How much is my RMD for 2026? The table, the deadline and the tax

By DecisionSheet · Updated October 25, 2026 · 2026 tax figures

A required minimum distribution (RMD) is the least you must withdraw each year from a traditional IRA, and from a 401(k) or 403(b) once you have left the employer, after you reach your RMD age. The amount is simple to figure. Its tax, and the deadlines around the first one, are where people get caught. DecisionSheet's RMD calculator does both from the IRS table and the 2026 tax rules. This page works through five owners.

Who has to take one in 2026

• Born 1951 through 1959. RMDs start the year you turn 73. If you were born in 1953, 2026 is your first RMD year.
• Born 1960 or later. RMDs start the year you turn 75 (26 CFR §1.401(a)(9)-2(b)(2)). The final regulation leaves 1959 "reserved"; IRS Publication 590-B applies age 73 to anyone who reaches 72 after 2022, which includes 1959, and so does the calculator.
• Born before 1951. You are already taking them, under the earlier 72 or 70½ rules, and each year's amount comes from the same table.

Every year's RMD is due by December 31. The one exception is the first: it can wait until April 1 of the next year (IRS Publication 590-B). Roth IRAs have no RMDs while you are alive, and neither do Roth 401(k)s. A 401(k) at an employer you still work for can usually wait until the year you retire, unless you own more than 5% of the business; an IRA cannot (IRS RMD FAQs).

How the amount is figured

Take the account balance on December 31 of last year and divide it by the divisor for the age you reach on your birthday this year. For most owners the divisor comes from the Uniform Lifetime Table, Table III in Appendix B of Publication 590-B:

Publication 590-B's own example: an owner who turns 75 in 2026 with $100,000 divides by 24.6 and must take $4,065.

If you have several traditional IRAs, figure the RMD for each, add them up, and take the total from any one or more of them. 401(k) plans do not combine that way: each plan needs its own RMD.

The example: a couple born in 1952

• The household. Married filing jointly, both over 65; the IRA owner turns 74 in 2026.
• The IRA. $500,000 on December 31, 2025.
• Other income. $30,000 of pension and $48,000 of Social Security.

$500,000 ÷ 25.5 is $19,607.85, 3.9% of the balance or about $1,634 a month, due by December 31, 2026. The calculator rounds the RMD up to the cent, so taking exactly that amount is never a cent short. Open this scenario.

Why the RMD costs 17.8% when the bracket is 12%

Without the RMD this couple owes no federal tax. Their pension plus half their benefits is already past $44,000, so every extra dollar of income makes another 85 cents of Social Security taxable. Each dollar of RMD therefore adds $1.85 of taxable income: the RMD brings $16,667 more of their benefits into income, from $14,500 to $31,167.

So the RMD is taxed in three slices:

• The first $1,622 is tax-free. It uses up the last of their standard and senior deductions.
• The next $13,405 costs 18.5%: the 10% bracket times $1.85.
• The last $4,581 costs 22.2%: the 12% bracket times $1.85.

That is $3,497 in all, 17.8% of the RMD. Their AGI rises to $80,775, which also sets their Medicare premiums for 2028.

Your first RMD: take it now or by April 1?

Born in 1953, the same couple turns 73 in 2026. Their first RMD is $18,868 ($500,000 ÷ 26.5), and it can wait until April 1, 2027. Open it.

Waiting is usually a trap. The 2027 RMD is still due by December 31, 2027, so both land in the same tax year: $39,456 of RMD income in 2027, against $19,848 if the first one is taken in 2026. The second RMD is also larger when you wait ($20,588), because it is figured from a December 31 balance the first one has not yet left. Waiting can still pay when 2026 income is unusually high, such as a last year of salary.

A qualified charitable distribution

From 70½, you can have the IRA pay a charity directly, up to $111,000 per person in 2026 (IRS Notice 2025-67). A qualified charitable distribution (QCD) counts toward your RMD but is left out of your income.

If the couple sends $10,000 of their RMD to charity this way, only $9,608 is income, and the RMD costs $1,477 instead of $3,497. The QCD saves $2,019, about 20 cents for every dollar given, because each dollar it keeps out of income would have pulled in 85 cents of Social Security too. Taking the whole RMD and writing the charity a check would save far less: a couple taking the standard deduction can deduct at most $2,000 of cash gifts in 2026, and a deduction does not lower AGI, so it does nothing about the Social Security. Open it.

A single retiree with a bigger IRA

A single retiree, 78, born in 1948, has $800,000 in IRAs, $40,000 of pension income and $30,000 of Social Security. Their RMD is $36,364 ($800,000 ÷ 22.0). Open it.

It costs $7,828, 21.5%. The RMD does three things at once: it makes the last $3,150 of benefits taxable, reaching the 85% cap; it pushes AGI past $75,000, which shrinks the senior deduction by $1,612; and it moves them from the 12% into the 22% bracket.

RMDs grow as you age

The divisor falls every year, so the share you must take rises: from 3.9% at 74 to 6.3% at 85 and 15.6% at 100 (1 ÷ 6.4). If the couple's IRA earns 5% a year, the RMD itself keeps rising for two decades:

• At 85 it is $31,883, and at 90, $37,861.
• The peak is $41,618 at 95. After that it stays just under that level, at $38,391 at 100.
• In all, $887,139 comes out by 100, and $219,597 is still in the account.

Those later RMDs are taxed on top of the same Social Security, which is why many retirees convert part of a traditional IRA to a Roth in their 60s, before RMDs start: what a Roth conversion costs in 2026 works through that trade.

If you were born in 1960 (age 66 in 2026), your first RMD year is 2035. At 5% a year, $500,000 today becomes $775,664 by then, for a first RMD of about $31,531. Open it.

If you miss one

The penalty is an excise tax of 25% of the amount you should have taken and did not, cut to 10% if you take the missed amount and file a return reporting the tax within the correction window (Publication 590-B; Form 5329). For the couple above, missing the whole 2026 RMD would cost $4,902, or $1,961 if fixed in time, on top of the income tax the RMD still owes when it is taken. The IRS can waive it if the shortfall was a reasonable error and you are fixing it; you ask on Form 5329.

If your spouse is more than 10 years younger

If your spouse is the sole beneficiary of the IRA for the whole year and more than 10 years younger than you, the divisor comes from the Joint and Last Survivor table (Table II) instead. It is always larger than the Uniform Lifetime divisor, so your RMD is smaller. The calculator does not carry that table. With the option set, it flags that the figure it shows is more than you need to take.

Assumptions and limits

• The RMD uses the Uniform Lifetime Table in Pub. 590-B (2025), which applies to distribution years from 2022 on (26 CFR §1.401(a)(9)-9(c)). Inherited IRAs, which use other tables and a 10-year rule, are not modeled.
• The tax is federal income tax only, on the 2026 brackets and standard deduction, with the age-65 addition, the senior deduction and its phase-out, and taxable Social Security. All other income is ordinary income. Capital gains rates, credits, the alternative minimum tax and the net investment income tax are not modeled. State tax is a flat rate on the taxable part of the RMD; every example here sets it to zero.
• The IRA is assumed to hold only pre-tax money. If you made nondeductible contributions, part of each withdrawal is tax-free (Form 8606).
• The projection grows the balance at a fixed rate, takes exactly the RMD at the end of each year and figures no tax for later years, whose brackets are not yet published. Real returns vary; a bad year lowers the next RMD.
• This is a model of tax rules, not tax advice.

Method and sources

The model is calculateRmd in the RMD calculator. It divides the balance by the table's divisor for the age reached in 2026, then computes the 2026 return twice, without and with the taxable part of the RMD, on the same model as the Roth conversion calculator, and takes the difference. Every figure on this page comes from runs of the model on the inputs in the scenario links. The table was checked row by row against both official copies below, and the calculator against an independent model of the same rules.

• IRS Publication 590-B (2025): Table III (Uniform Lifetime), the required beginning date, combining IRA RMDs, the 25% and 10% excise tax, and QCDs counting toward the RMD.
• 26 CFR §1.401(a)(9)-9: the Uniform Lifetime Table in the regulation.
• 26 CFR §1.401(a)(9)-2: the applicable age by year of birth.
• IRS Notice 2025-67: the $111,000 QCD limit for 2026.
• IRS, Retirement plan and IRA RMD FAQs: the still-working exception for workplace plans.
• 26 U.S.C. §86 and IRS Publication 915: taxable Social Security.
• Rev. Proc. 2025-32: the 2026 brackets and standard deduction.
• 42 U.S.C. §1395r(i): Medicare Part B premium surcharges use modified AGI from the second year before.

Open this scenario in the calculator

All figures on this page come from the RMD Calculator calculator. Change any input there and the numbers update.