Does a Roth IRA Have RMDs? No — Roth 401(k)s Don't Either

The direct answer: a Roth IRA has zero lifetime RMDs

Margaret, 72, single, lives in Arizona and retires at the end of this year. She holds $1 million in a traditional IRA and $1 million in a Roth IRA. Next year she turns 73 — her first RMD year. Her traditional IRA hands her a non-negotiable bill: divide the $1,000,000 prior-year-end balance by the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table divisor of 26.5 (Pub. 590-B, Table III), and she must withdraw $37,736, every dollar taxed as ordinary income. Her Roth IRA hands her a different number: $0. She is not required to touch it. Not at 73, not at 75, not ever.

That is the whole answer to the head question. Under IRC §408A(c)(5), a Roth IRA is statutorily excluded from the lifetime required-minimum-distribution rules that govern traditional IRAs. The original owner is never forced to take a distribution. The account can sit and compound tax-free for the owner’s entire life. For Margaret, that means her Roth keeps growing untouched while her traditional IRA is being drained on a forced schedule.

Why this matters more than it sounds

The no-RMD feature is not just a convenience — it cascades into three downstream tax effects that a traditional IRA cannot offer:

• No forced taxable income. RMDs from a traditional IRA are ordinary income. They can push you into a higher bracket, make more of your Social Security taxable (the 50%/85% thresholds at $25K/$34K single, $32K/$44K MFJ are not inflation-indexed), and trigger Medicare IRMAA surcharges. Roth RMDs of $0 do none of this.
• Longest tax-free compounding. Because you are never forced to withdraw, a Roth is mathematically the best account to leave growing the longest — it is the last bucket you should ever touch.
• Cleanest inheritance. Roth dollars pass to heirs income-tax-free. A traditional IRA passes a deferred tax liability to your heirs along with the money.

The SECURE 2.0 change most people missed: Roth 401(k) RMDs are gone

Here is the update that still surprises retirees. Before 2024, a designated Roth account inside a 401(k), 403(b), or 457(b) — what people call a “Roth 401(k)” — did require lifetime RMDs, even though a Roth IRA never did. That asymmetry created a standard piece of advice: roll your Roth 401(k) into a Roth IRA before age 73 so the employer-plan RMD never starts.

SECURE 2.0 §325 (signed into law in late 2022) ended that asymmetry. Effective for tax years beginning after 2023 — meaning 2024 onward — designated Roth accounts in employer plans are exempt from lifetime RMDs, exactly like Roth IRAs. The Roth bucket inside your 401(k) now compounds untouched for life, no rollover required.

So should you still roll your Roth 401(k) to a Roth IRA before 73?

Not for the RMD reason. That motivation is gone. But a rollover can still make sense for unrelated reasons:

One nuance: the Roth IRA 5-year holding clock and the Roth 401(k) clock are tracked separately. Rolling into an existing Roth IRA you opened years ago can let your 401(k) Roth dollars inherit the older, already-satisfied clock — a reason to open a Roth IRA early even with $1 in it.

The one place RMDs still bite Roth money: inherited accounts

The lifetime exemption belongs to the original owner. Once a Roth passes to a beneficiary, RMD rules return. Under IRC §401(a)(9)(H), a non-spouse designated beneficiary who is not an “eligible designated beneficiary” must empty the inherited Roth by December 31 of the 10th year after death — the 10-year rule.

The crucial difference from an inherited traditional IRA: those withdrawals are income-tax-free if the original owner held any Roth IRA for at least 5 years. The heir owes no tax — but the tax-free compounding does end. The clock is now ticking on a 10-year drain.

• Surviving spouse: can treat the Roth as their own (a spousal rollover), which restores the $0 lifetime RMD. This is almost always the move — it keeps the tax-free growth going.
• Eligible designated beneficiary (minor child of owner, disabled or chronically ill person, beneficiary less than 10 years younger): can stretch over life expectancy rather than the 10-year window.
• Everyone else (adult children, most heirs): the 10-year rule — empty it by year 10, tax-free, but it must come out.

Missing a required inherited-account distribution carries a 25% penalty (reduced from 50% by SECURE 2.0, and down to 10% if corrected within the correction window). So “Roth has no RMDs” is true for you, but your heirs must still plan their withdrawals.

The decision: Roth is the last bucket you drain and the first you bequeath

Once you internalize that a Roth carries no lifetime RMD, your withdrawal order should change. The standard tax-efficient sequence for a retiree with multiple account types:

1. Taxable brokerage first — spend down assets that generate annual tax drag and lock in low long-term capital-gains rates (0% bracket runs to $48,350 taxable income single, $96,700 MFJ in 2026).
2. Traditional IRA / 401(k) next — you are forced to take RMDs from these anyway starting at 73 (born 1951–1959) or 75 (born 1960 or later). Drain them on or ahead of schedule to keep future RMDs — and the taxes they trigger — smaller.
3. Roth last — no forced withdrawal, tax-free growth, tax-free to heirs. Let it ride the longest.

This is also why Roth conversions in the gap years before RMDs begin are so valuable. Every dollar Margaret converts from her traditional IRA to her Roth between ages 65 and 72 is a dollar that will never produce a lifetime RMD, never inflate her Social Security taxation, and never push her into a higher IRMAA tier. She trades a known tax bill today (filling up the 22% or 24% bracket) for a permanently RMD-free, tax-free balance.

The $1M contrast, year by year

The forced $37,736 grows every year as the divisor shrinks — by the late 80s the percentage is well over 6% of the balance. The Roth never produces a single line on the RMD worksheet.

What most people miss

Three things trip up even well-prepared retirees:

• The 2024 Roth 401(k) change is retroactive in effect, not in memory. Many people still operate on the old “roll it before 73” rule and pay a financial advisor to execute a rollover whose only justification — the plan RMD — no longer exists. If RMD avoidance was the only reason, the move is now obsolete under §325.
• “No RMD” is not “no rules for heirs.” The most common error is assuming a Roth passes to children with no strings. It does pass tax-free, but the 10-year drain under §401(a)(9)(H) is mandatory, and a missed inherited distribution still carries the 25% penalty.
• Roth dollars are wasted if spent first. Because the Roth is the only account with no forced withdrawal and no tax to heirs, spending it before your taxable and traditional accounts throws away its single greatest advantage. The math almost always says: spend taxable, then traditional, then Roth.

How the rules line up by account type

Key takeaways

• A Roth IRA has $0 lifetime RMDs for the original owner under IRC §408A(c)(5). You are never forced to withdraw — not at 73, not at 75, not ever.
• SECURE 2.0 §325 eliminated lifetime RMDs from Roth 401(k)/403(b)/457(b) accounts starting in 2024. The old “roll your Roth 401(k) before 73” maneuver is no longer needed for the RMD reason alone.
• The only place RMDs still hit Roth money is inherited accounts: a non-spouse heir must empty an inherited Roth under the 10-year rule (§401(a)(9)(H)) — tax-free, but mandatory, with a 25% penalty for a missed distribution.
• A $1M traditional IRA forces a $37,736 RMD at 73 (divisor 26.5); an identical $1M Roth forces $0, adds nothing to Social Security taxation or IRMAA, and passes tax-free to heirs.
• The decision lever: drain taxable accounts first, traditional IRAs second, and let the Roth ride longest — and convert traditional dollars to Roth in the gap years before 73 so they never produce a lifetime RMD at all.