How Much Should I Convert to Roth Each Year Before RMDs Hit? A Gap-Years Game Plan

You are 66. You stopped working last year, you have not turned on Social Security yet, and you are not old enough for required minimum distributions. For the first time in decades your taxable income is low — and you are sitting on a seven-figure traditional IRA that is going to come due eventually. The instinct is right: these quiet “gap years” are the window to convert traditional money to Roth at a low tax cost. The only real question is how much to convert to Roth before RMDs hit — enough to make a dent, but not so much that you trip one of the stealth costs that bite higher-income retirees.

There is no single magic number, but there is a method. Let me give you the short version, then the mechanics.

How much should I convert each year before RMDs hit?

The working answer most years: convert enough to “fill up” your current low tax bracket to its ceiling, and stop before the conversion income spills over the next cliff that costs you — Medicare premiums, a Social Security tax jump, or an ACA subsidy if you are not yet 65.

In practice that means picking a target bracket — usually the 22% or 24% bracket while your other income is low — and converting just enough to reach the top of it. You are deliberately paying tax now, at a known rate, on money that would otherwise come out later as a forced distribution at a rate you do not control. The number changes every year because your other income changes, the brackets adjust for inflation, and the ceilings move. So it is a yearly calculation, not a set-and-forget figure.

What is the RMD I am trying to get ahead of?

A required minimum distribution is the amount the IRS forces you to pull out of your traditional retirement accounts every year once you reach a certain age, whether you need the money or not. Under IRC § 401(a)(9), as amended by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, that age is now 73 if you were born between 1951 and 1959, and 75 if you were born in 1960 or later.

The amount is your prior-year-end balance divided by a life-expectancy factor from the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table. At 73 that divisor is 26.5, so the first RMD is roughly 3.8% of the balance — and the percentage climbs every year after. Here is why that matters: the RMD is calculated off the balance you let grow. A $1,000,000 traditional IRA throws off a first RMD of about $37,700. Left to compound untouched into your 70s, a large balance can produce RMDs that, stacked on top of Social Security and a pension, push you into a higher bracket for the rest of your life — and drag taxable Social Security and Medicare premiums up with them. Converting in the gap years is a controlled burn: you shrink the balance now, on your terms, so the forced distribution later is smaller.

One thing the conversion buys you directly: Roth IRAs have no required minimum distributions during the original owner’s lifetime (IRC § 408A(c)(4)). Every dollar you move to Roth is a dollar that never generates an RMD for you. That is the whole point.

How do I find my number?

Work it in this order, every year, because both your income and the brackets move.

• Estimate your taxable income for the year before any conversion — interest, dividends, capital gains, any pension, and the taxable part of Social Security if it has started — then subtract your standard deduction. For 2026 the standard deduction is $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly and $16,100 for a single filer, with an extra age-65 addition on top, plus the temporary senior deduction created by the 2025 law.
• Pick your target bracket ceiling. For 2026, the 22% bracket runs up to $211,400 of taxable income for a married couple ($105,700 single), and the 24% bracket runs up to $403,550 ($201,775 single).
• Subtract your pre-conversion taxable income from that ceiling. What is left is roughly how much you can convert and stay inside that bracket.
• Then check it against the ceilings in the next section — because the tax bracket is usually not the first thing you hit.
• Pay the tax from outside cash, not from the IRA. Using taxable-account money to cover the conversion tax keeps the full converted amount growing inside the Roth, which is what makes the whole exercise worth it.

A note on the 2026 brackets themselves: the rates people spent years expecting to rise after 2025 did not. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July 2025, made the 10/12/22/24/32/35/37% structure permanent. So you are not racing a sunset — but you are still racing your own RMDs and the bracket compression that comes with them.

Use the planner below to see both halves: the RMD you are heading toward if you convert nothing, and the room you have to convert into your bracket this year.

What caps my conversion before the bracket does?

This is where the “fill the bracket” rule meets reality. Several means-tested thresholds key off your income, and you usually hit one of them well before the top of the 24% bracket. Each one can be the real ceiling on how much you should convert.

• Medicare IRMAA. Once you are 63 or older, a conversion can raise the income-related surcharge on your Part B and Part D premiums two years later, and it is a cliff — one dollar over a threshold jumps the whole premium. This is often the binding constraint for the gap-years converter, and it deserves its own look: see whether a Roth conversion will spike your Medicare (IRMAA) premiums.
• The Social Security tax torpedo. If you have started benefits, conversion income can push more of your Social Security into the taxable column — up to 85% of benefits can become taxable under IRC § 86 — which quietly raises your effective rate above the bracket you think you are in.
• The ACA subsidy cliff, if you are under 65 and on a marketplace plan. A conversion that crosses the income limit can cost you the entire premium tax credit. We walk through that line in how much you can convert without losing your ACA subsidy.
• The 3.8% net investment income tax. The conversion is not itself investment income, but the higher income it creates can pull your dividends and capital gains into the § 1411 surtax.

The practical move is to find the lowest of these ceilings for your situation and convert up to it — not to the top of the tax bracket on autopilot.

Why converting more now can protect the surviving spouse

Here is the cost most couples never price in. When one spouse dies, the survivor usually files as single the following year. The standard deduction roughly halves and the brackets compress hard — an income that sat comfortably in the 22% bracket as a couple can land in the 24% or 32% bracket for the survivor on the same dollars. Layer the deceased spouse’s Social Security and the still-required RMDs on top, and the survivor can face a materially higher tax rate for the rest of their life.

That is a direct argument for converting more aggressively while both spouses are alive and the wider joint brackets are available. You are not just smoothing your own RMDs — you are moving money into the tax-free Roth bucket before the survivor gets pushed into single brackets they cannot escape. For couples with a large traditional balance and a meaningful age or health gap, this often justifies converting well past the “comfortable” amount.

When should I convert less — or not at all?

Filling a bracket is not always the right move, and a blunt “convert the maximum” can cost you. Convert less when:

• Your traditional balance is modest. If your future RMDs would land you in the same bracket you are in now, you are paying tax early for no rate advantage. The conversion only wins if you are moving money from a higher future rate to a lower current one.
• You are charitably inclined. Once you reach 70½ you can send money straight from an IRA to charity through a qualified charitable distribution, which satisfies RMDs without ever hitting your income. If a big slice of your IRA is destined for charity anyway, converting it first just prepays tax the charity would never have owed.
• Your heirs are in low brackets. If the people inheriting the account will pay less tax on it than you would to convert, leaving it traditional can be the cheaper answer.

The deciding question is always the same one we use when weighing a conversion at all in Roth vs. Traditional IRA: is your tax rate today lower than the rate this money will face later? If yes, fill the bracket up to the first ceiling. If no, leave it alone.

Next steps

The gap years between retirement and RMDs are the best conversion window most people ever get, and the job is to use them on purpose: project the RMDs you are heading toward, pick a target bracket, convert up to the lowest ceiling that applies to you, pay the tax from outside cash, and reconvert the plan every year as the numbers move. Done well, you trade a known tax bill now for a much larger forced one later — and you protect a surviving spouse from the single-bracket squeeze.

If you want someone to build the year-by-year numbers — your RMD trajectory, your bracket room, and the IRMAA and Social Security ceilings that cap it — book a meeting with our office here. It is the core of the work we do on Roth conversion and backdoor Roth tax planning.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or financial advice. Retirement and tax rules are fact-specific and change. Always consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.