33,000 withdrawal in 2025 at 53. The first $4,000 is contributions; then the $15,000 taxed part and $5,000 never-taxed part of the 2021 conversion; then the $7,000 taxed part of the 2022 conversion; and the last $2,000 comes from the 2022 never-taxed part. The amount on Form 5329 line 1 is $22,000, the 10% tax is $2,200, and the income tax is $0. The never-taxed part of a conversion comes out last, so it is the part that escapes.

No. Up to $10,000 over your lifetime is a qualified distribution if the 5-year clock in the first answer is over, and then it is not taxed (Form 8606, line 20: the amount, at most $10,000 less earlier first-home distributions, is taken off before the order is applied). If the clock is not over, the $10,000 only escapes the 10% tax (Form 5329 exception 09); earnings that come out are still taxed. The calculator takes the qualified part off first when the 5 years are over and uses the exception otherwise. It does not check that the home is a first home or the costs qualify; the IRS defines those in Publication 590-B.

Ishmael opened a Roth IRA in 2000, put in $50,000 by 2024 and $5,500 in 2025, converted $10,000 in 2005, rolled $20,000 over from an employer plan in 2016, and in August 2025, at about 57, took $85,500 for a first home. The allocation chart in the publication gives the same split this calculator does: $10,000 first-home, $55,500 of contributions, $10,000 of the 2005 conversion and $10,000 of the 2016 rollover. The publication then says to enter $20,000 on Form 5329 line 1 and $10,000 as the first-home exception. We could not reconcile that with the rest of the IRS text: the same publication, the Form 5329 instructions and 26 U.S.C. 408A(d)(3)(F) apply the 10% tax to a conversion only for distributions within that conversion's own 5 years, and a 2025 distribution is within them only for conversions made in 2021 to 2025. The 2005 and 2016 conversions are outside, so this calculator finds $0 subject to the 10% tax. If you are in a case like this, check your Form 5329 with a tax professional.

It does not need your balance: anything you take out beyond what you put in (and the conversions) is by definition earnings, so the balance is used only to cap the $1,000 emergency exception (the lesser of $1,000 and the balance above $1,000, Notice 2024-55) and to warn if you ask for more than the account holds. It does not model Roth 401(k) or 403(b) accounts, Roth SIMPLE IRAs, conversions before 2001, recharacterizations, returned contributions, state tax, or the extra Medicare surcharge a large taxable amount can cause (see the Medicare IRMAA calculator). For a traditional IRA or 401(k), use the early withdrawal calculator.