RMD table 2026: the Uniform Lifetime Table in full

Table III, ages 72 to 120

The first age printed is 72 because the table also serves people who reached their RMD age under earlier rules. Under current law nobody starts at 72 any more: RMDs begin at 73 for owners born from 1951 to 1959 and at 75 for those born in 1960 or later (RMD age by birth year). The table ends at 120 with a factor of 2.0, which is used for every age beyond.

Reading it for 2026

Use your age on your birthday in 2026, even if the birthday is in December. Someone born on December 30, 1951 is 74 on January 1 and 75 at year end: the factor is the one for 75, 24.6. Then divide the balance of the account on December 31, 2025. The calculator above does both steps and shows the factors just before and after your age, so you can see how the next years will move.

Your first factor depends on your birth year

Because the starting age moved twice in four years, two people of almost the same age can enter the table at different lines. An owner born in 1953 reaches 73 in 2026 and starts with 26.5, about 3.77 % of the account. An owner born in 1960 has no RMD until 2035, the year of the 75th birthday, and starts directly at 24.6, skipping the lines for 73 and 74. Those two extra years without a required withdrawal are years in which a Roth conversion or a charitable plan can be arranged at a lower income. Nothing stops you from withdrawing earlier than the table asks, but money taken before your RMD age never counts toward a later RMD.

Spreading the amount over the year

The table gives a yearly minimum, not a schedule. Custodians usually offer a single December payment, quarterly or monthly installments, and an automatic recalculation each January from the new balance and the next factor. $10,163 taken monthly is about $847 a month. Whatever the rhythm, what the IRS checks is that the total for the calendar year reached the minimum by December 31.

What the factor means

A factor is a number of years. It is the joint life expectancy of a person of your age and a hypothetical beneficiary 10 years younger, which is why it is called uniform: the IRS assumes the same beneficiary for everyone so that one table can serve all owners. Dividing by 24.6 amounts to taking 4.07 % of the account at 75; at 85, with a factor of 16, the share is 6.25 %; at 100 it is 15.63 %. The factor never reaches zero, so the table alone never forces an account to be emptied.

The 2022 update and the old tables still online

The Treasury replaced the tables from January 1, 2022, using longer life expectancies. Every factor went up, by about one to two years at most ages, and every RMD went down. At 75 the old table gave 22.9; the current one gives 24.6. On $250,000, that difference is about $754 a year. Articles written before 2022 still rank for "RMD table", sometimes with a start at 70½ and a 50 % penalty on a missed distribution. Both are out of date: the penalty is now 25 %, and 10 % if corrected in time (missed RMD penalty).

When this table is not the one

• Spouse more than 10 years younger, sole beneficiary all year: the Joint and Last Survivor Table (Table II) gives a larger factor, see the joint table page.
• You inherited the account: beneficiaries use the Single Life Table (Table I), with rules of their own on the inherited IRA page.
• An annuity contract: payments from an annuity purchased inside an IRA or plan follow 26 CFR 1.401(a)(9)-6, not this table.

Using the table across several accounts

The same factor applies to each of your accounts in a given year, since it depends on your age only. For IRAs you can add the balances, divide once and take the total from any of them. For 401(k) plans you divide each plan's balance separately and take each amount from its own plan. The RMD calculator adds a six-year schedule on a growth rate you choose.