RMD Rules for IRA Beneficiaries After the Owner Dies

If you inherit an IRA, the required minimum distribution rules that apply to you depend on three things: your relationship to the person who died, whether they had already started taking their own RMDs, and whether the account is traditional or Roth. Most non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited after 2019 must empty the account within 10 years. Some, including surviving spouses and minor children of the owner, can still stretch distributions across their lifetimes. Miss a required withdrawal and the IRS charges a 25% excise tax on the shortfall, dropping to 10% if you fix it quickly.¹

Which Beneficiary Category You Fall Into

The IRS sorts beneficiaries into three groups, and the group you land in decides your entire distribution schedule.²

Eligible designated beneficiaries get the most favorable treatment and can stretch distributions across their own life expectancy. The category covers the surviving spouse, a minor child of the IRA owner, someone who is disabled or chronically ill, and any individual no more than 10 years younger than the owner.³ A minor child qualifies only until age 21; at that point the 10-year clock starts on whatever is left. This exception applies only to the owner’s own children, not grandchildren or stepchildren.

Designated beneficiaries are named individuals who don’t fit the eligible category. Adult children, siblings, and friends are the common examples. For owners who died after 2019, these beneficiaries are locked into the 10-year rule that replaced the old stretch IRA.⁴

Non-individual beneficiaries such as estates, charities, and trusts that fail the look-through requirements get the shortest timelines. If the owner died before their required beginning date, the account must be emptied within five years. If the owner died on or after that date, distributions can be spread over the owner’s remaining life expectancy.⁵

When multiple beneficiaries are named, the mix is sorted out by September 30 of the year after the owner’s death. If a non-individual beneficiary (say, a charity) is cashed out before that date, the remaining individual beneficiaries can be evaluated on their own terms.²

Why the Owner’s Required Beginning Date Matters to You

The required beginning date is when the deceased owner would have had to start their own RMDs. It’s April 1 of the year after they reached their RMD age.⁶ Under SECURE 2.0, that age is 73 for owners born 1951 through 1959 and 75 for those born in 1960 or later.⁷

You need to know whether the owner died before or after that date, because the answer changes what you owe during the 10-year window.

The 10-Year Rule in Practice

For most non-spouse designated beneficiaries, the entire inherited balance has to be gone by December 31 of the year containing the tenth anniversary of the owner’s death.⁸ Inherit from someone who died in 2024, and the account must be at zero by December 31, 2034. What happens in between depends on the owner’s age at death.

If the Owner Died Before Their Required Beginning Date

You owe nothing during years one through nine. You can pull money out whenever you want, or let the whole balance sit and take it all in year 10.⁴ The only firm deadline is the final one. Deferring maximizes tax-deferred growth, but a single lump-sum year-10 withdrawal can push a big tax bill into a single year.

If the Owner Died On or After Their Required Beginning Date

You must take annual distributions in years one through nine, then finish the account in year 10. The annual amounts are calculated using your own life expectancy from the IRS Single Life Expectancy Table. The rule exists because distributions can’t slow down after the owner’s death once they had already begun.⁸

This part confused a lot of beneficiaries after the SECURE Act passed. Many assumed the 10-year rule meant no withdrawals until year 10, full stop. The IRS waived the excise tax on missed annual RMDs for 2021 through 2024 while it finalized regulations.⁹ That relief is over. Beginning with the 2025 distribution year, the annual RMD requirement is fully in force with no further waivers.⁸ If you inherited from someone who died on or after their RBD in 2020 or later, you need to be taking annual RMDs now.

The Year-of-Death RMD You Might Owe Immediately

If the owner died during a year in which they hadn’t yet taken their full RMD, you are responsible for finishing it. This applies only when the owner died on or after their required beginning date. The amount is calculated as though the owner had lived the whole year, and it must come out by December 31 of the year of death.³

If the owner died before their RBD, there is no year-of-death RMD. Your own distribution obligations begin the following year. When multiple people share the account, any one beneficiary can take the year-of-death RMD, or they can split it. It’s a one-time obligation separate from whatever schedule applies to you going forward.

Options If You’re the Surviving Spouse

A surviving spouse has more choices than any other beneficiary. The right one depends on your age, whether you need the money, and your own retirement timing.

Roll It Into Your Own IRA

The most common choice is to roll the assets into your own IRA or re-title the account in your own name. You are then treated as the owner, not a beneficiary. Your own RMDs don’t start until you reach your own required beginning date, and you can make new contributions.³ For a spouse in their 50s inheriting from a partner in their 70s, that pushes required distributions back by decades. The catch: withdrawals before 59½ trigger the standard 10% early withdrawal penalty, because the account is treated as if you always owned it.

Keep It as an Inherited IRA

If you need access before 59½, keeping the account titled as inherited avoids that penalty. Distributions from an inherited IRA are exempt from the 10% early withdrawal tax regardless of your age.¹⁰ You calculate RMDs on your own life expectancy and can delay them until the later of the year after the owner’s death or the year the owner would have reached their RBD. You can convert to a rollover later if circumstances change.

Elect to Be Treated as the Deceased Owner

Starting in 2024, SECURE 2.0 gave a sole spouse beneficiary a third option: elect to be treated as the deceased owner for RMD purposes. If the owner died before RMD age, this election lets you delay RMDs until either the deceased would have reached RMD age or you reach yours, whichever comes later, and lets you use a more favorable life expectancy table. It’s most useful for a younger spouse who doesn’t need the funds yet but wants to sidestep the early withdrawal penalty that a full rollover would impose.

How Roth IRAs Change the Picture

Inherited Roth IRAs follow the same distribution timelines, but with an important twist. Roth owners are never required to take lifetime RMDs, which means every Roth owner is treated as having died before their required beginning date, regardless of age.¹¹

The practical effect: a non-spouse beneficiary under the 10-year rule owes no annual RMDs during those 10 years on an inherited Roth. Empty the account by December 31 of year 10 and you’re done. Distributions of contributions are always tax-free, and earnings come out tax-free as long as the original Roth had been open at least five years before the owner died.² If that five-year clock hadn’t been satisfied, the earnings portion is taxable while contributions still come out tax-free.

If You Inherited From a Beneficiary (Successor Rules)

When the original beneficiary dies before emptying the inherited IRA, the person who inherits next is a successor beneficiary and gets the least favorable treatment. Successors are generally subject to the 10-year rule regardless of their relationship to anyone involved.

If the original beneficiary was an eligible designated beneficiary taking life-expectancy distributions, the successor gets a fresh 10-year window starting from the original beneficiary’s death.² If the original beneficiary was already under the 10-year rule, the successor doesn’t get a new window. They finish whatever time was left on the original count.

Calculating an Annual RMD

When you owe annual RMDs, either as an eligible designated beneficiary using life expectancy or as a designated beneficiary during the 10-year window after an owner who died post-RBD, the math is the same. Divide the prior December 31 account balance by the applicable factor from the IRS Single Life Expectancy Table.³

For eligible designated beneficiaries, the factor is based on your age in the year after the owner’s death and is recalculated annually. For designated beneficiaries taking annual RMDs inside the 10-year window, the initial factor is your life expectancy in that first year, reduced by one each year after.⁶

If you inherited more than one IRA from the same person, you can calculate each RMD separately but pull the combined total from any one of the accounts.³ That flexibility doesn’t cross decedents. IRAs inherited from different people are tracked separately.

If You Miss an RMD

The default penalty for missing an RMD, or taking less than required, is a 25% excise tax on the shortfall. It drops to 10% if you withdraw the missed amount and file a corrected return during the correction window, which generally runs through the end of the second taxable year after the year the tax was imposed.¹

You can request a full waiver on reasonable-cause grounds. File Form 5329, enter code “RC” and the amount you want waived on the dotted line next to line 54, and attach a statement explaining what went wrong and how you corrected it.¹² Common reasons that succeed include incorrect advice from the IRA custodian, serious illness, and administrative errors by the custodian. The IRS has been fairly generous with these waivers when the beneficiary shows they caught the mistake and pulled the distribution promptly.

The transition-year relief that covered missed annual RMDs inside the 10-year window from 2021 through 2024 is over.⁸ Any missed annual RMD for 2025 or later is fully subject to the excise tax. If you’ve been coasting through those relief years, catch up now.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
2
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
3
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
5
Internal Revenue Service. Required Minimum Distributions for IRA Beneficiaries
6
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
7
Congress.gov. Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Rules for Original Owners
8
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2024-35, Certain Required Minimum Distributions
9
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2022-53, Certain Required Minimum Distributions for 2021 and 2022
10
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 557, Additional Tax on Early Distributions from Traditional and Roth IRAs
11
GovInfo. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
12
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 (2025)