Roth IRA RMD Rules — Required Minimum Distributions

Roth IRA owners have no required minimum distributions (RMDs) during their lifetimes. Designated Roth accounts in workplace plans also have no lifetime RMDs for 2024 and later. Beneficiaries are different: an inherited Roth can have annual distributions, a five-year deadline, or a ten-year deadline, depending on who inherits and the applicable rules.

Why This Matters: More Control Over Withdrawals

Without a lifetime RMD, you can leave money in your Roth IRA when you do not need it and choose withdrawals around your spending needs. That flexibility is shared by designated Roth workplace accounts for years beginning in 2024. It is not a guarantee of investment growth or proof that Roth always beats traditional.

Traditional IRA owners generally must start RMDs based on their birth-year cohort, even if still working. The 2024 final regulations specify age 73 for people born in 1951–1958 and age 75 for people born in 1960 or later. They leave the 1959 provision reserved; the accompanying proposed regulations specify age 73 for that group. Do not describe that proposed provision as finalized in TD 10001. Earlier birth cohorts had earlier starting ages.

The Dollar Impact: A Traditional IRA RMD vs. No Roth RMD

Assume a traditional IRA's prior December 31 balance is $1,000,000 and its owner turns 73 during 2026 and uses the Uniform Lifetime Table. The age-73 divisor is 26.5, so the 2026 RMD is $1,000,000 ÷ 26.5 = $37,735.85, rounded to cents.

If that entire distribution is taxable and every dollar falls in assumed 24% federal and 5% state marginal brackets, the added taxes are approximately $9,056.60 federal plus $1,886.79 state, or $10,943.40 combined, before other interactions. Actual tax depends on the owner's return and state rules; an RMD does not automatically trigger a Medicare surcharge or additional taxable Social Security.

An owner with the same balance in a Roth IRA has no required withdrawal. Those equal account balances are not an equal-cost investment comparison: Roth funding or conversion tax has to be counted too.

Roth 401(k) RMDs: What Changed in 2024

SECURE 2.0 §325 removed lifetime RMDs from designated Roth accounts in 401(k), 403(b), and governmental 457(b) plans for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2023. This did not depend on when the account was opened. It also did not forgive an earlier RMD that was due, including a first 2023 RMD with an April 1, 2024 deadline.

Owning a Roth 401(k) before 2024 does not mean you necessarily owed an RMD then. Your age, employment, ownership status, and plan rules determined that. Ask the plan administrator about the particular year instead of assuming every older account has a missed distribution.

Should You Roll Your Roth 401(k) to a Roth IRA?

A rollover is no longer needed solely to escape lifetime Roth-plan RMDs. Compare actual fees, investment choices, withdrawal rules, creditor protection, and beneficiary administration before deciding. A plan can be less expensive or offer useful features that an IRA does not.

The plan's five-year period does not carry over as a Roth IRA five-year period. An existing Roth IRA's first contribution year may establish the IRA clock. Also, amounts rolled over from a qualified designated Roth distribution receive basis treatment that matters for later withdrawals; a new IRA clock does not by itself mean previously qualified plan dollars become taxable. See the Roth 401(k) guide.

The RMD Excise Tax and Its Correction Window

For failures subject to the post-2022 rules, a missed RMD can result in an excise tax of 25% of the shortfall. It can be reduced to 10% if you receive the corrective distribution and submit a return reflecting the additional tax within the statutory correction window. Older failures need their own tax-year rules and forms.

The window ends at the earliest of a mailed notice of deficiency for this tax, assessment of the tax, or the last day of the second tax year beginning after the year the tax was imposed. That is not simply “two years after you discover the error” or any first contact from the IRS.

A waiver is a separate route. The IRS may waive the tax if the shortfall resulted from reasonable error and you are taking reasonable steps to remedy it. A waiver request is not guaranteed, and the absence of a reply is not evidence of an approval rate.

Form 5329: use the form for the affected year

Under the 2025 instructions, complete Part IX lines 52a/52b and 53a/53b as applicable. For a waiver request, put “RC” and the shortfall amount for which you request relief in parentheses next to line 54a or 54b, subtract it when completing that line, and attach an explanation. Complete line 55 and pay any tax still due. These are not instructions to put the waiver amount on line 55.

Follow that year's filing instructions, including whether an amended income-tax return is needed. Correct the distribution and retain evidence of the error and remedial steps. A Roth IRA owner has no lifetime RMD, including in the owner's year of death; a beneficiary can nevertheless owe a distribution under their own inherited-account schedule.

The missed-RMD calculator can illustrate a shortfall and rates. It does not decide whether you qualify for a waiver or replace the correct year's Form 5329 instructions.

Qualified Charitable Distributions and Roth IRAs

A qualified charitable distribution (QCD) generally requires a direct IRA-to-eligible-charity payment after you reach age 70½. The annual exclusion limit is $111,000 per taxpayer for 2026, up from $108,000 for 2025. Other requirements and reductions, including certain deductible IRA contributions after age 70½, can apply.

Calling every Roth QCD “worthless” was too broad. The QCD exclusion applies only to amounts that would otherwise be taxable, and special QCD ordering treats the distribution as coming first from that taxable amount. A qualified Roth withdrawal is already excluded from income, so it offers no additional QCD income exclusion. But a nonqualified Roth distribution can contain otherwise-taxable earnings. There is no owner Roth RMD to satisfy, and a Roth withdrawal cannot satisfy a separate traditional IRA's RMD. See QCDs from Roth IRAs.

Inherited Roth IRA RMD Rules

The owner exemption ends with the owner. After death, Roth IRAs are treated as though the owner died before their required beginning date. For a direct individual beneficiary who is not an eligible designated beneficiary and an owner death after 2019, the usual rule is an empty account by December 31 of year 10, with no annual RMDs in years 1–9.

That is not the rule for every non-spouse or every successor. Eligible designated beneficiaries can have life-expectancy distributions; an estate or a non-see-through trust generally has a five-year deadline. A successor to a beneficiary using life expectancy can face continuing annual payments plus a new ten-year outer deadline. Confirm the category in the inherited Roth IRA guide.

Spouse Beneficiaries

A surviving spouse who qualifies to treat the Roth IRA as their own has no lifetime RMD from it. Keeping it inherited instead can preserve the death exception for withdrawals before 59½, but beneficiary distribution rules still matter. The treat-as-own election generally requires being the sole beneficiary with an unlimited right to withdraw; spousal rollover possibilities are a separate question.

Tax-Free Does Not Mean Deadline-Free

A beneficiary's withdrawal is federally tax-free when the original owner's five-tax-year qualification period is complete at distribution. Earnings withdrawn before then can be taxable, although the death exception removes the 10% early-distribution tax. Missing an inherited-account deadline can still trigger §4974 even when the eventual withdrawal is income-tax-free.

Traditional RMDs Can Affect Other Income Tests

Social Security

A taxable RMD can increase combined income and make more Social Security taxable, up to 85% of benefits. That is an inclusion percentage, not an 85% tax rate. For example, a single filer with $40,000 of taxable IRA income, $24,000 of Social Security, and no other income, tax-exempt interest, or adjustments has $52,000 of combined income and $19,800 of taxable benefits under Publication 915. The resulting tax depends on the whole return.

Medicare Premiums

Taxable RMDs can raise Medicare MAGI. Premium determinations generally use the return from two years earlier: 2026 premiums ordinarily use 2024 income. A 2026 RMD would ordinarily affect the later premium year, not automatically this year's bill. Applicable thresholds and life-changing-event relief must be checked for the relevant year.

Qualified Roth Withdrawals

Qualified Roth withdrawals do not themselves increase AGI or these income measures. Taxable earnings from a nonqualified withdrawal can. Tax-free treatment also does not mean every benefit program ignores the cash or assets.

Estate Planning: More Flexibility, Not a Guaranteed Winner

No lifetime RMD lets an owner preserve Roth assets when other resources cover spending. But a useful estate comparison must include conversion or contribution taxes, the heirs' tax situations, investment risk, spending, and what happens to traditional IRA withdrawals after they leave the account.

For illustration only, $500,000 growing at 7% without withdrawals becomes approximately $983,576 after 10 years, $1,934,842 after 20, $3,806,128 after 30, and $7,487,229 after 40. These are nominal balances under a fixed-return assumption, not estimates of tax savings or a guarantee that heirs can keep an inherited IRA for 40 years.

How to Check Your RMD Obligations

• Own Roth IRA: No lifetime RMD. Retain contribution/conversion records and beneficiary designations; other tax-reporting obligations can still exist.
• Own designated Roth workplace account: No lifetime RMD for 2024 onward. Review prior years only if an RMD was actually due under the then-applicable rules.
• Inherited Roth: Record the owner's death year, your beneficiary category, any prior beneficiary's schedule, the qualification clock, and the required deadline. Do not automatically apply the ten-year/no-annual-RMD rule to every inheritance.
• Missed distribution: Use the affected year's rules and Form 5329. A calculator result, a request for relief, or relief for a different class of beneficiaries does not establish that your tax is waived.

Corrections and updates

September 24, 2026 — Correction: Corrected the first age-75 year to 2035, RMD arithmetic, beneficiary exceptions, Roth qualification, and the Form 5329 waiver procedure. Also corrected pre-2024 plan and QCD claims, qualified secondary-tax effects, and replaced unsupported tax-saving projections and universal rollover recommendations with explicit hypothetical examples and decision factors. See the public correction record.