When to Take Your RMD: January, December or Monthly?
When to take your RMD: early, late or monthly, plus the real deadlines (April 1 for your first, December 31 after that) and the withholding trick that fixes underpayment.
Updated 5 min read
Guides · RMDs & IRAs
RMD and IRA guides: required withdrawals, made plain
How required minimum distributions (RMDs) work, when your first one is due, what changes when you inherit an IRA, and how to keep withdrawals from pushing up your taxes and Medicare premiums. Every guide follows the IRS tables and final regulations and links to a calculator that shows your exact amount.
1 guide Verified October 23, 2026
What should you know about RMDs and IRAs first?
A required minimum distribution (RMD) is simple arithmetic — your balance at the end of last year divided by a factor from an IRS life-expectancy table — wrapped in rules that are easy to trip over. The arithmetic rarely goes wrong; the deadlines, the account-by-account rules and inherited accounts are where the costly mistakes happen.
Watch for three traps: postponing your first RMD to the following April and then owing two in one tax year, trying to satisfy a 401(k) RMD with an IRA withdrawal (every 401(k) plan must pay out its own), and forgetting the year-of-death RMD on an inherited account. Each guide here starts with the answer and then shows the rule behind it.
Which RMDs and IRAs questions can you answer right now?
Each of these questions opens a free calculator or reference page that works out the official answer for your own situation in a minute or two. There is no sign-up and nothing to download, and every result shows the official figures and sources behind it, so you can check the math yourself.
Latest RMDs and IRAs guides
Calculators for RMDs and IRAs
RMD CalculatorYour required minimum distribution for 2026 or 2027, the exact deadline, and the IRS table math behind it.Open Inherited IRA RMD CalculatorInherited an IRA? See whether the 10-year rule applies, what you must take each year, and the final deadline.Open RMD Table (Uniform Lifetime Table)The IRS Uniform Lifetime Table with the percentage of your balance you must withdraw at every age from 72 to 120.Open RMD Age CalculatorYour RMD age, first RMD year and the April 1 deadline from your birth date.Open Missed RMD Penalty CalculatorThe 25% excise tax, the 10% correction rate and the waiver path for a missed RMD.Open QCD CalculatorWhat a qualified charitable distribution saves versus giving cash, up to the 2026 limit.Open RMD Tax CalculatorThe federal tax on your RMD, your bracket, the extra Social Security taxed and the IRMAA check.Open QLAC CalculatorHow a QLAC up to $210,000 lowers your RMDs and taxes, and the income it buys from 85.Open 401(k) Withdrawal Tax CalculatorWhat you keep from a 401(k) or IRA withdrawal after federal tax, withholding and any penalty.Open
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