Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: Direct trustee-to-trustee transfer only. A non-spouse beneficiary generally cannot use a 60-day rollover, so a cheque made out to you is usually a fully taxable distribution that cannot be undone.
The irreversible mistake
With your own IRA, taking a distribution and redepositing it within 60 days is a recognised manoeuvre. With an inherited IRA held by a non-spouse it generally is not. Money that leaves the account and reaches you personally is a distribution, taxable in that year, and there is typically no mechanism to put it back.
This is the single most expensive administrative error in the inherited-account world, and it is usually caused by a well-meaning instruction to “close the account and send the funds.” Say direct trustee-to-trustee transfer to an inherited IRA in those words.
Titling matters as much as the transfer
The receiving account must be titled as an inherited IRA showing the decedent’s name and your status as beneficiary. An account titled as your own can be treated as though you took the whole thing as a distribution.
Get the inherited-account decision right the first time
Deciding when to take money out of an inherited account is a tax question as much as a rules question, and an adviser can price the withdrawal schedule against the rest of your income before a deadline sets the timing for you.
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A spouse is the exception
A surviving spouse has options a non-spouse does not, including rollover treatment. That flexibility is one of the main reasons the spousal election deserves its own decision rather than a default.
Sources
Final regulations on required minimum distributions, published 19 July 2024; SECURE Act (2019) and SECURE 2.0 (2022); IRC §401(a)(9); IRC §2518 (qualified disclaimers); IRC §408(d)(8) (qualified charitable distributions). Cross-checked July 2026 against professional analyses from Kitces, Grant Thornton, Ascensus, Charles Schwab and Kiplinger. Where a deadline or dollar figure is indexed or was not read in primary source for this page, the text says so rather than asserting it.
This states what the cited authority says. It is not tax advice, and inherited account deadlines turn on facts about the decedent and the plan that no page can verify for you.