RMD Before Roth Conversion: Take the Required Amount Out First.
An RMD cannot be converted to a Roth IRA. In 2026, the required amount must leave the traditional IRA first; only the dollars above it can move to Roth, even in the year the first RMD is due.
A 74-year-old asks her custodian to convert $80,000 from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in January. Her 2025 year-end balance was $510,000, and nobody has taken the 2026 required minimum distribution. The custodian can move the money, but the tax law does not treat all $80,000 as a conversion. The RMD before Roth conversion rule makes the first $20,000 an ineligible rollover, not Roth money.
RMD before Roth conversion is a rollover rule, not a preference.
A Roth conversion is legally a distribution from the traditional IRA followed by a rollover contribution to the Roth. IRC §408A allows the conversion, but rollover rules still decide which dollars are eligible. IRS Publication 590-B says required minimum distributions for a particular year are not eligible for rollover treatment. Publication 590-A makes the consequence explicit: you cannot convert the amount that must be distributed from the traditional IRA for that year, including the calendar year in which you reach age 73.
Practitioners call this the first-dollars-out rule. Until the 2026 RMD is satisfied, the first distributions from the account are allocated to it. Labeling an earlier transfer "conversion" on the custodian form does not reverse that order. If $20,000 is required and $80,000 moves directly to Roth before any cash comes out, $20,000 is an ineligible rollover contribution. It needs correction rather than a nicer description on Form 8606.
- Traditional IRA balance on December 31, 2025
- $510,000
- 2026 age
- 74
- IRS Uniform Lifetime Table denominator at age 74
- 25.5
- 2026 RMD ($510,000 ÷ 25.5)
- $20,000
- Additional amount converted to Roth
- $80,000
- Total 2026 gross income if the IRA is all pre-tax
- $100,000
Tax year 2026. Assumes Table III applies, the spouse is not more than ten years younger and sole beneficiary, there is no after-tax IRA basis, and no qualified charitable distribution satisfies part of the RMD.
The prior December 31 balance supplies the starting number.
For most IRA owners, the 2026 RMD is the December 31, 2025 account balance divided by the life-expectancy denominator in the IRS table. Table III gives 25.5 at age 74, so $510,000 divided by 25.5 is exactly $20,000. A spouse who is more than ten years younger and the sole beneficiary uses Table II instead. The calculation is account-specific, although RMDs from multiple traditional IRAs can generally be aggregated and withdrawn from one of those IRAs. Employer plans follow separate aggregation rules.
The IRS RMD guide sets age 73 as the current general starting age. The first IRA RMD can be delayed until April 1 of the following year, but that does not make the amount convertible in the year it belongs to. Deferring also puts the first and second RMD into the following calendar year. That can push more income into one bracket, increase Medicare premiums two years later, and shrink the useful conversion window.
Use two instructions and keep the confirmations.
First instruct the custodian to distribute the full 2026 RMD to the owner or directly to charity as a qualified charitable distribution when the separate QCD rules fit. Federal or state withholding taken from a cash RMD counts as money distributed, although the withholding itself goes to the government. Once the RMD is complete, submit a separate Roth conversion for the chosen amount. Keeping two confirmations makes the tax reporting much easier to defend than one blended year-end transaction.
The custodian generally reports the traditional IRA distributions on Form 1099-R and the Roth conversion contribution on Form 5498. Form 8606 Part II calculates the taxable conversion, especially when any traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA contains after-tax basis. The backdoor Roth pro-rata rule still applies to conversion taxation. Being over age 73 changes the RMD order, not the rule that all non-Roth IRAs share the pro-rata calculation.
An RMD moved to Roth needs correction, not recharacterization.
Roth conversions made after 2017 cannot be recharacterized back to a traditional IRA. If an ineligible RMD amount lands in the Roth, contact the custodian promptly about a return of excess contribution with attributable earnings. The reporting depends on the timing and the custodian's correction. Leaving the excess in place can create a 6% excise tax under IRC §4973 for each year it remains. This is one of the few retirement-account mistakes where waiting for the tax return makes the fix worse.
After the RMD is clean, decide whether the additional conversion is useful. The right number fills a chosen federal bracket without creating more tax than the future RMDs are likely to cost. It should also account for Social Security taxation, the 3.8% NIIT threshold, state tax, and Medicare income-related surcharges. The fact that $80,000 is eligible to convert does not mean $80,000 is the smart number.
Finish the Roth conversion by December 31, 2026. The RMD is also due then unless the special first-RMD deadline applies. Custodian processing cutoffs are often earlier, so a December 31 instruction can arrive on time and still settle in 2027.
