How much would the RMD be on $500,000?

$18,867.92 at age 73, using the same divisor of 26.5. The required amount is proportional to the balance, so halving the account halves the withdrawal.

What percentage is the RMD at age 73, and at age 75?

3.77% of the prior December 31 balance at age 73, which is 100 divided by the Uniform Lifetime Table factor of 26.5. At age 75 it is 4.07%. Which of those two ages applies to you is set by your birth year: 73 for someone born from 1951 through 1958, and 75 for someone born in 1960 or later. The percentage rises every year, because the divisor falls every year.

What age do required minimum distributions start?

Age 73 for someone born from 1951 through 1958, and age 75 for someone born in 1960 or later. Birth year 1959 is not covered: the paragraph of the regulation that would set it is printed as reserved and left blank.

RMD calculator: what you must withdraw, and when

Josh Rendler, CFP®

A required minimum distribution is your prior December 31 account balance divided by one factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. At age 73 that factor is 26.5, so $1,000,000 requires $37,735.85 — 3.77% of the account. The age you start is 73 or 75, set by your birth year.

Your required withdrawal

Household

SingleMarried

Married adds a second set of accounts. Each of you is worked out separately — a spouse’s balances are never added to yours before dividing.

Year you were born

That is all we need. It gives your age this year, and whether your withdrawals begin at 73 or 75.

Your balances on December 31 of last year

Enter each account separately. Which ones may be added together before dividing is not uniform, and that is where the arithmetic usually goes wrong.

Traditional, SEP or SIMPLE IRA

A second IRA, if you have one

401(k) or other employer plan

403(b)

Roth IRA

Any other pre-tax retirement account

A governmental 457(b), or a qualified annuity held outside an IRA. Do not add an annuity that sits inside an IRA you have already entered above — it is counted there.

Example

$67,924.53

for someone born in 1953, turning 73 this year, with $1,400,000 across two IRAs and $400,000 in an old 401(k). Enter your own above to replace it.

Traditional, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs — $1,400,000: $52,830.19 Each IRA’s amount is worked out separately, then the total may be taken from any one of them.
Old 401(k) — $400,000: $15,094.34 Each employer plan must pay its own. It cannot be covered by an IRA withdrawal.

You do not have to take a separate withdrawal from each IRA. Work out the amount for each, then take the total from whichever one you like. Employer plans are different — a 401(k) has to pay its own, and an IRA withdrawal will not cover it.

This covers accounts you own. An inherited IRA follows completely different rules and is not what this calculates.

How your required minimum distribution is calculated

The calculation is one division. Take the account balance on December 31 of the prior year, find the factor for the age you reach this year in the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, and divide. Nothing about your income, your tax bracket, or what the account earned this year enters into it.

Two things people expect to matter and do not: today’s balance, and how much you took out last year. The figure is fixed by a balance already in the past.

What is the RMD for $1,000,000?

A $1,000,000 traditional IRA has a required minimum distribution of$37,735.85 at age 73. That is $1,000,000 divided by 26.5, the Uniform Lifetime Table factor for age 73 under Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-9(c). The balance used is the one on December 31 of the prior year, not today’s. At age 73 the required withdrawal is 3.77% of the account.

And on $500,000

$18,867.92, using the same divisor of 26.5. The required amount is directly proportional to the balance, so halving the account halves the withdrawal.

The age you start is 73 or 75 — set by your birth year, not by a headline

Required withdrawals begin at age 73 for someone born from 1951 through 1958, and at age 75 for someone born in 1960 or later. There is no single starting age, and a calculator that asks only for your current age cannot tell you which one applies to you.

If a calculator tells you 72 or 70½, it predates the current law and is giving you the wrong year.

If you were born in 1959, the regulation does not answer this

Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-2(b)(2)(iv) sets age 73 for those born on or after January 1, 1951 and before January 1, 1959. Paragraph (vi) sets age 75 for those born on or after January 1, 1960. Paragraph (v) — the one that would cover 1959 — is printed as “[Reserved]” and left blank. The statute behind the change was drafted with conflicting provisions and the regulation has not closed the gap.

Both readings, 73 and 75, are live. This page does not pick one, and any calculator handing you a single confident number for that birth year is telling you something its own source does not say. It is worth raising with whoever handles your tax return before the year in question.

What percentage of your account is the RMD at 73?

3.77% of the prior December 31 balance, which is 100 divided by the age-73 factor of 26.5. The percentage rises every year, because the divisor falls every year — that is the whole design of the table.

Which accounts can be added together, and which cannot

This is where the arithmetic most often goes wrong for a household holding several accounts, and it is the reason the calculator above asks for them separately.

Traditional, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs. Each one’s amount is worked out separately, and then the total may be taken from any one of them. For the question “how much has to come out”, they add together.
401(k) and other employer plans. Each plan stands alone and must pay its own. An IRA withdrawal does not cover a 401(k), however large it is.
403(b) accounts. These aggregate with each other, but never with an IRA or a 401(k).
A spouse’s accounts. Never combined with yours. A separate person is a separate calculation.

Roth accounts, and what has no required withdrawal

A Roth IRA has no required distribution during the owner’s lifetime. Enter one in the calculator and it reports zero, rather than leaving it out — the account is still yours, it simply requires nothing.

When a much younger spouse changes the answer

The Uniform Lifetime Table is not the only one. If your sole beneficiary is a spouse more than ten years younger than you, a different IRS table applies and your required withdrawal is lower than the figure above. This calculator uses the Uniform Lifetime Table only, so in that situation treat its number as a ceiling rather than the answer.

A worked example

Illustrative example

Age 73, $1,400,000 across traditional IRAs

A household where one spouse turns 73 this year and holds $1,400,000 across two traditional IRAs on December 31 of last year. No employer plan, no inherited account, and a spouse the same age.

Prior December 31 balance: $1,400,000
Uniform Lifetime Table divisor at 73: 26.5
Required withdrawal: $52,830.19
As a share of the account: 3.77%

The two IRAs are added together before dividing, and the whole amount may be taken from either one. That is the IRA rule specifically — see which balances may be combined, because an employer plan does not work this way.

A hypothetical household with round numbers, built to show the arithmetic. Not a real person, and not a recommendation.

The Uniform Lifetime Table

Uniform Lifetime Table, ages 72 to 88
Age	Divisor
72	27.4
73	26.5
74	25.5
75	24.6
76	23.7
77	22.9
78	22.0
79	21.1
80	20.2
81	19.4
82	18.5
83	17.7
84	16.8
85	16.0
86	15.2
87	14.4
88	13.7

Uniform Lifetime Table, ages 89 to 105
Age	Divisor
89	12.9
90	12.2
91	11.5
92	10.8
93	10.1
94	9.5
95	8.9
96	8.4
97	7.8
98	7.3
99	6.8
100	6.4
101	6.0
102	5.6
103	5.2
104	4.9
105	4.6

Uniform Lifetime Table, ages 106 to 120+
Age	Divisor
106	4.3
107	4.1
108	3.9
109	3.7
110	3.5
111	3.4
112	3.3
113	3.1
114	3.0
115	2.9
116	2.8
117	2.7
118	2.5
119	2.3
120+	2.0

Source: Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-9(c). These figures are read directly from this site’s sourced-figure module, not retyped.

The deadline, and the first-year choice

Required withdrawals are due by December 31 each year. The first one is the exception: it may be delayed to April 1 of the following year. Delaying it puts two withdrawals into one tax year, which stacks both into the same brackets and the same Medicare premium lookback.

What happens if you miss one

A missed required withdrawal carries an excise tax of 25% of the amount that should have come out. That falls to 10% if it is corrected promptly, which is why an overlooked account is worth acting on rather than waiting for a notice.

What people get wrong

Using today’s balance. The figure comes from December 31 of the prior year, and in a year when markets moved, the difference is large.
Assuming one starting age. It is 73 or 75, and 1959 has no published answer.
Covering a 401(k) from an IRA. The most common aggregation error, and the amount is fully exposed to the excise tax above.
Forgetting an old plan from a former employer. It has its own required withdrawal and nothing prompts you about it.

Sources (3)

Every figure on this page is read from this site’s sourced-figure module at build time, not retyped.

RMDs and QCDs — the full topic guide.
How an RMD is calculated.
The RMD table for this year.
Qualified charitable distributions — one way a required withdrawal can leave the account without landing in your income.
Inherited IRAs — a different set of rules with a different clock, and not what this calculator works out.