All articles 7 min read

Miscellaneous Rules for Required Minimum Distributions: IRA Withdrawals (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Miscellaneous Rules for Required Minimum Distributions” within ira withdrawals. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Context for these rules

You can't keep funds in a traditional IRA (including SEP and SIMPLE IRAs) indefinitely. Eventually, they must be distributed. If there are no distributions, or if the distributions aren't large enough, you may have to pay an excise tax on the amount not distributed as required. See Excess Accumulations (Insufficient Distributions), later, under What Acts Result in Penalties or Additional Taxes. The requirements for distributing IRA funds differ, depending on whether you are the IRA owner or the beneficiary of a decedent's IRA.

Miscellaneous Rules for Required Minimum Distributions

Redetermination of initial life expectancies using new tables.

New life expectancy tables apply to distribution calendar years beginning on or after January 1, 2022. If an IRA owner died before January 1, 2022, the applicable denominator that applies for a calendar year following the calendar year of the owner’s death is equal to a single life expectancy calculated as of the calendar year of the owner’s death, reduced by 1 for each subsequent year, and is reset using the new table.

In order to do this, find your life expectancy based on your age in the year following the owner’s death on Table I and reduce that number by 1 for each year since the year of the owner’s death.

The requirement to reset the initial life expectancy also applies to an owner’s surviving spouse who died before January 1, 2022.

Example.

Your father died in 2021 at the age of 80 and you were the designated beneficiary. You started taking required minimum distributions from the inherited IRA in 2022 when you were age 55, using a life expectancy of 29.6 and reducing that number by 1 each year so that in 2026 (4 years later) the required minimum distribution would be determined by dividing the account balance by 25.6 (29.6 – 4). However, under the new life expectancy tables, the life expectancy for a 55-year-old is 31.6; therefore, you calculate your required minimum distribution for 2026 by dividing the account balance by 27.6 (31.6 – 4).

Installments allowed.

The yearly required minimum distribution can be taken in a series of installments (monthly, quarterly, etc.) as long as the total distributions for the year are at least as much as the minimum required amount.

More than one IRA.

If you are the owner of more than one traditional IRA, you must determine a separate required minimum distribution for each IRA. However, you can total these minimum amounts and take the total from any one or more of the IRAs. The same rule applies if you are a designated beneficiary of more than one IRA that was owned by a single decedent.

More than minimum received.

If, in any year, you receive more than the required minimum amount for that year, you won't receive credit for the additional amount when determining the minimum required amounts for future years. This doesn't mean that you don't reduce your IRA account balance. It means that if you receive more than your required minimum distribution in 1 year, you can't treat the excess (the amount that is more than the required minimum distribution) as part of your required minimum distribution for any later year. However, any amount distributed in the year you turn age 73 will be credited toward the amount that must be distributed by April 1 of the following year.

Example.

Justin became 73 on December 15, 2025. Justin's IRA account balance on December 31, 2024, was $38,400. He figured his required minimum distribution of $1,450 for 2025 ($38,400 ÷ 26.5). By December 31, 2025, he had actually received distributions totaling $3,600, $2,150 more than was required. Justin can’t use that $2,150 to reduce the amount he is required to withdraw for 2026. Justin's reduced IRA account balance on December 31, 2025, was $34,800. Justin figured his required minimum distribution of $1,313 for 2026 ($34,800 ÷ 26.5 (the applicable denominator for age 73 per Table III)). During 2026, he must receive distributions of at least that amount.

Multiple individual beneficiaries.

If, as of September 30 of the year following the year in which the owner dies, there is more than one beneficiary, the beneficiary with the shortest life expectancy will be the designated beneficiary if both of the following apply.

  • All of the beneficiaries are individuals.

  • The account or benefit hasn't been divided into separate accounts or shares for each beneficiary.

Separate accounts.

A single IRA can be split into separate accounts or shares for each beneficiary. These separate accounts or shares can be established at any time, either before or after the owner's required beginning date. Generally, these separate accounts or shares are combined for purposes of determining the required minimum distribution. However, these separate accounts or shares won't be combined for required minimum distribution purposes after the death of the IRA owner if the separate accounts or shares are established by the end of the year following the year of the IRA owner's death.

The separate account rules can't be used by beneficiaries of a trust unless the trust is an applicable multi-beneficiary trust.

Trust as beneficiary.

A trust can't be a designated beneficiary even if it is a named beneficiary. However, the beneficiaries of a trust will be treated as having been designated beneficiaries for purposes of determining required minimum distributions after the owner’s death (or, after the death of the owner’s surviving spouse described in Death of surviving spouse prior to date distributions begin, earlier) if all of the following are true.

  1. The trust is a valid trust under state law, or would be but for the fact that there is no corpus.

  2. The trust is irrevocable or became, by its terms, irrevocable upon the owner's death.

  3. The beneficiaries of the trust who are beneficiaries with respect to the trust's interest in the owner's benefit are identifiable from the trust instrument.

  4. The trustee of the trust provides the IRA custodian or trustee with the documentation required by that custodian or trustee. The trustee of the trust should contact the IRA custodian or trustee for details on the documentation required for a specific IRA.

Trust beneficiary is another trust.

If the beneficiary of the trust (which is the beneficiary of the IRA) is another trust and both trusts meet the above requirements, the beneficiaries of the other trust will be treated as having been designated as beneficiaries for purposes of determining the applicable denominator.

Applicable multi-beneficiary trusts.

An applicable multi-beneficiary trust is a trust (1) which has more than one beneficiary; (2) all of the beneficiaries of which are treated as designated beneficiaries for purposes of determining the applicable denominator pursuant to section 401(a)(9); and (3) at least one of the beneficiaries of which is an eligible designated beneficiary who is either disabled or chronically ill. There are two types of applicable multi-beneficiary trusts:

  • A trust that is to be divided immediately upon the death of the IRA owner into separate trusts for each beneficiary, in which case the separate account rules apply to each portion of the trust; or

  • A trust to which the separate account rules do not apply and provides that no beneficiary (other than an eligible designated beneficiary who is disabled or chronically ill) has any right to the IRA owner’s interest in the IRA until the death of all disabled or chronically ill eligible designated beneficiaries with respect to the trust.

Tip:

You may want to contact a tax advisor to comply with this complicated area of the tax law.

Annuity distributions from an insurance company.

Special rules apply if you receive distributions from your traditional IRA as an annuity purchased from an insurance company. See Treasury Regulations sections 1.401(a)(9)-6 and 54.4974-1. These regulations can be found in many libraries, and IRS offices, and online at IRS.gov.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

Back to all articles