Required Minimum Distribution Rules After 73 in 2026

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Required Minimum Distribution Rules After 73 in 2026
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

⏱ 9 min read  ·  1,855 words

Your Retirement Accounts Won't Wait Forever

You've been saving into a traditional IRA or 401(k) for decades. Maybe you've got money sitting in a couple of accounts from different employers, plus a small pension. Now that you're in your early 70s, you're getting letters and notices about something called a required minimum distribution. And the question isn't whether you want to start withdrawing money. The IRS is telling you that you must.

Miss the deadline, and the penalty is brutal. We're talking about a 25% excise tax on whatever amount you should have withdrawn but didn't. That's not a typo. If your RMD was $8,000 and you forgot, the IRS could hit you with a $2,000 penalty on top of the income tax you'll still owe when you do take it out.

The rules changed recently, too. The age for starting RMDs shifted from 72 to 73 under the SECURE 2.0 Act. That sounds like good news, but it also means a lot of people are confused about when their clock actually starts ticking. If you turned 72 before January 1, 2023, you're already in the system under the old rules and your RMDs started at age 72. If you turn 72 on or after January 1, 2023, you fall under the new age-73 threshold.

This article will walk you through exactly how the required minimum distribution rules after 73 work in 2026, how to calculate what you owe, what happens if you have multiple accounts, and the single most common mistake I see people make with their first distribution. I'll also touch on how RMDs fit into bigger retirement decisions, including when you should take Social Security benefits early and whether something like a power of attorney matters in this context.

Why RMD Rules Trip Up So Many Retirees

Here's the thing about required minimum distributions. The concept is simple enough. You put money into tax-deferred accounts, the government let it grow untaxed for years, and now they want their share. Fair enough.

But the execution is where people get tangled. You might have a traditional IRA, a SEP IRA from some freelance work you did, and an old 403(b) from a nonprofit job. Each of those accounts has its own balance, and the IRS wants you to calculate an RMD for each one. You can sometimes combine withdrawals from certain account types, but not always. The rules are different for IRAs versus employer plans.

Generic financial advice tends to gloss over these details. "Just take your RMD by December 31" sounds straightforward until you realize your first-year deadline is actually April 1, which can result in two taxable distributions in one calendar year. This part trips up almost everyone, so I'll slow down and cover it carefully below.

Required Minimum Distribution Rules After 73: The 2026 Deadlines

If you reach age 73 in 2026, your first RMD is due by April 1, 2027. That April 1 deadline only applies to your very first distribution. Every RMD after that is due by December 31 of each year.

If you reached age 73 in 2026, your first RMD was due by April 1, 2026. According to IRS Publication 590-B, the required minimum distribution for any year after the year you reach age 73 must be made by December 31 of that later year. So if you took your first RMD by April 1, 2026, you also need to take your second RMD by December 31, 2026.

That's two taxable distributions in one calendar year. And that can push you into a higher tax bracket, increase your Medicare Part B premiums through IRMAA surcharges, and potentially make more of your Social Security benefits taxable.

Here are the key deadlines to understand:

  • First RMD: Due by April 1 of the year following the year you turn 73. This is the only time you get the extended deadline.
  • All subsequent RMDs: Due by December 31 of each calendar year. No extensions.
  • Penalty for missing an RMD: 25% excise tax on the amount you failed to withdraw. This drops to 10% if you correct it within two years under the SECURE 2.0 Act's updated rules.
  • Roth IRA exception: Roth IRAs are not subject to RMDs during the owner's lifetime. Roth accounts in employer plans like 401(k)s were previously subject to RMDs, but that requirement was eliminated starting in 2026.

How to Calculate Your RMD

The math itself isn't complicated. You take your account balance as of December 31 of the previous year and divide it by a life expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table.

For example, AARP's RMD calculator illustrates it this way: if you're 73 with a combined $100,000 in tax-deferred retirement accounts, your distribution period is 26.5 years. Divide $100,000 by 26.5 and you get $3,773.58. That's the minimum you must withdraw for the year.

But most people don't have a clean $100,000 in one account. Take someone who spent 30 years as a school nurse, earning around $52,000 a year toward the end of her career. She's got $187,000 in a 403(b) from the school district, $34,000 in an old traditional IRA she rolled over from a part-time job years ago, and a small SEP IRA with $11,200 from some tutoring income she reported in her late 50s.

Her total IRA balance is $45,200 (the traditional IRA plus the SEP IRA). She calculates the RMD on each IRA separately but can take the total IRA amount from either one. So if her combined IRA RMD is $1,705, she can pull all $1,705 from the traditional IRA and leave the SEP alone.

The 403(b), however, is a different story. FINRA notes that RMDs apply to 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), and profit-sharing plans, and those distributions must come from each specific plan. She can't use her IRA withdrawal to satisfy the 403(b) requirement. She needs to calculate and take a separate distribution from the 403(b).

Most people assume they can just take one big withdrawal from whatever account is most convenient and call it done. That's wrong. The IRS lets you aggregate withdrawals across IRAs, but not across different plan types. An IRA distribution does not satisfy a 401(k) or 403(b) RMD, and vice versa.

How RMDs Connect to Your Bigger Retirement Picture

RMDs don't exist in a vacuum. The amount you withdraw affects your taxable income, which affects everything from your Medicare premiums to how much of your Social Security is taxed.

This is one reason the question of when you should take Social Security benefits early matters more than most people realize. If you delayed Social Security until 70 and you're now facing large RMDs at 73, your combined income could be significantly higher than you planned for. Some retirees find that starting Social Security earlier, even at a reduced benefit, and doing partial Roth conversions before RMDs kick in can smooth out their tax picture over time. There's no universal answer here, but it's worth running the numbers with a tax-aware advisor or using the calculators at SSA.gov.

Another topic that comes up more often than you'd expect during RMD planning is what a power of attorney is and why seniors need one. If you become unable to manage your accounts, someone needs legal authority to take your RMDs on your behalf. Without a valid financial power of attorney, your family could end up in court trying to get access to accounts while penalties pile up. I watched this happen to a colleague's mother. She had a stroke in October, and by the time the family sorted out legal access, the December 31 deadline had passed. The penalty was over $3,400.

(And yes, the IRS does sometimes waive the penalty for reasonable cause, but you have to file Form 5329 and explain. It's not automatic.)

Some retirees with significant home equity also ask about reverse mortgage pros and cons for seniors over 65, especially if they're looking for ways to reduce how much they pull from retirement accounts. A reverse mortgage won't reduce your RMD obligation, since the IRS doesn't care where your spending money comes from. But it can provide supplemental income that isn't taxable, which matters when you're trying to keep your adjusted gross income below certain thresholds. It's a complex product with real downsides, including fees and the impact on your estate, so it's not something to pursue casually.

The First-Year Mistake That Costs Thousands

When I turned 73, I made the choice to take my first RMD in December of that year rather than waiting until April 1 of the following year. I did this specifically because I'd watched dozens of clients over the years get hit with a double-distribution year and end up owing far more in taxes than they expected.

Here's the math that convinced me. If your RMD is roughly $7,500 a year and you delay your first one to April, you'll take $15,000 in distributions in a single calendar year. For someone on a fixed income, an extra $7,500 in taxable income can mean the difference between the 12% and 22% federal tax brackets. It can also trigger IRMAA surcharges on Medicare premiums that won't show up until two years later, which feels like a nasty surprise from the past.

There are situations where delaying makes sense. If you had an unusually high-income year and expect next year to be lower, pushing the first RMD into the following year could work in your favor. But for most people, taking the first distribution in the same year you turn 73 is the safer bet.

Three steps to check right now:

  • Verify your account balances as of December 31, 2026: Your custodian (Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, etc.) should provide this. It's the number you'll use for your 2026 RMD calculation.
  • Confirm which accounts require separate distributions: All your traditional IRAs can be aggregated. Employer plans like 401(k)s and 403(b)s cannot.
  • Set a calendar reminder for early November: Don't wait until mid-December. Processing times vary, and if a distribution doesn't clear by December 31, you're on the hook for the penalty.

What to Do From Here

The two things that matter most with RMDs are getting the deadline right and calculating the correct amount for each account type. Everything else is detail you can sort out with a tax preparer or financial advisor.

If you haven't already, log into your retirement account provider's website and look for their RMD calculator. AARP also offers a free one at aarp.org that walks you through it step by step. For Social Security timing questions, the my Social Security account at SSA.gov shows your estimated benefits at different claiming ages, which helps you see how RMD income stacks up against your other sources.

And if you don't yet have a financial power of attorney in place, put that on your list this month. It takes an afternoon with an elder law attorney and can save your family an enormous headache if something unexpected happens.

None of this is fun paperwork. But getting it right once means you're not scrambling every December wondering if you've done enough. You probably have. Just double-check the numbers and mark the dates.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or medical advice. Medicare rules, tax laws, and Social Security benefit amounts change annually. Always consult a licensed financial advisor, Medicare specialist, or Social Security Administration representative before making decisions about your benefits, retirement income, or estate planning.

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