Can I Contribute to an Inherited IRA? Spouse Rule and Alternatives

No, you cannot contribute to an inherited IRA. Federal tax law treats these accounts as vehicles for distributing a deceased person’s retirement savings to you, not as accounts you keep funding with your own earned income. The only meaningful exception is for a surviving spouse, who can roll inherited assets into a personal IRA and then resume normal contributions from there.

Why the Law Blocks New Contributions

Under 26 U.S.C. § 408(d)(3)(C), an inherited IRA cannot accept rollover contributions, and the IRS applies the same logic to new contributions generally.¹ IRS Publication 590-A states directly that if you inherit a traditional IRA from someone other than your spouse, you cannot make any contributions to it.²

The account has to stay legally tied to the original owner. That’s why it carries a title in a format like “John Doe, deceased, for the benefit of Jane Doe.” Depositing your own earned income into it would mix inherited assets with personal savings, which the tax code does not permit. The purpose of the account is to empty it on the schedule the IRS sets, not to keep growing it with fresh money.

If you add money anyway, the IRS treats it as an excess contribution and imposes a 6% excise tax for each year the money stays in the account.³ You can avoid the penalty by withdrawing the excess and any earnings it produced before your tax return for that year is due, including extensions.²

The Surviving Spouse Exception

Surviving spouses have a route no other beneficiary gets. Under 26 U.S.C. § 408(d)(3)(C), an IRA is only classified as “inherited” when the beneficiary is not the surviving spouse.¹ That means a surviving spouse can roll the assets into their own existing IRA or open a new one in their own name. Once the rollover is complete, the account follows the standard IRA rules, including the ability to make regular annual contributions.

For 2026, a surviving spouse who completes a rollover can contribute up to $7,500, or $8,600 if age 50 or older, using their own earned income.⁴ The account is no longer subject to the 10-year depletion rule that applies to most non-spouse beneficiaries, and the decedent’s name comes off entirely. Making a contribution to an inherited IRA is actually one of the ways the IRS treats a spouse as having elected to make the account their own.²

Think Twice if You Are Under 59½

If you are a surviving spouse younger than 59½ and might need the money, rolling the inherited IRA into your own account isn’t automatically the right call. Once the funds sit in your personal IRA, withdrawals before age 59½ are generally subject to a 10% early withdrawal penalty on top of regular income tax. Distributions from an account kept as an inherited IRA are not subject to that 10% penalty, even if you are under 59½. A younger surviving spouse who expects to draw on the funds for living expenses may want to leave the account in its inherited form for now and roll the remaining balance into a personal IRA after turning 59½.

What You Can Do Instead

The contribution door is closed for non-spouse beneficiaries, but a few useful moves are still open.

Move the Account to a Different Institution

You cannot add money, but you can move an inherited IRA from one custodian to another through a trustee-to-trustee transfer. The funds go directly between institutions without ever passing through your hands, and the IRS has confirmed that this kind of direct transfer is not a taxable distribution or a rollover.⁵

Do not let the custodian send you a check. Non-spouse beneficiaries are not permitted to complete 60-day rollovers with inherited IRA assets.¹ If you receive the funds directly, the IRS treats the full amount as a taxable distribution, and you cannot redeposit it into a new inherited IRA. Confirm in writing with both firms that the transfer will move custodian to custodian.

Throughout the transfer, the account must keep its inherited titling with both the decedent’s name and yours. The new custodian should preserve the original account-opening date so that time-based rules, like the five-year rule for an inherited Roth, remain intact.⁶ Check the fee schedules at both institutions first; outgoing transfer fees are common.

Take a Distribution and Fund Your Own IRA

You can take a distribution from the inherited IRA and then contribute some of that cash to your own personal IRA, provided you have enough earned income to support the contribution. These are two separate transactions. The distribution comes out of the inherited IRA and is reported on Form 1099-R, and your personal contribution goes into your own IRA under the usual rules.⁷

Distributions from a traditional inherited IRA are generally taxable as ordinary income in the year you receive them. Distributions from an inherited Roth IRA are typically tax-free, though earnings may be taxable if the Roth was less than five years old when the original owner died.⁶

Receiving an inheritance does not raise the contribution limit on your own accounts. For 2026, you can still contribute only up to $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older, across all of your personal traditional and Roth IRAs combined, and only if you have at least that much in taxable compensation.⁴

One tax caution: a large distribution from a traditional inherited IRA can push you into a higher bracket for the year. Spreading distributions across several years, within whatever timeframe applies to your account, can help contain the tax bill.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
5
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Private Letter Ruling 201128036
6
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)