RMD Table 2026: The IRS Uniform Lifetime Table

A required minimum distribution (RMD) is your retirement account balance on December 31 of last year, divided by the IRS life-expectancy factor for your age. At age 73 the factor is 26.5, so a $500,000 balance produces an RMD of about $18,868 — roughly 3.8% of the account. When you have to start depends on your birth year: age 72 (born 1950 or earlier — already begun), age 73 (born 1951 – 1959), age 75 (born 1960 or later).

Data last updated July 10, 2026 · Source: IRS Publication 590-B (Table III) and SECURE 2.0

When Do RMDs Start?

The SECURE Act of 2019 and the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 tied your RMD start age to the year you were born. Find your birth year in the table below — that's the age at which your required distributions begin. The age that matters for the calculation is the age you reach during the calendar year, not your age on the day you take the withdrawal.

Note: those born before July 1, 1949 actually started at age 70½ under pre-SECURE Act law — everyone in that group is already taking RMDs, so the distinction no longer affects any future start date.

IRS Uniform Lifetime Table (2026)

This is the table nearly every account owner uses to calculate an RMD. Each age has a distribution factor — a life-expectancy divisor. Divide your prior December 31 balance by the factor for your age, and the result is the minimum you must withdraw for the year. The factors shrink each year, which means the required withdrawal claims a larger share of whatever remains in the account.

This is Table III from IRS Publication 590-B; it assumes a beneficiary 10 years younger than you.

How to Calculate Your RMD

You need exactly two numbers: your account balance on December 31 of last year, and the factor for the age you reach this year. Divide the first by the second — that's your RMD. IRAs can be aggregated (calculate each RMD separately, then withdraw the total from any one of them), but each workplace plan generally has to satisfy its own RMD.

Worked example: you turn 73 this year and your IRA held $500,000 on December 31 of last year. The Uniform Lifetime Table factor at age 73 is 26.5, so your RMD is $500,000 ÷ 26.5 = $18,868. That's 3.8% of the account — and the percentage only climbs from there:

That escalation is the part most people miss. The dollar amount of each year's RMD depends on how the account performs, but the required percentage rises relentlessly with age — which is why a single-year snapshot understates the long-term tax picture. To see every year at once, run your balance through our RMD Forecaster.

The Rules Worth Knowing

• Accounts with RMDs: traditional IRAs, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs, and workplace plans such as 401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) accounts.
• Roth accounts: Roth IRAs have no lifetime RMDs for the original owner — and starting in 2024, Roth 401(k)s don't either (SECURE 2.0).
• Your first RMD: you can delay it until April 1 of the following year. The catch: you then take two RMDs in a single year, bunching the income and potentially pushing you into a higher bracket.
• The deadline: after the first one, every RMD is due by December 31 of its year.
• The penalty: the excise tax on a missed or insufficient RMD is 25% of the shortfall, reduced to 10% if you correct it in a timely manner (SECURE 2.0).
• Much-younger spouse: if your spouse is your sole beneficiary and more than 10 years younger than you, you use the Joint Life and Last Survivor table (Table II) instead — the table on this page overstates your RMD.
• Charitable giving: qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from an IRA can satisfy your RMD — up to an annual per-person cap that is indexed for inflation (a bit over $100,000) — and they're available starting at age 70½.

RMDs and the Rest of Your Plan

RMDs are taxed as ordinary income, and because you can't decline them, they can push you into higher federal tax brackets and across the Medicare IRMAA cliffs that raise your Part B and Part D premiums — you can check your own exposure with the IRMAA Optimizer. The main lever you control is the size of the pre-tax balance before RMDs begin: Roth conversions in the years before your start age shrink every future RMD on the schedule.

Frequently Asked Questions