Must You Withdraw or Use Assets?: IRA Withdrawals (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Must You Withdraw or Use Assets?” 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.

Must You Withdraw or Use Assets?

You aren't required to take distributions from your Roth IRA at any age. The minimum distribution rules that apply to traditional IRAs don't apply to Roth IRAs while the owner is alive. However, after the death of a Roth IRA owner, certain minimum distribution rules that apply to traditional IRAs also apply to Roth IRAs, as explained later under Distributions After Owner's Death.

Minimum distributions.

You can't use your Roth IRA to satisfy minimum distribution requirements for your traditional IRA. Nor can you use distributions from traditional IRAs for required distributions from Roth IRAs. See Distributions to beneficiaries, later.

Distributions After Owner's Death

If a Roth IRA owner dies, the minimum distribution rules that apply to traditional IRAs apply to Roth IRAs as though the Roth IRA owner died before their required beginning date. See When Can You Withdraw or Use Assets? in chapter 1.

Distributions to beneficiaries.

Generally, the entire interest in the Roth IRA must be distributed by the end of the 5th or 10th calendar year, as applicable, after the year of the owner's death unless the interest is payable to an eligible designated beneficiary over the life or life expectancy of the eligible designated beneficiary. See When Must You Withdraw Assets? (Required Minimum Distributions) in chapter 1.

If paid as an annuity, the entire interest must be payable over a period not greater than the designated beneficiary's life expectancy and distributions must begin before the end of the calendar year following the year of death. Distributions from another Roth IRA can't be substituted for these distributions unless the other Roth IRA was inherited from the same decedent.

If the sole beneficiary is the spouse, they can either delay distributions until the decedent would have reached age 73 or treat the Roth IRA as their own.

Combining with other Roth IRAs.

A beneficiary can combine an inherited Roth IRA with another Roth IRA maintained by the beneficiary only if the beneficiary either:

• Inherited the other Roth IRA from the same decedent, or

• Was the spouse of the decedent and the sole beneficiary of the Roth IRA and elects to treat it as their own IRA.

Distributions that aren't qualified distributions.

If a distribution to a beneficiary isn't a qualified distribution, it is generally includible in the beneficiary's gross income in the same manner as it would have been included in the owner's income had it been distributed to the IRA owner when they were alive.

If the owner of a Roth IRA dies before the end of:

• The 5-year period beginning with the first tax year for which a contribution was made to a Roth IRA set up for the owner's benefit, or

• The 5-year period starting with the year of a conversion contribution from a traditional IRA or a rollover from a qualified retirement plan to a Roth IRA,

then each type of contribution is divided among multiple beneficiaries according to the pro-rata share of each. See Ordering Rules for Distributions, earlier.

Example.

When Ms. Hibbard died in 2025, her Roth IRA contained regular contributions of $4,000, a conversion contribution of $10,000 that was made in 2021, and earnings of $2,000. No distributions had been made from her IRA. She had no basis in the conversion contribution in 2021.

When she established this Roth IRA (her first) in 2021, she named each of her four children as equal beneficiaries. Each child will receive one-fourth of each type of contribution and one-fourth of the earnings. An immediate distribution of $4,000 to each child will be treated as $1,000 from regular contributions, $2,500 from conversion contributions, and $500 from earnings.

In this case, because the distributions are made before the end of the applicable 5-year period for a qualified distribution, each beneficiary includes $500 in income for 2025. The 10% additional tax on early distributions doesn't apply because the distribution was made to the beneficiaries as a result of the death of the IRA owner.

Caution:

If distributions from an inherited Roth IRA are less than the required minimum distribution for the year, discussed in chapter 1 under When Must You Withdraw Assets? (Required Minimum Distributions), you may have to pay a 25% excise tax for that year on the amount not distributed as required. For the tax on excess accumulations (insufficient distributions), see Excess Accumulations (Insufficient Distributions) under What Acts Result in Penalties or Additional Taxes? in chapter 1. If this applies to you, substitute “Roth IRA” for “traditional IRA” in that discussion.

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

• Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs): Roth IRAs — Must You Withdraw or Use Assets? — Internal Revenue Service; 2025 edition.

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.