Tool · Illustration

Inherited Roth IRA: First-Year Illustrations

Compare distributions for a supported direct beneficiary using a full first-distribution-year illustration. Start with the December 31 balance before that first year, not today’s balance. Trusts, spouse elections, minor-child timing, successors, unresolved shared interests and elapsed payout periods are not calculated.

Limited-scope illustration lockYour data never leaves your browser descriptionSources on the page Updated 2026-09-24

Correction: Corrected timing, beneficiary assumptions and life-expectancy factors; restricted unsupported calculations. The earlier New Jersey example correction remains in the dated correction history.

All calculations run locally in your browser. Your inputs are never transmitted or stored.

Relationship to the original owner

Confirmed beneficiary status at the owner's death

Exactly ten years younger, the same age or older satisfies the age-difference category. Check all applicable categories. A grandchild is not the owner's minor child but may qualify under another category.

Confirm the regulatory standard, not just a diagnosis: disability has a separate under-18 test and a Social Security safe harbor; chronic illness has modified statutory and certification requirements. This tool does not establish eligibility.

I have confirmed that life-expectancy treatment applies under the account terms and relevant elections.

Original owner's date of death

Only a first distribution year in the current or upcoming calendar year is illustrated. No historical, elapsed or expired period is restarted.

I have confirmed a direct inheritance from the original owner, not a successor inheritance, and sole-beneficiary or qualifying separate-account treatment. No unresolved multiple-beneficiary interest is being modeled.

Opening balance: December 31,

Use that year-end balance, not a current balance. If that December 31 is still ahead, use an explicitly hypothetical year-end value. This is a full-year illustration, not a remaining-year forecast or a check of payments already made.

The amount is the actual or hypothetical December 31 opening balance above, not today's balance. Assumed annual return (%)

Age attained during

Owner's first Roth IRA contribution/conversion tax year (optional)

Leave blank if unknown: earnings qualification will be undetermined. A designated Roth 401(k) clock is not automatically a Roth IRA clock. Check the first applicable Roth IRA tax year, not merely the transfer date.

No result determined

Resolve missing facts with the custodian. Unsupported does not mean ineligible. The Beneficiary Type tool explains the general categories.

User Guide

How to use the Inherited Roth IRA Calculator

This is a restricted full first-distribution-year illustration, not a current-balance or catch-up RMD calculator. It supports a direct ordinary non-EDB beneficiary, a confirmed estate/charity interest, or a qualifying non-spouse EDB using a confirmed life-expectancy method. A sole-beneficiary or qualifying separate-account interest must be confirmed.

The first distribution year must be the current or upcoming calendar year. For example, a 2025 owner death starts a full 2026 illustration using the December 31, 2025 balance. A 2026 death starts in 2027; any December 31, 2026 opening balance entered before that date is hypothetical. Earlier first years and expired deadlines are not restarted.

Cases that need separate review

No legal verdict or schedule is produced for pre-2020 history, trusts, spouse elections, minor-child or former-minor-child timing, successor inheritances, unresolved multiple beneficiaries, elapsed first years, missing confirmations or invalid inputs. Unsupported does not mean ineligible. The Beneficiary Type tool explains the general rules without promising a personal schedule.

Walking through the inputs

Opening balance. Use the actual or explicitly hypothetical December 31 balance before the first distribution year. Do not substitute today's balance. This tool does not account for withdrawals already made, determine a remaining current-year RMD, or reconstruct historical payments.

Status at death. Confirm all applicable EDB categories as of the original owner's death. The age-difference category includes an individual exactly ten years younger, the same age or older, comparing actual birth dates; it is not limited to siblings. Disability has a separate under-18 standard and a Social Security safe harbor. Chronic illness has modified statutory and certification requirements. A selection here does not establish medical or legal eligibility.

Life-expectancy method. Account terms and timely elections matter. Confirm that this method applies before using it. Enter the beneficiary's age attained in the year after death, not their present age. The non-spouse factor is then reduced by one annually; this is not the sole-spouse recalculation method.

Return. The entered 0%–20% range is an illustration limit, not an IRS rule or promised return. The same assumed annual return is used throughout; taxes, fees, inflation and outside-account investment returns are not modeled.

Roth IRA qualification clock. Enter the first applicable Roth IRA contribution or conversion tax year. Time in a designated Roth 401(k) does not automatically count toward the Roth IRA's five-tax-year period. Leave the year blank if unknown; the tool will not assume earnings are qualified. The clock follows the deceased owner and continues after death. It is distinct from a five-year payout deadline.

How to read the result

For a supported direct non-EDB after a post-2019 owner death, the account must be emptied by December 31 of the tenth year after the year of death, with no annual RMDs in years 1–9. Equal annual withdrawals are optional cash-flow illustrations. For a supported estate/charity interest with no designated beneficiary, the corresponding final payout period is five years, without annual installments.

The deferred and equal patterns apply a full year's assumed growth before the end-of-year withdrawal. A full ten-year illustration of $500,000 at 7% produces approximately $983,576 if deferred, or $71,189 in equal annual withdrawals. These numbers assume the full opening window; they are not a projection of today's balance through an older inheritance's deadline.

The non-spouse EDB view shows up to 20 years, not necessarily the complete distribution period. It divides the preceding year-end balance by the applicable factor. For projection only, it withdraws that RMD before applying growth for the year. Recalculate actual payments using actual preceding-December-31 balances. The illustration assumes the original beneficiary remains alive and the applicable rules and method do not change.

Tax and scope limits

Qualified inherited Roth distributions are excluded from federal gross income; earnings reached under Roth ordering rules before the five-tax-year condition is met may be taxable. Beneficiary distributions have the federal death exception to the 10% early-distribution tax. After a spouse treats the account as their own, owner qualification and distribution-exception rules apply instead. This tool does not model that election.

A successor to an ordinary non-EDB generally finishes the existing window. A successor to a life-expectancy EDB may face a new ten-year cap while annual payments continue, subject to earlier deadlines and spouse exceptions. Likewise, a child's annual life-expectancy payments do not simply stop at 21. These cases are excluded from this calculator, not covered by its ordinary no-annual-RMD result.

The schedules are not a tax or wealth optimization. They exclude federal tax on nonqualified earnings, state tax, Medicare premiums, cash needs and estate goals. Deferral leaves funds in the Roth longer under the assumed return; it does not automatically maximize household wealth. A missed final payout or annual RMD can trigger the section 4974 shortfall tax. Confirm the real account's method and deadlines with its custodian.

New Jersey: income tax and inheritance tax are different

Assume a New Jersey beneficiary receives a distribution from an inherited Roth whose five-year clock is already satisfied. The qualified distribution is excluded from New Jersey gross income; the earlier 5 % state-income-tax example on this page was wrong and has been removed.

That does not settle New Jersey inheritance tax. A transfer from a New Jersey resident decedent may be taxable based on the beneficiary’s class and the value passing to that beneficiary. That transfer tax is separate from income tax on a later account distribution, and this calculator does not model it. Review the New Jersey Roth IRA guide and the estate’s NJ inheritance-tax filing position before acting.

Methodology & sources

The controls require confirmed facts; they do not certify a beneficiary designation, trust, medical condition or election. Unsupported cases and invalid inputs produce no legal verdict or schedule.

Supported categories and exclusions

Under §1.401(a)(9)-4, EDB categories include a surviving spouse, the owner's child under 21 at death, a qualifying disabled or chronically ill individual, and an individual not more than ten years younger. Eligibility is tested at death. Life-expectancy availability depends on account terms and applicable elections.

This calculator models only a direct, separately treated non-spouse interest with the supplied category confirmed, or a confirmed estate/charity interest. It does not determine whether multiple beneficiaries qualify for separate treatment. Unresolved shared interests and all trusts are deferred; see-through status cannot be inferred from a trust's label.

Pre-2020 inheritances may depend on existing elections, the 2020 waiver and the 2022 table transition. No historical reconstruction is attempted. Spouse elections require additional facts; no automatic “No annual RMD” result is supplied for a spouse.

For the owner's minor child using life expectancy, the final deadline is December 31 of the tenth year after the year of turning 21, while annual payments continue. Age 21 comes from final §1.401(a)(9)-4(e)(3). A separate disability/chronic-illness category can affect treatment. This tool does not calculate child or former-child deadlines.

For IRAs, §1.408-8(b)(4) removes specified regulatory delivery requirements for trust and disability/chronic-illness documents. It does not eliminate substantive eligibility, certification requirements or custodian procedures.

Roth owner RMDs and beneficiary deadlines

IRC §408A(c)(4) exempts original Roth IRA owners from lifetime RMDs. Under §1.408-8(b)(1)(ii), a Roth IRA owner is treated as dying before the required beginning date. A supported direct ordinary non-EDB therefore has no annual RMDs in years 1–9 and must complete payout by December 31 of year ten after the owner's death. A confirmed non-designated beneficiary generally has a five-year payout period.

This is not a universal rule that inherited Roth accounts never require annual payments. Life-expectancy EDB, former-minor-child and successor rules can require continuing annual payments. Those exceptions must not be replaced with a new ordinary ten-year window.

For context, the first cohort subject to RMD age 75 was born in 1960 and reaches 75 in 2035; an IRA owner's corresponding first RBD is generally April 1, 2036. The fetched final §1.401(a)(9)-2 specifies age 73 for 1951–1958 births and leaves the 1959 provision reserved; the accompanying proposed rule specifies 73 for 1959. This calculator does not determine an owner's or spouse's RMD start age.

Five-tax-year qualification and schedule formulas

The inherited Roth IRA qualification period starts with the owner's first applicable Roth IRA contribution tax year and does not restart at death. For example, a 2022 first year completes five tax years at the end of 2026, so beneficiary distributions qualify beginning January 1, 2027. Roth ordering rules generally distribute regular contributions, then conversions in order, then earnings. Nonqualified earnings may be taxable; the beneficiary death exception removes the federal early-distribution tax.

Deferred: B × (1 + r)^N, paid in the final year. Equal annual: B divided by the present value of N unit end-of-year withdrawals, equivalent to B × r × (1+r)^N / ((1+r)^N − 1); at zero return, B/N. N is the complete initial ten- or five-year window, not a guessed remaining term.

Non-spouse life expectancy: preceding December 31 balance divided by the Single Life factor for age attained in the first distribution year, then the original factor minus one per later year, with a floor of one. The table effective in 2022 is used for these current/upcoming first years. Growth is applied after the annual RMD for this illustration, unlike the end-year withdrawal convention in the other patterns. Historical factors and spouse recalculation are not modeled.

Primary sources expand_more

IRS T.D. 10001, IRB 2024-33 — July 2024 final regulations, generally applicable to RMD calendar years beginning in 2025. The same bulletin contains separate proposed rules; not every provision there is final.
IRC §401(a)(9) — required minimum distributions generally.
IRC §401(a)(9)(E) — Eligible Designated Beneficiary categories (added by SECURE Act, Public Law 116-94).
IRC §401(a)(9)(H) — the 10-year rule.
IRC §408A(c)(4) — Roth IRAs exempt from lifetime RMD rules.
IRC §408A(d)(2) — 5-year rule for qualified distributions.
IRC §72(t)(2)(A)(ii) — no 10% early-withdrawal penalty on distributions from an inherited IRA.
IRC §72(m)(7) — definition of disabled.
IRC §7702B(c)(2) — definition of chronically ill.
§1.401(a)(9)-9 — Single Life Table effective in 2022; §1.408-8 — IRA balance, spouse and documentation rules.
SECURE 2.0 Act §327 — spousal election to be treated as the deceased owner.
IRS Publication 590-B, 2025 edition — supporting Roth distribution guidance; not a 2026 edition. §§1.408A-6 and 1.408A-10 address qualification clocks and designated Roth plan rollovers.

Scope and source editions are stated above. For changes or corrections: corrections@rothirahub.com.

Corrections and updates

September 24, 2026 — Correction: Corrected the age-75 calendar reference, date parsing and three Single Life Table factors. Removed automatic historical, trust, spouse and minor-child verdicts; clarified beneficiary eligibility, separate-account assumptions and Roth IRA qualification clocks. Schedules now use a clearly dated opening balance for a full first distribution year and withhold unsupported, elapsed and invalid cases. These illustrations do not calculate taxes or restart an old payout window. See the public correction record.

August 13, 2026 — Correction: We corrected an earlier example that wrongly treated a qualified inherited Roth IRA distribution as taxable income in New Jersey. After the Roth five-year rule is satisfied, New Jersey excludes the qualified distribution from income. A separate New Jersey inheritance tax may apply based on the beneficiary’s class and share; this tool does not model that transfer tax. See the New Jersey Roth IRA guide.

Read the companion articles

Overview

Inherited Roth IRA — the full guide

Everything the tool classifies, explained in depth.

The big differentiator

The 10-year rule for Roth IRAs

Annual-payment exceptions and final payout deadlines.

Non-spouse beneficiaries

Non-spouse inherited Roth rules

Adult children, grandchildren, siblings, partners.

Edge cases

Special situations — trusts, minors, charities

When the standard path doesn't apply.