Roth IRA withdrawal rules: when each dollar can come out
Every dollar in a Roth IRA belongs to one of three layers, and the IRS takes them out in a fixed order that decides whether you owe tax or the 10 %.
10 % additional tax
$3,000
$5,000 is taxable income.
| Your contributions | $30,000 |
| 2022 conversion | $25,000 · 10 % |
| Earnings | $5,000 · 10 % · taxed |
Worked out by Radif Partners · How we calculate · figures read on irs.gov and healthcare.gov · not personal financial advice
You can withdraw from a Roth IRA at any age, and how much it costs depends on which layer the money comes from. Publication 590-B sets the order: regular contributions first, then conversions and rollovers oldest first (the taxable part of each before the rest), then earnings. Contributions were never deducted, so they come back with no tax and no 10 %. Each conversion is free of the 10 % five tax years after January 1 of the year it was made. Earnings are taxable and penalized before 59½ unless the distribution is qualified, which takes both age 59½ and five years since your first Roth contribution. Take someone of 51 with $30,000 of contributions, a 2022 and a 2024 conversion and $18,000 of earnings: $30,000 comes out free in 2026, a $60,000 withdrawal costs $3,000 of additional tax, and the 2022 layer opens in 2027. The calculator above splits any withdrawal.
The ordering rules, layer by layer
When a Roth IRA payment is not a qualified distribution, the IRS does not let you pick which dollars leave. Publication 590-B fixes the order (Publication 590-B, chapter 2): first your regular contributions; then conversion and rollover contributions on a first-in, first-out basis, starting with the earliest year and, within each, the part that was taxed at conversion before any non-taxable part; then earnings. All your Roth IRAs count as one for this purpose: distributions of the year are added together, and so are contributions.
That order is generous to early retirees. The layers that cost nothing come out first, and the earnings layer, the only one that can owe income tax as well, comes out last. Someone who never touches more than the sum of contributions and five-year-old conversions pays neither tax nor additional tax before 59½.
A withdrawal at 51, split by the engine
Take a Roth IRA opened in 2012. Over the years the owner contributed $30,000, converted $25,000 in 2022 and $20,000 in 2024, and the account earned $18,000. In 2026, at 51, the owner takes $60,000.
| Layer taken | Amount | Income tax | 10 % additional tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your contributions | $30,000 | no | no |
| 2022 conversion | $25,000 | no | yes |
| 2024 conversion | $5,000 | no | yes |
The first $30,000 is contributions. The next $25,000 is the 2022 conversion, whose five years run from January 1, 2022 to the end of 2026, so it is still inside its period. The last $5,000 reaches the 2024 conversion. Nothing is taxable as income, since conversions were taxed when made, but $30,000 is caught by the 10 %: $3,000.
Two changes remove that cost. Taking $30,000 instead uses contributions only and costs $0. Waiting until 2027 opens the 2022 layer: $55,000 that year costs $0. Emptying the account at 51, $93,000, reaches the earnings as well, and the result changes character: $18,000 becomes taxable income on top of $6,300 of additional tax. For a single filer with no other income, $18,000 of taxable earnings alone would cost about $190 of federal tax.
Split your own withdrawal
Tax and penalty on this withdrawal
$0
| Your contributions | $30,000 |
Two different five-year periods
The Roth chapter warns that the five-year period for a conversion "isn't necessarily the same" as the one for a qualified distribution. The conversion clock, one per conversion, only decides whether the 10 % applies to that conversion. The qualified-distribution clock is single: it starts on January 1 of the first tax year for which you made a contribution to any Roth IRA. A distribution is qualified when that period has passed and you are 59½, disabled, a beneficiary after the owner's death, or a first-time homebuyer within a lifetime limit of $10,000. A qualified distribution is tax free in full, earnings included.
The IRS's own illustration of the conversion clock is a February 2025 conversion made on the same day as a contribution for 2024: the conversion counts from January 1, 2025, the contribution from January 1, 2024. A contribution made before the filing deadline for that year therefore starts its clock a year earlier than a conversion made the same morning.
Exceptions that still reach the earnings layer
When a withdrawal before 59½ does reach earnings, the 10 % can still be avoided with an exception from the Roth chapter's list: disability, terminal illness, a first home, a 72(t) series of equal payments, medical expenses above 7.5 % of adjusted gross income, health insurance while unemployed, higher education, and the newer ones such as birth or adoption. Income tax on the earnings remains in those cases. Check the details on the exceptions page.
Roth earnings at 51: the cost
You keep
$16,010
| 10 % additional tax | $1,800 |
| Federal income tax | $190 |
| State income tax | $0 |
| Withheld at payout | $0 |
Reporting and record keeping
The taxable part of a non-qualified distribution is worked out on Form 8606, Part III, and an early distribution goes on Form 5329, line 1, after the recapture allocation chart of Publication 590-B has matched the withdrawal against past conversions. That chart needs the amount you converted each year, so keep every Form 8606 and every Form 1099-R that shows a conversion. Without them, proving that a withdrawal came from contributions rather than earnings becomes hard.
Roth IRAs have no minimum distributions while the owner is alive, so the money can wait. A Roth 401(k), known as a designated Roth account, is not a Roth IRA and follows the rules of its plan. For a plan that uses Roth layers as part of the years before 59½, the conversion ladder page sizes the conversions and the bridge page counts what is reachable.