Can I Contribute to an IRA After Retirement: 2026 Limits and RMDs

You can keep contributing to an IRA after retirement, at any age, as long as you or your spouse had taxable compensation from work during the year. The IRS doesn’t care whether you consider yourself retired. What it cares about is whether money came in from a job, self-employment, or another qualifying source. For 2026, the ceiling is $7,500, or $8,600 if you’re 50 or older, and your contribution can never exceed what you actually earned.¹

What Counts as Earned Income

Qualifying compensation, per IRS Publication 590-A, means wages, salaries, tips, commissions, bonuses, and net self-employment earnings.² A retiree who picks up consulting, teaches part-time, freelances, or drives a few shifts a week has income that counts.

Two less obvious sources also qualify. Taxable alimony from a divorce decree executed on or before December 31, 2018, counts (alimony under later agreements does not). Nontaxable combat pay for members of the Armed Forces counts too, even though it’s excluded from gross income.³

The income that does not count is where most retirees hit the wall. Social Security benefits, pensions, annuity payments, deferred compensation, interest, dividends, capital gains, and rental income all fail the test.² A retiree living entirely on those sources cannot contribute in their own name. Doing it anyway triggers a 6% excise tax on the excess each year it stays in the account.⁴

No Age Limit Anymore

Before 2020, the tax code barred anyone over age 70½ from contributing to a traditional IRA. The SECURE Act of 2019 removed that cap entirely.⁵ Anyone with earned income can now contribute to a traditional IRA at any age.⁶ Roth IRAs never had an age cap, so nothing changed on that side.

How Much You Can Put In for 2026

The 2026 limit is $7,500, plus a $1,100 catch-up for anyone 50 or older, for a total of $8,600.¹ Your contribution cannot exceed your taxable compensation. If you earned $5,000 from part-time work, $5,000 is your ceiling for the year.⁶

Traditional IRA Deduction Phase-Outs

You can contribute to a traditional IRA at any income level. Whether you can deduct that contribution is a separate question. If neither you nor your spouse is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the deduction is unlimited. If either of you is covered, it phases out based on modified adjusted gross income. For 2026:¹

Single filer covered by a workplace plan: $81,000 to $91,000
Married filing jointly, contributor covered by a workplace plan: $129,000 to $149,000
Married filing jointly, contributor not covered but spouse is: $242,000 to $252,000

Income below the low end means a full deduction. Income above the high end means none. In between, the deduction shrinks proportionally. A retiree working part-time at a company that offers a 401(k) is considered “covered” even if they never contributed a dollar to that plan. Eligibility alone triggers the phase-out.

Roth IRA Income Phase-Outs

Roth income limits work differently. They don’t affect a deduction; they determine whether you can contribute at all. For 2026:¹

Single or head of household: $153,000 to $168,000
Married filing jointly: $242,000 to $252,000

Below the low end, you can make a full Roth contribution. Above the high end, you’re shut out. Most retirees earning part-time income sit well under these ceilings.

Traditional or Roth After Retirement

A traditional IRA contribution gives you a deduction now if you qualify, and withdrawals later are taxed as ordinary income. A Roth gives you no deduction today, but qualified withdrawals come out tax-free, and Roth IRAs are exempt from required minimum distributions during your lifetime.

For a retiree earning modest part-time income, the Roth often wins. If you’re already in the 12% bracket living mostly on Social Security, the deduction from a traditional contribution isn’t worth much, and the Roth lets the money grow tax-free without forcing distributions at any age. That flexibility matters if you’re building a tax-free reserve or planning to leave money to heirs.

A retiree with higher consulting or self-employment income who qualifies for the full traditional deduction might prefer the upfront break, especially if they expect to be in a lower bracket when they withdraw. There’s no universally right answer; the lower your current tax rate, the more the Roth tends to make sense.

Watch for one trap. If your income is too high to deduct a traditional contribution and also too high for a Roth, you’d be making a non-deductible traditional contribution. You get no upfront break, and the earnings still get taxed when you withdraw. In that narrow band, think carefully about whether contributing is worth the added complexity.

If You Have No Earned Income but Your Spouse Does

A retiree with no earned income of their own isn’t necessarily shut out. Under the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA rules, a non-working spouse can make a full IRA contribution based on the working spouse’s earnings. The couple must file jointly, and the working spouse’s compensation has to be large enough to cover both contributions.⁶

For 2026, a married couple where both spouses are 50 or older could contribute up to $8,600 each, or $17,200 combined across their two accounts.² The money goes into separate accounts. There’s no such thing as a joint IRA. If the working spouse’s compensation doesn’t cover the total, the overage is subject to the 6% excess contribution penalty.⁴

Contributing While You’re Taking RMDs

Once you reach age 73, you must start taking required minimum distributions from your traditional IRA each year.⁷ Under SECURE 2.0, that age is scheduled to increase to 75 starting in 2033.

You can absolutely make a new IRA contribution in the same year you take an RMD. Nothing prevents it, as long as you have qualifying earned income. What you can’t do is use the RMD money to fund the contribution. An RMD cannot be rolled back into a tax-deferred account.⁸ You need separate earned income or other available cash to fund the new contribution while still meeting the withdrawal requirement.

The Deadline and Fixing an Overcontribution

You don’t have to contribute during the calendar year the contribution applies to. For the 2026 tax year, you have until April 15, 2027, to deposit the money and have it count for 2026.⁶ That window helps retirees who aren’t sure until tax time whether their part-time income qualifies them to contribute.

If you put in too much, the 6% excise tax applies to the excess every year it stays in the account. To avoid the penalty, withdraw the excess plus any earnings on it by the due date of your return, including extensions.⁹ The withdrawn earnings become taxable income for the year.

Track Non-Deductible Contributions on Form 8606

If you contribute to a traditional IRA but can’t deduct it (because your income exceeds the phase-out or you simply choose not to), file IRS Form 8606 with your return for that year.¹⁰ The form tracks your basis: the after-tax dollars you put in that shouldn’t be taxed again on withdrawal.

Skipping it is a common and expensive mistake. Without it, the IRS has no record that you already paid tax on those contributions, and you can end up paying tax on the same money twice. The direct penalty for failing to file when required is $50, but the real cost is losing track of basis over years of contributions. Keep copies of every Form 8606 you file. You’ll need the running total when you start taking withdrawals.

1
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Publication 590-A (PDF)
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts
5
Democrats – House Ways and Means Committee. Summary of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019
6
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
7
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
8
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
9
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 (2025) – Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts
10
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8606