Does the 10-year rule require annual RMDs?

Both, or neither, depending on one fact: whether the participant died before or on/after their Required Beginning Date.

Why this was unclear for four years

The SECURE Act replaced the lifetime stretch with a 10-year rule for most non-spouse beneficiaries in 2020. The statute said the account had to be emptied within ten years, but it did not clearly say whether distributions were required along the way.

Practitioners split. The IRS proposed regulations in February 2022 taking the position that annual RMDs were required after a post-RBD death, which surprised a large part of the industry. Final regulations issued 19 July 2024 confirmed that reading.

Many public calculators were written during that ambiguous window and never revisited. If a tool applies the 10-year rule without asking whether death was before or after the RBD, it cannot be producing the right answer for both cases.

The reasoning

The rule follows from the "at least as rapidly" principle in IRC §401(a)(9)(B)(i). Once a participant has begun taking RMDs, distributions must continue at least as rapidly after death as they were being made before it. A participant who has passed their RBD has begun; one who has not, has not. The 10-year deadline is then layered on top for a Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiary.

The transition relief

Because the industry genuinely did not know, the IRS waived the annual RMDs for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 through Notices 2022-53, 2023-54 and 2024-35. No penalty, and no requirement to make the missed years up. Enforcement effectively begins with the 2025 distribution year.

Worked example

A participant born in March 1950 reached the applicable age of 72 in 2022, so their Required Beginning Date was 1 April 2023. They died in May 2026. Their sole beneficiary is an adult child born in 1980, who is a Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiary.

Death was on or after the RBD, so the child must:

• Take an annual RMD from 2027 onward, starting with the Table I factor of 39.0 for attained age 47, reduced by one each year
• Take the participant's own 2026 RMD, to the extent it was not distributed before death
• Empty the account entirely by 31 December 2036

Had the same participant died in February 2023 — two months before their RBD — the child would owe nothing until 2036, then everything.

Which beneficiaries this applies to

The 10-year rule applies to Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiaries: adult children, grandchildren, most other individuals, and see-through trusts for them. Eligible Designated Beneficiaries take life expectancy instead, and Non-Designated Beneficiaries such as an estate or charity fall under the 5-year rule or the participant's remaining life expectancy.