Before you speak with your financial advisor about withdrawing your Roth IRA, you need to understand about the penalties associated with early withdrawal.  Most often, you’re going to have to pay, at least, a 10% Roth IRA withdrawal penalty on any gains that the account has made if you plan to withdrawal before the age of 59 ½.  If you are still set on pulling funds from the account before you are 59 1/2, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve paid into the IRA for at least 5 years, to ensure that you lessen the chances of any penalties or fees.

Any distributions that you’re attempted to receive from the IRA before your age 59 ½ will be considered an early withdrawal, and subject to the 10% penalties, and early withdrawal fees.  However, the fees are only applied to the gains that have accrued from the account, rather than your original contribution.  This means that if you want to withdrawal any funds, without paying the penalties and fees, but are still quite a ways off of your 59th birthday, then you can still pull the total amount of capital you’ve put into the account without having to face the extra expense.  Once you start withdrawing funds that were accrued through investment gains, you begin paying the 10% penalty.

If you are at, or have surpassed your 59th birthday, and are ready to withdrawal the entire account, then you are going to want to make sure that you have paid in for at least 5 years.  Once you’ve made 5 years of contributions to your IRA, you’ll be qualified to withdrawal without facing penalties, fees, and taxes.  You can still withdraw your original contributions tax-free and penalty-free, but the investment gains are going to be heavily taxed.  Your penalties will usually ring to the tune of around 30%-40% before all is said, and finalized.

If you are able to hold off until your 59th birthday, you are going to be in a much better position as far as early withdrawal fees and penalties.  However, even then, you need to make sure that you’ve paid into the Roth IRA for at least 5 years, to ensure that you can withdraw the entire account tax-free and penalty-free.  Outside of these two conditions, you’ll need to expect to give up between 25% and 40% for your Roth IRA withdrawal penalty and taxes, rather than allowing it to continually grow.