RMD at age 89: 7.75% of your balance

How do you calculate your RMD at 89?

Take each account’s balance on December 31 of last year and divide it by 12.9, the IRS factor for 89. On a $500,000 IRA that’s $38,760 for the year — about $3,230 a month if you’d rather spread it out. You can take more, but never less, and the extra doesn’t count toward next year.

1. Find last year’s December 31 balance for every traditional, SEP and SIMPLE IRA, 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b). Leave out Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k) and 403(b) money — they have no RMDs while you’re alive.
2. Use the age you reach on your birthday this year — 89 if you were born in 1937 — even if that birthday is on December 31.
3. Divide by 12.9, the Uniform Lifetime Table factor for 89 (or by the Joint and Last Survivor factor if your spouse qualifies — see below).
4. Withdraw it by the deadline: December 31, or April 1 of next year for a first RMD. You can add up your IRA RMDs and take the total from any one IRA; each 401(k) has to pay its own.

One number worth knowing: after an RMD of 7.75%, your investments have to earn about 8.4% this year just for the account to end the year where it started. Earn more and next year’s RMD grows; earn less and the account slowly shrinks — exactly what the rules intend.

How fast does the RMD percentage rise in your 80s?

Steadily, in bigger steps as the decade goes on: the required share rises about 0.21 percentage points a year at 80 but 0.45 percentage points at 89. At 89 you must take 7.75% of the balance; by 90 it will be 8.20%. The account would need to earn about 8.4% a year just to hold steady.

For most people the balance starts shrinking somewhere in the 80s — that is what the rules intend. It isn’t a reason to worry, but it is a reason to stop treating the RMD as an annual surprise and set it up once: automatic yearly withdrawal, tax withheld, charity paid directly.

How can you cut the tax bill on RMDs in your 80s?

Use the RMD itself. Send part of it straight to charity as a qualified charitable distribution, and have federal tax withheld from the rest so you can skip quarterly estimated payments. The QCD part also stays out of the income Medicare uses to set IRMAA surcharges.

• Withholding counts as paid evenly through the year, so a single December withdrawal can cover the whole year’s tax.
• Mind Medicare’s IRMAA. Your $38,760 RMD on $500,000 counts toward the income Medicare looks at two years later — check whether it crosses a threshold.
• Watch the tax on Social Security. RMDs raise “provisional income”; see how much of your benefit becomes taxable.
• Fewer accounts, fewer mistakes. IRA RMDs can be added up and taken from one IRA, but each 401(k) must pay its own — consolidating old 401(k)s into one IRA means one RMD to remember.

What if your spouse is 15 years younger?

If your spouse is your only beneficiary all year, you use the Joint and Last Survivor Table instead. At 89 with a 74-year-old spouse the factor is 16.2 rather than 12.9, so you must take 6.17% of the balance instead of 7.75%.

Two conditions, both strict: your spouse must be more than 10 years younger and the sole beneficiary of that account for the entire year. Marital status is fixed on January 1, so a divorce or a death during the year changes the table only from the next year. At a gap of exactly 10 years the two tables give the same factor. Try your own ages in the RMD calculator with a younger spouse or the joint-table lookup.

Can a qualified charitable distribution cover your RMD at 89?

Yes. Past age 70½, money sent straight from your IRA to a charity — a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) — counts toward your RMD and never shows up in your taxable income, up to $111,000 per person in 2026. It can cover part of the RMD or all of it.

At 89, that limit covers the entire RMD on any IRA balance up to $1,431,900. A QCD beats taking the RMD and then writing a check: the gift never enters your adjusted gross income, which can keep more of your Social Security untaxed and your Medicare premiums lower — even if you take the standard deduction.

The money must go directly from the IRA to the charity by December 31. It can’t come from a 401(k) — to give from 401(k) money, take that plan’s RMD for the year first (an RMD can’t be rolled over), then roll the rest into an IRA — or from an ongoing SEP or SIMPLE IRA. The IRS has not announced the 2027 limit yet. Not announced yet

Gift on your mind but not sure how much? On $500,000 the whole $38,760 RMD could go to charity; next year at 90 the same balance would require $40,984.