Can I Roll Over a Roth IRA to Another Roth IRA?

You can roll over a Roth IRA to another Roth IRA without owing tax, provided you follow the IRS rules on timing and method. The cleanest way is a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer: your current custodian sends the money straight to the new custodian and you never touch it. An indirect rollover, where the money passes through your hands first, is allowed but comes with a 60-day deadline and a once-per-year limit that catches people who were not expecting either.

Direct Transfer or Indirect Rollover

These are the two mechanics, and they are not equivalent in risk.

In a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer, your existing custodian delivers the funds (or the actual holdings) to the receiving custodian. The IRS does not treat this as a rollover at all. There is no frequency limit and no 60-day clock to worry about.¹ For most people moving a Roth IRA between brokerages, this is the only method worth using.

In an indirect rollover, your custodian pays the distribution to you. You then have 60 days from the date you receive it to deposit the full amount into the new Roth IRA.² Miss the window and the IRS treats the entire amount as a distribution. If you are under 59½, that means income tax on any earnings plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty.³

One detail that catches people off guard: IRA distributions carry a default 10% federal tax withholding. You can elect out, but if you do not, the custodian releases only 90% of the balance to you. To complete a full rollover you still have to deposit the original amount into the new Roth IRA within 60 days, which means covering the withheld 10% from other funds and recovering it later as a tax refund.¹

The 60-Day Deadline

The statute says “not later than the 60th day” after you receive the distribution.² That is 60 calendar days, not two months. Two calendar months can be 59, 61, or 62 days depending on which months you span, so count from the day the check arrives or the wire hits your personal account, not the day the custodian mails it.

If something goes wrong and you blow the deadline, the IRS allows self-certification for a limited set of reasons. You complete the model letter in Revenue Procedure 2016-47 and give it to the financial institution receiving the late contribution. There is no fee.⁴ Qualifying reasons include:

A financial institution error by the sending or receiving custodian
A distribution check that was lost and never cashed
Depositing the funds into an account you mistakenly thought was an eligible retirement plan
Serious illness, or a death in your family, during the rollover window
Severe damage to your principal residence
Postal error or incarceration
The distributing institution delayed paperwork the receiving institution needed, despite your reasonable efforts

Self-certification is not a formal IRS waiver. The receiving institution accepts your letter and processes the late contribution, but on audit the IRS can still determine you did not actually qualify and assess tax and penalties.⁴ You also need to complete the late rollover as soon as the reason for the delay no longer applies, generally within 30 days.

The One-Rollover-Per-Year Rule

Federal law limits you to one indirect IRA rollover in any 12-month period, and the rule reaches further than most people expect. The IRS aggregates every IRA you own when applying this cap. Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs all count as a single IRA for this purpose.¹ If you did an indirect rollover from a Traditional IRA three months ago, you cannot do an indirect rollover from your Roth IRA until 12 months after that first distribution.

The consequences stack. A disqualified second rollover is included in your gross income for that tax year. Under 59½, the 10% early withdrawal penalty applies on top. And if you still deposited the money into the receiving Roth IRA, the IRS treats it as an excess contribution subject to a 6% excise tax for every year it stays in the account.¹

Direct trustee-to-trustee transfers do not count toward this limit at all. Neither do Roth conversions from a Traditional IRA.¹ This is another reason to default to direct transfers.

Your Five-Year Clock Does Not Restart

Roth IRA earnings come out tax-free only if you take a qualified distribution, which requires reaching 59½ (or another qualifying event such as disability or death) and satisfying a five-year holding period. That clock starts on January 1 of the tax year you made your first contribution to any Roth IRA.⁵

Rolling assets from one Roth IRA to another does not reset this clock. The original start date carries across all your Roth IRAs. If your first Roth IRA was opened in 2020 and you roll the balance into a brand-new Roth IRA at a different brokerage in 2026, you have already satisfied the five-year requirement in the new account.

How to Actually Move the Money

Open the new Roth IRA at the receiving institution first if it does not already exist. You will need your Social Security number, the account number of your existing Roth IRA, and the name and address of the current custodian. The receiving firm drives the paperwork; its transfer request form or online portal asks whether you want a full or partial transfer and whether assets should move in kind or be sold to cash first.

Be precise about the account type on the form. The transfer needs to be marked Roth-to-Roth. Mislabeling it can cause the receiving firm to reject the transfer or process it as a conversion that generates unnecessary tax reporting. For larger balances some institutions require a Medallion Signature Guarantee, a stamp from a participating bank or brokerage that verifies your identity. This is institution-specific, not a federal requirement, and shows up more often with inherited IRAs or account retitlings.

You generally have two options for how the investments travel. An in-kind transfer sends your actual holdings. Your shares of stock, ETFs, or bonds arrive intact, and you stay invested the whole time. The alternative is liquidation: the sending custodian sells everything to cash, moves the cash, and you buy new positions at the receiving firm. Selling inside a Roth IRA does not create tax, because gains inside the account are not taxable events, but you lose time in the market during the gap. In-kind works best when both brokerages support the same investments; proprietary funds the new firm does not offer usually have to be liquidated first.

Most digital transfers complete in five to seven business days. Paper-based requests take longer. Some custodians charge an outgoing-transfer or account-closing fee, so confirm the timeline and cost with both firms before you start. Watch both accounts during the transfer window to confirm the full balance arrives.

Reporting the Rollover on Your Tax Return

A properly executed Roth-to-Roth rollover is not taxable, but you still have to report it. Two forms show up. Your old custodian issues Form 1099-R to report the distribution; after a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer, the custodian generally does not issue a 1099-R at all.⁶ The new custodian files Form 5498 documenting the incoming rollover contribution.

On Form 1040, report the total distribution on line 4a. If you rolled the entire balance over, enter zero on line 4b and check the rollover box on line 4c.⁷ If you rolled over only part of the distribution, enter the amount you kept on line 4b; that portion may be subject to tax and penalties depending on your age and the source of the funds.⁸

Keep records of the date you received the distribution and the date you deposited it in the new account, especially for indirect rollovers. If the IRS questions whether you met the 60-day deadline, bank statements and deposit confirmations are the proof. Hold onto the 1099-R and 5498 for at least three years after filing the return that reports the rollover.

Inherited Roth IRAs Are Different

If the Roth IRA you want to move was inherited, your options narrow sharply. A surviving spouse can roll an inherited Roth IRA into their own Roth IRA and treat it as their own. A non-spouse beneficiary cannot. A non-spouse can transfer the inherited Roth IRA between custodians as a trustee-to-trustee transfer, but the account must stay titled as an inherited IRA, and most non-spouse beneficiaries must empty the account within 10 years of the original owner’s death.⁹ The ordinary Roth-to-Roth rollover rules in this article assume you own the account yourself.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Rollovers of Retirement Plan and IRA Distributions
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts
3
Internal Revenue Service. Traditional and Roth IRAs
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs Relating to Waivers of the 60-Day Rollover Requirement
5
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Designated Roth Account
6
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1040 (2025)
8
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025)
9
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary