Roth IRA Contribution Limits

For the 2026 tax year, the Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,500 for anyone under age 50. If you are 50 or older by the end of the year, you can add a catch-up contribution of $1,100, bringing your total to $8,600. The catch-up exists to let people closer to retirement save a bit more in their final working years. Both figures rose from 2025, when the base limit was $7,000 and the catch-up was $1,000, reflecting the IRS inflation adjustments announced in Notice 2025-67.

One more rule sits underneath the dollar cap: you can only contribute up to the amount of earned income you had for the year. If you earned $4,000 from work, your contribution is capped at $4,000 even though the limit is $7,500. Earned income means wages, salary, or self-employment income, not investment gains, interest, or Social Security. For most working savers the dollar limit is the binding constraint, but it matters for part-time workers, students, and retirees with little earned income.

Unlike a traditional IRA or a 401(k), a Roth IRA has an income ceiling on who can contribute directly. The IRS uses modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and eligibility does not switch off all at once. Instead it phases out across a range: below the bottom of the range you can contribute the full amount, inside the range your allowed contribution shrinks proportionally, and at or above the top of the range you cannot contribute to a Roth IRA directly at all.

For 2026, single and head-of-household filers can contribute the full amount below $153,000 of MAGI, a reduced amount from $153,000 to $168,000, and nothing at $168,000 or above. For married couples filing jointly, the full amount is allowed below $242,000, a reduced amount from $242,000 to $252,000, and nothing at $252,000 or above. A special, much lower range applies to married filing separately if you lived with your spouse at any point in the year: contributions phase out from $0 to $10,000, so almost any income closes the door. These are 2026 figures and change yearly; confirm the current numbers with the IRS.

A common misconception is that the limit applies to each account separately. It does not. The annual cap is a single shared ceiling across all of your IRAs. In 2026 you can put $7,500 ($8,600 if you are 50 or older) into a Roth, into a traditional IRA, or split it between the two, but the combined total across both cannot exceed that number. Opening a second or third IRA does not give you more room.

The choice between traditional and Roth is mostly about taxes now versus taxes later. Traditional IRA contributions may be deductible today and are taxed when you withdraw in retirement; Roth contributions are made with after-tax money and qualified withdrawals come out tax-free. Where you land depends on your current tax rate versus your expected rate in retirement, a judgment call that is genuinely personal. Walnut is not a tax advisor and this is not tax advice; our Roth IRA explained guide covers the trade-off in more detail.

If your income sits above the phase-out range, you are shut out of contributing to a Roth IRA directly, but not necessarily out of a Roth altogether. The widely used workaround is the backdoor Roth: you contribute to a traditional IRA, which has no income limit on contributions, and then convert that balance to a Roth IRA. Roth conversions have no income ceiling, so this two-step path is how many higher earners still get money into a Roth.

The backdoor Roth has real tax wrinkles, most notably the pro-rata rule, which can make the conversion partly taxable if you hold other pre-tax IRA money. It is a strategy where the details determine whether it works cleanly, so it is worth understanding fully or checking with a tax professional before you do it. Our backdoor Roth explained guide walks through the mechanics. Walnut is not a tax advisor; this is informational, not tax advice.

Normally you need earned income to contribute to an IRA, which would leave a stay-at-home or non-earning spouse unable to save. The spousal IRA is the exception. If you are married and file jointly, the working spouse's earned income can fund an IRA in the non-working spouse's name, as long as the couple's total earned income covers both contributions.

Each spouse has their own separate limit, so for 2026 a couple can contribute up to $7,500 each (or $8,600 each if 50 or older), for as much as $15,000 to $17,200 between them, into two separate accounts. The Roth income phase-out for a couple using spousal IRAs is the married-filing-jointly range above. The spousal IRA is simply a regular IRA owned by the non-earning spouse; it is not a joint account, and it belongs to that spouse.

Putting in more than you are allowed, whether by exceeding the dollar limit or by contributing when your income was too high, triggers a penalty. The IRS charges a 6% excise tax on the excess amount for every year it stays in the account. Because that penalty repeats annually until you fix it, an uncorrected over-contribution can compound into a meaningful cost over time.

The fix is straightforward if you act in time. You can withdraw the excess contribution, along with any earnings it generated, before your tax filing deadline (including extensions) to avoid the 6% penalty for that year. Another option in some cases is to apply the excess to a future year's contribution. Because income can be hard to predict, people who contribute early in the year and end up over the limit are a common case, which is why some savers wait until they know their income before funding a Roth. Verify the current correction rules with the IRS.

Below the bottom of your range you can contribute the full limit; inside the range your allowed contribution is reduced; at or above the top you cannot contribute directly. These figures are for the 2026 tax year and are adjusted for inflation each year, so confirm the current numbers on retirement account limits and on IRS.gov before you contribute. Walnut is informational and is not a financial or tax advisor.

Walnut does not open IRAs, calculate your MAGI, or give tax advice. What it does is connect to the brokerage where your retirement and taxable accounts already live, through SnapTrade, so you can see what you own in plain language and ask questions about it. It is read-only by default, and you approve any trade. The contribution and income limits on this page come from the IRS, and decisions about how much to contribute or which account to use are between you, your tax situation, and a qualified professional.

Once an account is connected, you can ask, through Claude, ChatGPT, or a built-in assistant, how your holdings are doing, where they overlap, and how each position tracks against the S&P 500. That helps with the investing side of a Roth IRA, what to hold inside it, separately from the contribution rules covered here. Walnut is not a financial or tax advisor; this is not tax advice.

For 2026, the Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older, and it is shared across your traditional and Roth IRAs combined. Eligibility phases out by income: $153,000 to $168,000 for single filers and $242,000 to $252,000 for married filing jointly, with a tiny $0 to $10,000 range for married filing separately if you lived with your spouse. Earn above your range and the backdoor Roth is the common path in; have a non-earning spouse and a spousal IRA lets you fund a second account; over-contribute and the 6% annual excise tax applies until you correct it.

These numbers apply to the 2026 tax year and change yearly with inflation. Treat everything here as educational background, not a plan for your specific situation. Walnut is informational and is not a financial or tax advisor, and nothing on this page is tax advice. Confirm the current limits and rules on IRS.gov, and consult a qualified tax professional before you contribute or convert.