Roth IRA income limits

Below the start of your range you can contribute the full amount. Inside it, your limit is reduced on a sliding scale. Above the end of it, direct contributions are not allowed.

The married filing separately range is unusual and worth reading twice: it runs from $0 to $10,000, so almost anyone using that status is excluded. The exception is a couple who lived apart for the entire year, who are treated as single.

You are not cut off the moment you enter the range. Your limit falls in proportion to how far into it you are.

A single filer with modified AGI of $160,500 is $7,500 into a $15,000 range, so exactly halfway. Their limit is roughly half of $7,500, or about $3,750. Land at $166,000 and the allowance is down to a few hundred dollars. The IRS worksheet in Publication 590-A does the arithmetic precisely, and providers round to the nearest $10 with a $200 floor for anyone still inside the range.

The test uses modified adjusted gross income. You begin with adjusted gross income, which is already lower than gross pay, then add back a short list of items including the student loan interest deduction and foreign earned income exclusions.

The practical consequence is that some deductions pull you back under the threshold. Pre-tax 401(k) contributions reduce AGI, and so do HSA contributions and deductible self-employed retirement contributions. Someone with a $170,000 salary who defers $24,500 into a workplace plan may well land under $153,000 and qualify for a full Roth contribution.

Roth 401(k) contributions do not have this effect, because they are made with after-tax money and do not reduce AGI.

A Roth 401(k), if your employer offers one. No income limit at all, and the 2026 limit is $24,500, more than three times the IRA limit. For most high earners this is the simplest answer and it is frequently overlooked.

A backdoor Roth. Contribute to a Traditional IRA, which has no income limit on contributions, then convert it to a Roth. Conversions have no income cap. The complication is the pro-rata rule: if you hold other pre-tax IRA money, the conversion is taxed proportionally across all of it rather than just the new contribution, which can produce an unexpected bill.

A taxable brokerage account. No limits, no lockup, and full flexibility, at the cost of paying tax on dividends and realized gains along the way.

Checking your income at the wrong time. Eligibility depends on your income for the whole tax year, which you do not know in January. A bonus or a good year of self-employment can push you over after you have already contributed. If that happens, recharacterize or withdraw the contribution before your filing deadline.

Assuming the limits apply to conversions. They do not. There is no income limit on converting a Traditional IRA to a Roth, at any income.

Take a single filer under 50 with modified AGI of $158,000 in 2026. The phase-out range is $153,000 to $168,000, so $15,000 wide, and they are $5,000 into it.

That is one third of the way through, so roughly one third of the allowance is removed. Two thirds of $7,500 is about $5,000, which is their reduced limit for the year. Contribute the full $7,500 and $2,500 of it is an excess contribution earning a 6% penalty for every year it stays.

The same person could contribute the full amount by reducing modified AGI below $153,000, and a $5,000 increase in pre-tax 401(k) deferrals would do it. That is the practical lever: the threshold is not fixed relative to your salary, it is measured against a number you have some control over.

Starting from adjusted gross income, the add-backs that matter most often are the student loan interest deduction, the foreign earned income and housing exclusions, and any Traditional IRA deduction you claimed.

The one that surprises people is the Traditional IRA deduction. Deducting a Traditional IRA contribution does not help you qualify for a Roth, because it is added straight back for this test. Pre-tax workplace deferrals are treated differently and do reduce the figure, which is why the 401(k) is the effective lever and the IRA is not.

This is common and fixable. You contribute in January expecting to stay under the threshold, then a bonus, a raise or a strong self-employed year pushes you over. The contribution is now partly or wholly an excess.

Recharacterize it. Instruct your provider to move the contribution, plus the earnings it generated, to a Traditional IRA. It is then treated as though it had gone there in the first place. Traditional contributions have no income limit, so this always works, and from there a conversion back to Roth is available if you want it.

Withdraw it. Take out the excess plus its earnings before your filing deadline. The earnings are taxable in the year they were earned, but the 6% penalty is avoided entirely.

Apply it forward. Leave it and count it toward next year, accepting the 6% penalty for the one year it sat there as excess. This only makes sense if you expect to be under the threshold next year and the amount is small.

The deadline for the first two is your tax filing date, including extensions if you filed one. Miss it and the 6% applies again for every further year the money stays put, which is what turns a small mistake into a compounding one.

Phase-out ranges are from IRS Notice 2025-67. The modified AGI definition and the reduction worksheet are in IRS Publication 590-A. Walnut is informational and is not an investment adviser. This guide is educational and not personalized tax or investment advice; anything with a tax consequence is worth confirming with a tax professional.