In what order do Roth IRA withdrawals come out?

The order, as printed

When you receive a distribution from your Roth IRA that is not a qualified distribution, part of it may be taxable. Publication 590-B (2025) says there is a set order in which contributions and earnings are considered distributed, and it disregards withdrawals of excess contributions and their earnings. The order is: (1) regular contributions; (2) conversion and rollover contributions, first-in first-out, which generally means the earliest year first, taking the taxable portion (the amount that had to be included in gross income because of the conversion or rollover) before the nontaxable portion; (3) earnings on contributions. Rollovers from other Roth IRAs are disregarded for this purpose.

Aggregation: it is all one pot

The publication tells you to group and add. All distributions from all of your Roth IRAs during the year are added together. All regular contributions made for the year, including contributions made after year end but before the return due date, are added to the total undistributed regular contributions from prior years. All conversion and rollover contributions made during the year are added together. The result is that you cannot isolate one Roth IRA to hold your contributions and another to hold earnings and then withdraw selectively: the IRS treats them as a single account for this test. Recharacterized contributions that end up in a Roth IRA are added to the group for the year the original contribution would have been taken into account, and recharacterizations that end up in a different type of IRA are disregarded.

The Amelia example

On October 15, 2021, Amelia converted all $80,000 of her traditional IRA to her Roth IRA; her Forms 8606 show $20,000 of that was basis, so she included $60,000 in income. On February 23, 2025 she made a $5,000 regular contribution, and on November 8, 2025, at age 60, she took a $7,000 distribution. The first $5,000 is a return of her regular contribution and not taxed. The next $2,000 comes from the conversion’s taxable part and is not included in income because it was already included in 2021. Try it: enter 5,000 for contributions, 60,000 for the taxable conversion, 20,000 for the nontaxable conversion and a 7,000 withdrawal.

Where the 10% tax lands

Under 59½, with no exception, the 10% additional tax applies to the taxable part of a non-qualified distribution, which in practice means earnings, plus the portion of a distribution attributable to the taxable part of a conversion or rollover that is still within its separate 5-year period (the recapture amount). Regular contributions never trigger it. Conversion amounts you already paid income tax on can still trigger the 10% tax if you take them out early, which surprises people who expect the tax to have been settled at conversion. The calculator uses your checkboxes for the under-59½, conversion-window and exception facts.

Reporting the split

If you had an early distribution from your Roth IRAs, the publication instructs you to allocate it with the Recapture Amount Allocation Chart in Appendix C. The amounts go to Form 5329, line 1, and to line 2 with exception number 09 for any amount allocated to Form 8606, line 20. Form 8606, Part III, figures the taxable part. Our guides on withdrawing contributions and the 5-year rule cover the two halves of this puzzle.

Second example: a first-home withdrawal

The publication also shows Ishmael, who opened a Roth IRA in 2000 and converted $10,000 in 2005 and rolled over $20,000 from an employer plan in 2016. His balance on January 1, 2025 was $105,000: $50,000 of contributions, the $10,000 conversion, the $20,000 rollover and $25,000 of earnings. In August 2025 he took an $85,500 early distribution for a first-home down payment after adding a $5,500 contribution. His chart allocation left $20,000 on Form 5329, line 1, and $10,000 on line 2 with exception 09 for the part not subject to the 10% tax. The lesson is that big accounts make the chart necessary; the calculator here is for building intuition on a single set of buckets.

Sources

• IRS Publication 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) (2025): Roth IRAs: Ordering Rules for Distributions; Aggregation rules; Amelia and Ishmael examples; Figuring your recapture amount; Additional Tax on Early Distributions. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: Publication 590-B (2025), for use in preparing 2025 returns. Dollar limits and dates in this publication are for 2025; check the current publication and form instructions for your tax year. This page summarizes the publication and does not replace it.