Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
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Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: If you are still working for the employer, are not a 5% owner, and the plan permits it, you may delay RMDs from that employer’s plan. It never applies to IRAs, and it never applies to plans from previous employers.
Three conditions, all required
- Still employed by that employer — not merely still working somewhere.
- Not a 5% owner of the business.
- The plan document permits the deferral — it is optional for plans, not automatic.
What it does not cover
| Account | Can you delay? |
|---|---|
| Current employer’s plan | Possibly — if all three conditions hold |
| Former employers’ plans | No |
| Any IRA | No |
This creates a planning trap in reverse: rolling an old 401(k) into your current employer’s plan can bring it under the exception and delay RMDs on that money too. Rolling it into an IRA does the opposite. Same money, opposite outcome, and the choice is usually made on fees alone.
Plan the withdrawal, not just the minimum
A required distribution is the floor rather than the plan, and an adviser can look at how the withdrawal interacts with your bracket, your Medicare premiums and your other accounts before a deadline decides it for you.
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Whether delaying is actually good
Not always. Deferral piles a larger balance into later years and can worsen the bracket problem — and it does nothing about the 10-year emptying your heirs face. Delay because it fits a plan, not because it is available.
Sources
IRC §401(a)(9) (required minimum distributions); IRC §408(d)(8) (qualified charitable distributions); IRC §4974 (excise tax on shortfalls, as amended by SECURE 2.0); SECURE Act (2019) and SECURE 2.0 (2022); final RMD regulations published 19 July 2024. Cross-checked July 2026 against professional analyses. Indexed dollar limits and correction windows are described rather than asserted.
This states what the cited authority says. It is not tax advice.
Related
The first one is the only one you may postpone: taking it by December 31 against delaying to April 1 — delaying stacks two distributions into one tax year and makes the second one larger, because the balance was never reduced before it was computed.