The RMD age is 73 for anyone born between 1951 and 1959. It jumps to 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later. That single number determines when the IRS forces you to start pulling money out of your traditional IRA and 401(k), whether you need the cash or not. Get the deadline wrong and the penalty used to be brutal. It's still bad. This is the rule that turns a quiet retirement account into a tax bill you didn't plan for.
For decades the RMD age sat at 70½, a number so awkward it required a footnote every time someone explained it. SECURE Act 1.0 pushed it to 72 in 2020. SECURE 2.0 pushed it again to 73 starting in 2023, and it's scheduled to hit 75 in 2033. Congress didn't do this out of generosity. Life expectancy went up, tax revenue projections needed adjusting, and lawmakers found a way to let money compound tax-deferred a few extra years while still eventually collecting.
Here's the part people miss: the age that applies to you is locked in by your birth year, not by the calendar year you happen to check the rule. Someone born in 1958 uses age 73. Someone born in 1961 uses age 75. There's no do-over and no averaging. If you're advising a spouse or parent, confirm the exact birth year before you assume anything about their deadline.
Your very first RMD comes with a strange option: you can take it by December 31 of the year you turn 73, or you can delay it until April 1 of the following year. That sounds like a gift. It's usually a trap.
Delay the first RMD and you still owe the second one by December 31 of that same following year. Two distributions land in one tax year. Two RMDs stacked on top of each other can push you into a higher bracket, increase your Medicare IRMAA surcharge, and make more of your Social Security taxable. I'd take the first RMD in the actual turning-73 year almost every time, unless your income that year is unusually low and next year is projected to be worse.
Every RMD after the first one is due by December 31, no exceptions, no April grace period. Mark it on a calendar that you actually check, not a mental note you'll remember in November.
The IRS doesn't let you guess. Your RMD equals your account balance on December 31 of the prior year, divided by a life expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. As you age, the factor shrinks, which forces the withdrawal percentage to climb every single year.
| Age | Life Expectancy Factor | Approx. Withdrawal % |
|---|---|---|
| 73 | 26.5 | 3.8% |
| 75 | 24.6 | 4.1% |
| 80 | 20.2 | 5.0% |
| 85 | 16.0 | 6.3% |
| 90 | 12.2 | 8.2% |
Multiple traditional IRAs get combined and the total RMD can be taken from any one of them or split across all of them. 401(k)s work differently: each employer plan requires its own separate RMD, calculated and withdrawn from that specific account. Mixing up these two rules is one of the most common RMD mistakes, and it's an easy one to make if you've rolled money around over the years.
Before 2023, missing an RMD triggered a 50% excise tax on the shortfall. That number got so much attention it scared people into overcorrecting. SECURE 2.0 dropped the penalty to 25%, and if you fix the mistake within a correction window, it drops again to 10%.
Ten percent still isn't nothing. Miss a $20,000 RMD, catch it within the correction period, and you owe the IRS $2,000 on top of the income tax you already owe on the distribution itself. Miss it and never correct it, and you're looking at $5,000. The correction process requires filing Form 5329 and requesting a waiver, which the IRS grants more often than people expect, especially for genuine errors. But you have to ask. Nobody sends you a reminder.
Roth IRAs have never been subject to RMDs during the original owner's lifetime, and that hasn't changed. What did change: starting in 2024, Roth 401(k)s are no longer subject to RMDs either. Before that, people who held Roth money inside a workplace plan had to either take unwanted distributions or roll the account into a Roth IRA just to avoid them. That workaround is no longer necessary.
This matters for anyone stacking a mega backdoor Roth strategy inside a 401(k). The Roth portion of that account now grows untouched for as long as you want, with no forced withdrawal clock running against it. Traditional 401(k) and traditional IRA balances still face the full RMD schedule, so the account type you choose during your working years has real consequences decades later.
Qualified Charitable Distributions let anyone 70½ or older send up to $105,000 per year (2024 figure, indexed for inflation) directly from an IRA to a qualified charity. That amount counts toward your RMD but never touches your adjusted gross income. If you're charitably inclined at all, this is close to free money compared to writing a check after withdrawing and paying tax on the same amount first.
Roth conversions before your RMD age start shrink the balance that future RMDs get calculated against. Every dollar converted in your 60s is a dollar that never generates a forced, taxable withdrawal in your 70s and 80s. This works best in low-income years, early retirement, or gaps between leaving a job and claiming Social Security.
Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts let you carve out up to $200,000 (2024 limit) from an IRA and exclude that amount from RMD calculations until payments start, as late as age 85. It's a narrow tool for a specific goal: guaranteed income later while shrinking today's RMD math.
None of these strategies erase the RMD requirement entirely. They just change how much of it lands on your tax return, and when. Ignore the rule and the IRS eventually notices, because custodians report account balances and distributions directly. There's no version of this where waiting quietly works out.
The RMD age is 73 for anyone born between 1951 and 1959. It rises to 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later, under rules set by SECURE 2.0. Your specific age depends entirely on your birth year, and once you reach it, RMDs from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s are required every year.
You owe an excise tax of 25% on the amount you should have withdrawn but didn't. If you correct the shortfall within the IRS correction window, that penalty drops to 10%. You can request a full waiver by filing Form 5329 with a reasonable-cause explanation, and the IRS grants these more often than most people assume.
No. Roth IRAs have never required RMDs during the original account owner's lifetime. Starting in 2024, Roth 401(k)s also stopped requiring RMDs, closing a gap that used to force people to roll Roth 401(k) money into a Roth IRA just to avoid unwanted withdrawals.
Yes, your very first RMD can be delayed until April 1 of the year after you turn 73. Doing this means you'll owe two RMDs in that following calendar year, which can push you into a higher tax bracket and raise Medicare premiums. For most people, taking the first RMD on time in the actual turning-73 year avoids that stacking problem.
The IRS divides your account balance as of December 31 of the prior year by a life expectancy factor from the Uniform Lifetime Table. The factor shrinks as you age, which increases the required withdrawal percentage every year. Traditional IRAs can be combined for this calculation, but each separate 401(k) requires its own individual RMD.