How Much Can You Put Into Retirement Each Year?

For 2026, you can contribute up to $24,500 of your own salary to a workplace retirement plan like a 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457(b), or the federal Thrift Savings Plan, and up to $7,500 to an IRA.¹ Those are the headline 2026 retirement contribution limits, but how much you can actually put in depends on your age, your income, whether you have a workplace plan, and whether you’re self-employed.

401(k) and Other Workplace Plan Limits

The $24,500 cap covers your own elective deferrals, whether they go in pre-tax or as designated Roth contributions. It does not include anything your employer adds through matching or profit-sharing. Those employer dollars sit under a separate, higher ceiling covered further down.

The limit is per person, not per plan. If you switch jobs in the middle of the year, or you work two jobs that each offer a 401(k), your combined personal deferrals across all of them still can’t exceed $24,500.

The IRS adjusts this ceiling each year for cost-of-living changes, rounded in $500 increments.²

IRA Limits

The $7,500 IRA limit is an aggregate figure covering traditional and Roth IRAs combined. You can split it between the two in any proportion, but the total can’t exceed $7,500. This is the first bump to the base IRA limit since 2019.

You also need earned income to contribute. Wages, salary, and self-employment profits count. Dividends, rental income, and investment gains do not. Your contribution can’t exceed what you earned for the year, so someone who earned $4,000 can contribute at most $4,000.³

A married couple filing jointly gets one useful exception. A non-working or low-earning spouse can make a full IRA contribution as long as the couple’s combined taxable compensation covers both. Each spouse can contribute up to $7,500, so a one-earner household can shelter up to $15,000 in IRAs between the two accounts.³

Catch-Up Contributions If You’re 50 or Older

If you turn 50 or older by December 31, 2026, you can contribute more than the base limits.

For workplace plans, the standard catch-up is $8,000, raising your personal ceiling to $32,500.¹ For IRAs, the catch-up is $1,100, bringing the total IRA limit to $8,600. The IRA catch-up had been fixed at $1,000 for years; SECURE 2.0 indexed it to inflation starting in 2024.⁴

Workers aged 60 through 63 get a larger catch-up under SECURE 2.0. If you fall in that four-year window during 2026, your workplace plan catch-up is $11,250 instead of $8,000, for a personal contribution limit of $35,750.¹ Once you turn 64, you drop back to the regular $8,000 catch-up.⁵

If You’re Self-Employed

Self-employed workers and small business owners have access to plans with much higher ceilings than a regular IRA.

SEP IRA: You can contribute the lesser of 25% of your compensation or $72,000 in 2026. All contributions come from the employer side, so there are no employee elective deferrals.⁶
SIMPLE IRA: Employee deferrals are capped at $17,000. The standard catch-up for age 50 and up is $4,000, and the enhanced catch-up for ages 60 through 63 is $5,250. Employers generally must either match contributions or make a flat 2% contribution for eligible employees.⁷
Solo 401(k): If you’re self-employed with no employees other than a spouse, you contribute as both employee (up to $24,500 in elective deferrals) and employer (up to 25% of compensation). The combined total from all sources can’t exceed $72,000, plus any catch-up amounts.

For a SEP or solo 401(k), compensation is net self-employment income after deducting one-half of self-employment tax. That calculation usually brings the effective contribution rate below the 25% headline figure, so run the math carefully before writing a year-end check.

Income Limits That Can Shrink Your IRA Contribution

Anyone with earned income can contribute to a traditional IRA regardless of income, but two things are income-sensitive: whether you can deduct a traditional IRA contribution, and whether you can contribute directly to a Roth IRA at all.

Roth IRA Phase-Out Ranges

Your Roth contribution shrinks and eventually disappears as modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) rises. The 2026 ranges:⁸

Single or head of household: $153,000 to $168,000
Married filing jointly: $242,000 to $252,000
Married filing separately: $0 to $10,000

Below the lower number, you can contribute the full $7,500 (or $8,600 at 50+). Between the two numbers, the allowed contribution shrinks proportionally. Above the upper number, direct Roth contributions are not available.

Traditional IRA Deduction Phase-Out Ranges

If you or your spouse is covered by a workplace retirement plan, your deduction for traditional IRA contributions also phases out. The 2026 ranges:¹

Single filer covered by a workplace plan: $81,000 to $91,000
Married filing jointly, contributor covered: $129,000 to $149,000
Married filing jointly, contributor not covered but spouse is: $242,000 to $252,000
Married filing separately, covered: $0 to $10,000

Losing the deduction doesn’t block the contribution itself. You can still make a nondeductible traditional IRA contribution; you just don’t get the upfront tax break. High earners who can’t contribute directly to a Roth sometimes make a nondeductible traditional IRA contribution and then convert it to a Roth, since there’s no income limit on conversions. If you have other pre-tax balances in any traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA, a pro-rata rule makes part of that conversion taxable. Nondeductible contributions and basis are tracked on Form 8606.⁹

The Total Cap When Employer Contributions Are Included

Beyond your personal deferral limit, there’s a broader ceiling on everything that lands in your defined contribution plan account each year, including your deferrals, employer matching, employer profit-sharing, and after-tax contributions. For 2026, that total is the lesser of 100% of your compensation or $72,000.⁸ Catch-up contributions sit on top. A worker aged 50 or older could reach $80,000, and someone aged 60 through 63 could reach $83,250.¹⁰

Only the first $360,000 of your pay counts when your employer calculates its match or profit-sharing contribution.⁸

If you work for two unrelated employers, each job carries its own $72,000 combined limit, but the $24,500 personal deferral cap still applies across both.¹¹

Government employees with access to both a 457(b) plan and a 403(b) or 401(k) get a notable advantage. The 457(b) deferral limit is tracked separately. You can defer $24,500 into each plan type, potentially sheltering $49,000 in personal deferrals before any catch-up contributions.¹¹

A New Rule for High Earners Making Catch-Up Contributions

Starting with the 2026 tax year, SECURE 2.0 changes how high earners make catch-up contributions to workplace plans. If your Social Security wages from a single employer exceeded $150,000 in the prior year, any catch-up contributions to that employer’s plan must be designated as Roth, meaning after-tax.¹² The $150,000 threshold is indexed and will adjust periodically.

This doesn’t reduce the amount you can put in. You still get the full catch-up space. You simply lose the option to make those catch-up dollars pre-tax. Workers earning below the threshold can still choose pre-tax or Roth for their catch-up, if the plan offers a Roth option. The IRS final regulations set mandatory compliance for most plans in taxable years starting after December 31, 2026, though some employers are applying the rule for 2026 under the statute’s original effective date.¹²

If You Contributed Too Much

Over-contributions happen most often when someone changes jobs or participates in multiple plans. The fix depends on the type of account, and timing matters.

For a 401(k) or similar workplace plan, if your deferrals exceed the annual limit, withdraw the excess plus any earnings by April 15 of the following year. Do that, and the withdrawn amount isn’t taxed a second time, and no 10% early distribution penalty applies to the correction.¹³ The earnings on the excess are taxable in the year you withdraw them. Miss the April 15 deadline, and the excess gets taxed twice: once when contributed and again when distributed.¹⁴

For IRAs, excess contributions trigger a 6% excise tax for every year the overage sits in the account.¹⁵ To avoid the penalty, pull the excess and attributable earnings out by the due date of your tax return, including extensions. If you already filed without correcting it, you still have a window: withdraw the money within six months of the original due date (not counting extensions) and file an amended return with “Filed pursuant to section 301.9100-2” written at the top.¹⁶ The penalty and corrections are reported on IRS Form 5329. That 6% tax compounds every year you leave it, so acting sooner costs less.

1
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 402 – Taxability of Beneficiary of Employees Trust
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 219 – Retirement Savings
5
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.414(v)-1 – Catch-Up Contributions
6
Internal Revenue Service. SEP Contribution Limits (Including Grandfathered SARSEPs)
7
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – SIMPLE IRA Contribution Limits
8
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Notice 2025-67 – 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs
9
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8606, Nondeductible IRAs
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 415 – Limitations on Benefits and Contribution Under Qualified Plans
11
Internal Revenue Service. How Much Salary Can You Defer if You’re Eligible for More Than One Retirement Plan
12
Internal Revenue Service. Treasury, IRS Issue Final Regulations on New Roth Catch-Up Rule, Other SECURE 2.0 Act Provisions
13
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – What Happens When an Employee Has Elective Deferrals in Excess of the Limits
14
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts and Annuities
16
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 – Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts