I Inherited an IRA — What Are the RMD Rules?

Cardio Renal Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity organization. Your donation advances our mission to provide a solution beyond dialysis.

Inheriting an IRA is two things at once: a gift from someone who planned for you, and a clock the IRS starts the moment the account becomes yours. Miss the clock's deadlines and the penalties are steep — but the rules are learnable, and this page lays them out in plain words. Everything here describes inheritances from someone who died after 2019, which is when the current rules began. It also describes the rules for an account you inherited directly as a named beneficiary — if you are a spouse, your section is below, because your choices are genuinely different.

The Rule for Most People: Ten Years

For most adult beneficiaries — an adult child, a sibling, a friend — the rule is the 10-year rule: the entire inherited IRA must be emptied by December 31 of the tenth year after the year of the owner's death. If the person you inherited from died in 2026, the account must be empty by December 31, 2036. There is no required schedule inside those ten years in the simplest case — the deadline at the end is the hard line — and withdrawals from an inherited traditional IRA are taxed as your income in the year you take them, which is why most people spread them out rather than face one enormous taxable year at the end.

The Part That Catches People: Withdrawals in Years 1 Through 9

There is a second requirement, and whether it applies to you turns on one fact: had the person you inherited from already begun their own required withdrawals when they died? Required withdrawals generally begin in someone's early seventies (the full explanation of how the owner's own rules worked is here: what is a required minimum distribution (RMD)?). If they had begun — if they died on or after the date their own withdrawals were required to start — then under the IRS's final regulations, issued in 2024, you must also take a withdrawal in each of years 1 through 9, figured on your own life expectancy from an IRS table, on top of emptying the account by the end of year 10. If they died before their own withdrawals had begun, no yearly amount is required — only the ten-year deadline.

One mercy worth knowing: while the IRS was settling these rules, it waived the penalty on the missed yearly withdrawals for 2021 through 2024. That grace period is over — from 2025 onward the yearly requirement is enforced, at the same 25% penalty tax on any shortfall described elsewhere on this site. If you inherited a few years ago and have taken nothing, do not panic, but do not wait either: a custodian or tax advisor can get you current.

If You Are the Spouse: You Have Real Choices

A surviving spouse is the one beneficiary the rules treat almost like an owner, and the choice is worth making deliberately rather than by default.

• Treat the IRA as your own. You can roll the account into your own IRA, and from then on it simply is yours: your own withdrawal schedule, figured on your age, your own beneficiaries named fresh. This is usually the cleanest door if you are past 59½ and do not need the money soon. One caution: once the money is in your IRA, taking it out before 59½ can carry an early-withdrawal penalty — which is why a younger widow or widower often waits.
• Stay a beneficiary. You keep the account as an inherited IRA in the original owner's name, for your benefit. Withdrawals from an inherited account are never hit with the early-withdrawal penalty, at any age — which protects a younger spouse who needs income now. As a spouse you may also spread withdrawals over your own life expectancy rather than the flat ten years, and if your spouse died before their own withdrawals had begun, you can generally wait to start your yearly withdrawals until the year they would have had to begin.

Neither door closes instantly, and the right answer depends on your age, your income, and whether you need the money. This is the one section of this page where sitting down with an advisor before you sign anything is worth the fee.

The Few Who Can Still Stretch

The old "stretch" — spreading an inherited IRA over your whole lifetime — survives for a short list of people the law calls eligible designated beneficiaries:

• A minor child of the owner — but only until age 21; when the child turns 21, the ten-year clock starts.
• A beneficiary who is disabled, under the IRS's definition.
• A beneficiary who is chronically ill, under the IRS's definition.
• A beneficiary not more than ten years younger than the owner — a sibling close in age, for example.

Everyone else named directly as a beneficiary lives under the ten-year rule. (Accounts left to an estate or to certain trusts follow their own variations — another place where an advisor earns their fee.)

If the Inherited Account Is a Roth IRA

The ten-year deadline applies to an inherited Roth IRA exactly as it does to a traditional one — the account must still be emptied by the end of year 10. Two softeners: no yearly withdrawals are required in years 1 through 9, because a Roth owner was never required to take withdrawals during their lifetime, so there is no schedule to continue — most beneficiaries leave the Roth untouched until year 10 and let it grow. And the money generally comes out tax-free, as it would have for the owner: contributions always, and earnings as well once the account's original five-year clock has run. An inherited Roth is, dollar for dollar, the kindest account a person can leave behind.

A Short Word About Giving From an Inherited IRA

Money in an inherited traditional IRA is the most heavily taxed money in an estate: it was never taxed on the way in, it gets no step-up at death, and every dollar you take out lands on your own return as ordinary income. If you are a beneficiary who honestly does not need the money, there is one door worth knowing about. If you are 70½ or older yourself, you may make a qualified charitable distribution — a QCD — directly from the inherited IRA to a qualified charity. Your own age is what counts here, not the age of the person you inherited from. The gift counts toward the withdrawals the account requires of you, and it never lands as your income at all. If you are younger than 70½, that particular door is not open yet — you can still give from your withdrawals, but the tax is paid first, which is a less efficient gift. And if you hold an IRA of your own, there is a forward-looking version of the same idea: leaving your traditional IRA to charity in your own will, rather than to family, is often the most tax-efficient gift in an entire estate plan — the thinking is laid out here: how do I leave money to a charity in my will?

Why This Foundation

If the charity door is one you choose — from an inherited account or your own planning — here is this Foundation's answer, in one paragraph. The Cardio Renal Foundation exists for the people living with kidney and heart disease, and its conviction is plain: dialysis should not be a life sentence. The gifts that arrive here keep a library of plain-words health articles and a shelf of free everyday tools — grocery lists, calendars, recipe boxes — free for the seniors who rely on them, and they carry forward the work of finding a way beyond dialysis. A QCD has one more virtue worth naming: because no tax is taken out of it on its way, the full amount you send is the amount that arrives — every dollar of it goes straight to work.

Stated Plainly

Stated plainly, because a money page owes you the same honesty as any other kind: this page explains how the rules work in general. It is not advice about your return. Inherited-account rules turn on dates, relationships, and the kind of beneficiary you are, and a qualified tax advisor or estate attorney who knows your situation is the right referee for your own numbers. And what can be checked, check: our legal name is Cardio Renal Foundation Inc, our EIN is 33-4359765, and we are a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization — verifiable in the IRS records by anyone, in about three minutes, and we would rather you checked than took our word.

An inheritance is a responsibility handed over with love; getting its rules right is part of honoring it. Questions reach a person here, at donations@cardiorenalfoundation.org or (646) 770-3946.

This article is informational only and is not tax, legal, or financial advice. Charitable giving and tax rules change and depend on your individual circumstances; consult a qualified tax advisor or attorney about your own situation.