When Must an IRA Be Completely Distributed: 10-Year and 5-Year Rules

A Traditional IRA never has to be completely distributed during the owner’s lifetime; the owner only needs to take annual Required Minimum Distributions starting at age 73 (rising to 75 for people who turn 74 after December 31, 2032). The full-distribution deadline applies after death: most non-spouse beneficiaries must empty an inherited IRA by December 31 of the 10th year after the owner’s death, estates and most charities must empty it within five years, and a narrow group of eligible designated beneficiaries can stretch withdrawals over their own life expectancy. Roth IRAs follow the same post-death timeline even though the owner faces no lifetime RMDs.¹

During the Owner’s Lifetime

There is no deadline to fully empty a Traditional IRA while you are alive. The tax code only requires you to withdraw a minimum each year once you reach the applicable age. That age is 73 for anyone who turned 72 after December 31, 2022, and it moves to 75 for anyone who turns 74 after December 31, 2032.² Roth IRA owners have no lifetime RMDs at all, so the account can sit untouched for as long as the owner lives.³

In other words, an IRA is not designed to be drained on any lifetime schedule. The complete-distribution clock only starts once the account passes to a beneficiary.

The 10-Year Rule for Most Inherited IRAs

For deaths after December 31, 2019, the SECURE Act requires most non-spouse individual beneficiaries to fully distribute an inherited IRA by December 31 of the 10th year following the owner’s death.¹ This is the default rule that catches adult children, grandchildren, siblings outside the age exception, friends, and most other named beneficiaries.

The account must be at zero on that December 31. What happens between year one and year 10 depends on whether the original owner had already started RMDs.

Owner Died Before Reaching RMD Age

If the owner had not yet reached their Required Beginning Date, the beneficiary can withdraw on any schedule during the 10 years. Nothing in years one through nine and a full liquidation in year 10 is permitted. Even withdrawals across the decade are permitted. The only hard requirement is that the balance is zero by the end of the 10th year.¹

Owner Died On or After RMD Age

When the owner was already taking RMDs, the beneficiary must take annual distributions in years one through nine based on their own life expectancy, and still empty the account by the end of year 10.⁴ Letting the account sit and taking a year-10 lump sum is not an option here. The IRS finalized this annual-RMD requirement in July 2024 with an effective date of January 1, 2025, so missing an annual withdrawal for 2025 or later triggers the excise tax.⁵

Also worth flagging: if the owner died in a year when they had not yet taken that year’s RMD, the beneficiary is responsible for taking it by December 31 of the year of death. That final RMD is separate from the 10-year clock.⁶

Spouses and Other Eligible Designated Beneficiaries

A small group of beneficiaries can stretch distributions over their own life expectancy instead of following the 10-year rule. These Eligible Designated Beneficiaries are:

The surviving spouse of the owner.
A minor child of the deceased owner, meaning a biological or legally adopted child (not a grandchild or stepchild). The stretch ends when the child turns 21, and the 10-year clock starts then.
A disabled individual, defined as someone unable to engage in substantial gainful activity due to an impairment expected to result in death or last indefinitely.
A chronically ill individual, defined as someone who needs help with at least two activities of daily living or requires substantial supervision due to cognitive impairment.
Any individual who is not more than 10 years younger than the deceased owner.

Disability and chronic-illness status is determined as of the owner’s date of death. Someone who becomes disabled later does not qualify.²

Surviving spouses have additional options beyond the life-expectancy stretch. A spouse can treat the inherited IRA as their own by retitling it or rolling it into an existing IRA, which resets the RMD schedule to their own age and effectively removes any full-distribution deadline tied to the original owner. If the owner died before their Required Beginning Date, a spouse who keeps the account as an inherited IRA can also delay withdrawals until the year the deceased owner would have reached RMD age.¹

The 5-Year Rule for Estates, Charities, and Non-Qualifying Trusts

When an IRA passes to an entity rather than an individual, and that entity is not a trust that qualifies for see-through treatment, the beneficiary is a Non-Designated Beneficiary. The deadline is shorter.

If the owner died before reaching RMD age, the entire account must be distributed within five years of death. No annual withdrawals are required during those five years, but the balance must be zero by December 31 of the fifth year.¹

If the owner died on or after their Required Beginning Date, the account is distributed over the deceased owner’s remaining statistical life expectancy, with annual withdrawals required. The factor comes from the IRS Single Life Table using the owner’s age at death and is reduced by one each subsequent year.⁷ That schedule can run longer than 10 years if the owner died relatively young, or it can be quite short if the owner was elderly.

When a Beneficiary Dies Before the Account Is Emptied

If the first beneficiary dies partway through their distribution period, the successor beneficiary does not get a new 10-year window. They inherit whatever time was left on the original beneficiary’s clock, tied to the original owner’s date of death. A successor stepping in during year four has six years remaining, not 10.

If the deceased beneficiary was an Eligible Designated Beneficiary using the life-expectancy stretch, the successor loses that stretch and switches to a 10-year rule measured from the EDB’s death.

Inherited Roth IRAs

The complete-distribution deadlines for inherited Roth IRAs mirror the Traditional IRA rules: 10 years for most designated beneficiaries, life-expectancy stretch for Eligible Designated Beneficiaries, and five years for non-designated beneficiaries.¹ The distributions come out tax-free assuming the five-year holding period has been met, but the timing deadline is enforced the same way and blowing it triggers the same excise tax.

There is one meaningful difference inside the 10 years. Because a Roth owner has no Required Beginning Date, an inherited Roth is always treated as if the owner died before the RBD. Designated beneficiaries therefore do not have to take annual RMDs during the 10-year window. They only need to make sure the account is empty by the end of year 10.⁸

Penalty for Missing the Deadline

The excise tax for failing to distribute on time is 25% of the shortfall between what should have come out and what actually did.⁹ The rate drops to 10% if you fix the mistake within a correction window that runs until the earlier of an IRS deficiency notice, an IRS assessment, or the end of the second tax year after the year the penalty arose. Correction requires both withdrawing the missed amount and filing a return that reflects the corrected tax.

If the miss was a genuine error, the IRS can waive the penalty. You request the waiver on Form 5329 by entering “RC” on the relevant line and attaching a statement that explains what happened and how you fixed it.¹⁰ Waivers are granted fairly often when the taxpayer withdrew the missed amount promptly after discovering the error and documented the correction.

One filing detail matters even in years when you owe nothing. Skipping Form 5329 extends the IRS’s lookback period from three years to six. Filing a zero Form 5329 for each year you have an IRA subject to RMDs is what keeps the shorter three-year window in place.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 401 – Qualified Pension, Profit-Sharing, and Stock Bonus Plans
3
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.408A-6 – Distributions
4
Federal Register. Required Minimum Distributions
5
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2024-35 – Certain Required Minimum Distributions for 2024
6
Internal Revenue Service. Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
7
Internal Revenue Service. Required Minimum Distributions for IRA Beneficiaries
8
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4974 – Excise Tax on Certain Accumulations in Qualified Retirement Plans
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329