How long do I have to take money out of an inherited IRA?

Q: How long do I have to take money out of an inherited IRA?

Ten years. An account inherited in 2026 must be empty by December 31, 2036 — the end of the tenth year after the year of death. Whether anything is required inside those ten years turns on one fact: if the original owner had already reached their required beginning date, an annual distribution is due every year from year one (final regulations T.D. 10001, July 18, 2024); if they died before it, nothing is required until the deadline itself. Eligible designated beneficiaries — a surviving spouse, a minor child of the owner, a disabled or chronically ill person, or anyone not more than 10 years younger than the owner — are not on the ten-year clock at all, and a non-designated beneficiary such as an estate or a charity gets five years instead when the owner died before that date.

Ten years. An account inherited in 2026 must be empty by December 31, 2036 — the end of the tenth year after the year of death. Whether anything is required inside those ten years turns on one fact: if the original owner had already reached their required beginning date, an annual distribution is due every year from year one (final regulations T.D. 10001, July 18, 2024); if they died before it, nothing is required until the deadline itself. Eligible designated beneficiaries — a surviving spouse, a minor child of the owner, a disabled or chronically ill person, or anyone not more than 10 years younger than the owner — are not on the ten-year clock at all, and a non-designated beneficiary such as an estate or a charity gets five years instead when the owner died before that date.

Dec 31, 2036

Deadline for an account inherited in 2026

$15,823

First annual distribution, beneficiary aged 55

$357,595

Left for the final year

Which deadline applies to you

Beneficiary	Owner died before the required beginning date	Owner died on or after it
Designated beneficiary (most adult children)	Empty by Dec 31, 2036; nothing required before then	Empty by Dec 31, 2036; an annual distribution every year
Eligible designated beneficiary	Life expectancy distributions — no ten-year clock	Life expectancy distributions — no ten-year clock
Minor child of the owner	Life expectancy to 21, then ten years	Life expectancy to 21, then ten years
Estate, charity, non-see-through trust	Empty by Dec 31, 2031 — the five-year rule	The owner's own remaining life expectancy

An inherited Roth IRA follows the same ten-year deadline but carries no annual distributions, because a Roth owner has no required beginning date to be before or after. The inherited IRA RMD calculator works through the four questions in order and returns your regime, your deadline, and a full schedule.

Ten years with annual distributions: $500,000, beneficiary aged 55 in the first distribution year

Year	Opening balance	Divisor	Required distribution
2027	$500,000	31.6	$15,823
2028	$484,177	30.6	$15,823
2029	$468,354	29.6	$15,823
2030	$452,532	28.6	$15,823
2031	$436,709	27.6	$15,823
2032	$420,886	26.6	$15,823
2033	$405,063	25.6	$15,823
2034	$389,241	24.6	$15,823
2035	$373,418	23.6	$15,823
2036	$357,595	empty the account	$357,595

The divisor is set once — the beneficiary's life expectancy in the first distribution year — and reduced by one each year rather than looked up again, so the required share of the balance climbs every year. Nine years of minimums come to $142,405 here, leaving $357,595 to come out in 2036. Balances are shown before any investment growth; growth raises both the annual minimums and the final year.

That last row is the planning problem the deadline creates. Every distribution is ordinary income stacked on whatever else you earn, so a beneficiary in peak earning years who leaves the account alone until the deadline pushes a decade of deferred income through one tax return — pulling more of it forward into lower-income years is usually cheaper than meeting the minimum and waiting.

Methodology

Divisors from reducedSingleLifeFactor() in QuantCalc's RMD module — the reduce-by-one method of 26 CFR 1.401(a)(9)-5(d) applied to the IRS Single Life Table (26 CFR 1.401(a)(9)-9(b)) in the canonical tax-constants mirror — with the distribution amounts computed from them. The regimes and deadlines are those settled by the final regulations at T.D. 10001 (July 18, 2024) and set out with their citations on the inherited IRA rules page.

Every figure on this page is computed at build time from QuantCalc's parity-tested calculation modules or a committed dataset — never hand-entered. Reference for research and planning only; not tax, legal, or investment advice.

Model this for your own numbers

The free QuantCalc calculator runs your actual balances, income, and filing status through the same parity-tested engine.

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Planning conversions across several years? See the Roth Conversion Planner.

Changelog

v2026.1 — first publication. Figures computed from the 2026 tax-constants mirror and committed datasets.

Cite this dataset

QuantCalc Research (2026). How long do I have to take money out of an inherited IRA?. https://quantcalc.app/answers/inherited-ira-10-year-deadline/ (accessed <date>).

BibTeX

@misc{quantcalc2026howlongdoihavetotakemoneyoutofaninherite,
  title  = {How long do I have to take money out of an inherited IRA?},
  author = {{QuantCalc Research}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://quantcalc.app/answers/inherited-ira-10-year-deadline/},
  note   = {Accessed <date>}
}

Machine-readable citation metadata (schema.org identifier and citation fields) is embedded in this page's JSON-LD, at the stable identifier https://quantcalc.app/answers/inherited-ira-10-year-deadline/.