IRA Withdrawal Calculator for Forecasting Future Required Withdrawals

IRA Withdrawal Calculator Sign

The IRA Withdrawal Calculator, which has been updated to conform to the SECURE Act of 2019, will calculate your current minimum required withdrawal and then forecast your future required withdrawals if you are an IRA owner age 70-1/2 or older (or age 72 if you turn 70-1/2 after January 1, 2020).

Not only will the calculator tell you which Life Expectancy Table was used to calculate the results, as well as whether your birthdate requires you to abide by the old RMD plan or the new Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, but it will also display a year-by-year chart showing your forecasted future required withdrawals based on your expected IRA account earnings -- up to age 113!

Note that if you are age 70-1/2 or older (or age 72 under the SECURE Act), but would just like to calculate an estimate of the current year's required minimum distribution, see the IRA RMD Calculator.

Or, if you are younger than age 70-1/2 (or age 72 under the SECURE Act) but would like to forecast the effect required withdrawals will have on your present or future retirement, please use the IRA Distribution Calculator instead.

If you're not sure what required IRA withdrawals are or when they are required, or if you want to know what the calculator bases its calculations on, be sure to visit the Learn tab for answers.

Important: Please keep in mind that the results of this calculator are merely estimates so you should not use them for calculating your actual required withdrawal amounts. Consult your plan administrator for the exact amount required.

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IRA Withdrawal Calculator

Forecast future growth and required withdrawals for IRA owners age 70-1/2 and older (or age 72 and older if under the SECURE Act).

Special Instructions

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Selected Data Record:

A Data Record is a set of calculator entries that are stored in your web browser's Local Storage. If a Data Record is currently selected in the "Data" tab, this line will list the name you gave to that data record. If no data record is selected, or you have no entries stored for this calculator, the line will display "None".

DataData recordData recordSelected data record: None
Dist year:Dist year:Distribution year:Distribution year:

Distribution year:

Enter the distribution year, which is normally the current year.

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Prior yr bal:Prior year bal:Previous year-end balance:Previous year-end account balance:

Previous year-end account balance:

Enter the combined total of all qualified retirement plans.

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Your date of birth:

Date of birth:

Enter the month, day, and year of your date of birth. Your date of birth will be used to determine your age, and whether or not you fall under the old plan (RMD's start at age 70-1/2), or the SECURE Act (RMD's start at age 72).

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Beneficiary date of birth:

Beneficiary date of birth:

If your spouse is the sole beneficiary and is more than 10 years younger than you, enter the month, day, and year of your spouse's date of birth, which will be used to calculate your joint life expectancy. Otherwise, if your spouse is not the sole beneficiary, or is less than 10 years younger, you can leave these date of birth fields blank.

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Expect ROI:Expected ROI:Expected return on investments:Expected annual return on investments:

Expected annual return on investments:

Enter the annual percentage return you expect to earn on your IRAs. Please enter the amount as a percentage, but without the percent sign (for .06 or 6%, enter 6).

%
Dist age:Dist age:Your distribution year age:Your distribution year age:

Your distribution year age:

This is your age as of 12/31 of the entered distribution year.

Ben age:Beneficiary age:Beneficiary distribution year age:Beneficiary distribution year age:

Beneficiary distribution year age:

If a beneficiary age was entered, this is the beneficiary's age as of 12/31 of the entered distribution year.

Dist factor:Distribute factor:Distribution factor:Distribution factor:

Distribution factor:

Based on your age and the life expectancy table your situation applies to, this is the current distribution factor the calculator found in the table.

Curr RMD:Current RMD:Current required withdrawal:Current required minimum withdrawal:

Current required minimum withdrawal:

This is the entered IRA balance divided by the distribution factor in the previous row.

If you would like to save the current entries to the secure online database, tap or click on the Data tab, select "New Data Record", give the data record a name, then tap or click the Save button. To save changes to previously saved entries, simply tap the Save button. Please select and "Clear" any data records you no longer need.

Help and Tools

Learn

Minimum withdrawal basics and the RMD formula.

When Do Distributions Start?

Prior to the SECURE Act of 2019, minimum distribution requirements would come into play when an owner of a qualified retirement plan reaches age 70-1/2 before July 1st. If the owner turns 70-1/2 after June 30th, the required minimum distributions wouldn't start until the owner reaches age 71.

With the passage of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, IRA owners who turn age 70-1/2 after December 31, 2019, won't need to start making required minimum distributions until the year they reach age 72.

In other words, if you were born on or before June 30, 1949, the age remains 70 1/2. Otherwise, if you were born after 6/30/1949, then your first RMD will be for the year you reach age 72.

In either case, IRA owners can defer the withdrawal for the first year of the distribution to the following year (for tax purposes), but you must make the withdrawal before April 1st. After that, you must make the withdrawals before December 31st. The penalty for insufficient distributions is 50% of the undistributed amount.

Minimum Distribution Formula

To calculate the amount of your required minimum withdrawal, you first need to look up your life expectancy factor in the IRS life expectancy tables.

Once you find your life expectancy factor, you then divide the year-end balance of your IRA by that factor. The result is the amount you are required to withdraw from your IRA by the end of the current year (or April 15th of the following year if this is your first year of making required withdrawals).

IRS Life Expectancy Tables

IRS Life Expectancy Tables are three tables provided by IRS Publication 590-B for determining minimum distribution requirements for qualified retirement plans. The three tables are Single, Joint Life and Last Survivor, and Uniform Lifetime.

How the IRA Withdrawal Calculator Works

The IRA Withdrawal Calculator is based on Table II (Joint Life and Last Survivor Expectancy) and Table III (Uniform Lifetime) Table from IRS Publication 590-B (2021) (opens new window).

If your spouse is the sole beneficiary and is more than ten years younger than you, you must use Table II. If you are unmarried or your spouse is not more than ten years younger than you, or your spouse is not your sole beneficiary, you must use Table III. In either case, the calculated results will indicate which table the calculator used in the displayed results.

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Adjust Calculator Width:

Move the slider to left and right to adjust the calculator width. Note that the Help and Tools panel will be hidden when the calculator is too wide to fit both on the screen. Moving the slider to the left will bring the instructions and tools panel back into view.

Also note that some calculators will reformat to accommodate the screen size as you make the calculator wider or narrower. If the calculator is narrow, columns of entry rows will be converted to a vertical entry form, whereas a wider calculator will display columns of entry rows, and the entry fields will be smaller in size ... since they will not need to be "thumb friendly".

Show/Hide Popup Keypads:

Select Show or Hide to show or hide the popup keypad icons located next to numeric entry fields. These are generally only needed for mobile devices that don't have decimal points in their numeric keypads. So if you are on a desktop, you may find the calculator to be more user-friendly and less cluttered without them.

Stick/Unstick Tools:

Select Stick or Unstick to stick or unstick the help and tools panel. Selecting "Stick" will keep the panel in view while scrolling the calculator vertically. If you find that annoying, select "Unstick" to keep the panel in a stationary position.

If the tools panel becomes "Unstuck" on its own, try clicking "Unstick" and then "Stick" to re-stick the panel.