RMD rules, year by year

Published August 2026 · By the UltimateCRM team · Educational overview as of August 2026 — not legal, tax, or compliance advice. Confirm requirements with your compliance counsel.

The starting age, by birth year

• Born 1950 or earlier: RMDs already running under the old rules (age 70½ or 72 regimes).
• Born 1951–1959: RMDs begin at age 73.
• Born 1960 or later: RMDs begin at age 75 (starting in 2033).

The first RMD may be delayed until April 1 of the year after reaching RMD age — but that's a trap dressed as a favor: delaying stacks two RMDs into one tax year, often spiking the bracket, Medicare premiums, and Social Security taxation all at once. Usually better to take the first one on time.

Which accounts

• Subject to RMDs: traditional IRAs, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs, and employer plans like 401(k)/403(b) (a still-working exception can defer the current employer's plan).
• Not subject (for the owner): Roth IRAs — and since 2024, Roth 401(k) accounts no longer have lifetime RMDs either, removing the old reason to roll them out.
• IRA RMDs can be aggregated and taken from any one IRA; employer-plan RMDs must come from each plan separately.

How the amount is calculated

Prior December 31 balance divided by the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table factor for your age. In percentage terms it starts near 3.8% and compounds upward:

(Married with a spouse more than ten years younger who is sole beneficiary? The Joint Life table gives smaller RMDs.)

Penalties, QCDs, and inherited accounts

• The missed-RMD penalty is now 25% of the shortfall — reduced to 10% if corrected promptly (down from the old 50%).
• Qualified charitable distributions allow IRA owners 70½+ to give directly to charity — excluded from income entirely and countable toward the RMD. The annual cap is indexed (about $108,000 in 2025). For charitable clients past RMD age, a QCD nearly always beats donating cash.
• Inherited IRAs: most non-spouse beneficiaries are on the 10-year rule, and — per the final regulations — must also take annual RMDs within that window when the original owner had already started distributions. Spouses and other eligible designated beneficiaries retain stretch-style options.

Why this belongs inside the plan

RMDs are forced, ordinary-income events that interact with everything: brackets, Roth-conversion windows before RMD age, Medicare surcharges, and charitable strategy. That's why UltimateCRM's retirement engine applies the Uniform Table to each spouse's own deferred balance in every simulated year — RMDs in the projection, not appended to it — so a "convert now or wait" conversation is grounded in the household's actual future tax picture.