Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: Where several people inherit one account, establishing separate inherited IRAs by the applicable deadline generally lets each beneficiary use their own schedule. Miss it and everyone can be pushed onto the least favourable one.
Why splitting matters
Beneficiaries of one undivided account can be forced onto a single distribution schedule — typically the least favourable among them. Separating the account lets each person’s own status and life expectancy govern their share.
The difference is largest where beneficiaries have genuinely different status: one who is an eligible designated beneficiary and one who is not, or a wide age spread.
The separate-accounting deadline falls in the year after the year of death, not immediately — but it arrives while an estate is still being settled and it is routinely missed. Confirm the exact date with the custodian as soon as the account is identified, and do not assume they will prompt you.
A charity among the beneficiaries
A charity is not a designated beneficiary, and leaving one in the same undivided account can affect the treatment of the human beneficiaries. Splitting, or paying the charitable share out early, is the usual fix — and it is time-sensitive.
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.