What Is a 5498 Tax Form Used For: Boxes, FMV, and RMDs

Form 5498 is an informational tax form your IRA custodian files with the IRS each year, with a copy sent to you, reporting the contributions, rollovers, conversions, and year-end value of your individual retirement account. You do not attach it to your tax return and you do not use it to calculate what you owe. Its job is verification and recordkeeping: it lets the IRS check that your contributions stayed within legal limits and flags whether you owe a required minimum distribution, and it gives you a permanent record of what went into the account.¹

Your custodian, typically a bank, brokerage, or mutual fund company, files a separate Form 5498 for each IRA-type account you hold: traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs, all defined under Internal Revenue Code Section 408.² If you have a traditional IRA at one firm and a Roth at another, expect two forms. Health Savings Accounts and MSAs are reported on a different form, Form 5498-SA, with its own rules.³

What Each Box on Form 5498 Reports

The form is organized into numbered boxes, each tracking a specific kind of account activity. A few carry most of the weight.

Contributions: Boxes 1, 8, 9, and 10

Box 1 shows regular contributions to a traditional IRA for the tax year, including deposits made between January 1 and the April filing deadline of the following year. Box 10 reports the same for a Roth IRA. SEP contributions land in Box 8, and SIMPLE contributions in Box 9.¹ The IRS uses these figures to confirm you have not exceeded the annual contribution limit, which for 2026 is $7,500 if you are under 50, or $8,600 with the $1,100 catch-up for those 50 and older.⁴

Rollovers, Conversions, and Recharacterizations: Boxes 2, 3, and 4

Box 2 records rollover contributions, meaning money moved into the IRA from another retirement plan without triggering tax. Box 3 shows Roth conversions from a traditional or SIMPLE IRA into a Roth IRA, which is a taxable event. Box 4 reports recharacterizations, where a contribution is redesignated from one type of IRA to another.¹ Miscoding here is one of the more common errors worth checking, because a rollover mistakenly reported as a contribution can look like an excess contribution to the IRS.

Fair Market Value: Box 5

Box 5 reports the value of everything in your IRA as of December 31. The IRS uses this figure to calculate required minimum distributions and to track the size of tax-favored accounts.¹ If the account holder died during the year, the reported value may instead reflect the date-of-death balance.

Required Minimum Distribution Indicator: Box 11

A checked Box 11 tells you the custodian believes you must take a required minimum distribution for the following calendar year. An RMD can still be required even when Box 11 is not checked, so treat the box as a helpful flag rather than the final word on your obligation.¹ Under current law, RMDs from traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs generally begin at age 73; Roth IRAs do not require distributions during the original owner’s lifetime.⁵

Postponed and Late Contributions: Box 13

Boxes 13a and 13c capture special-category contributions such as late rollovers from a qualified plan loan offset (code PO), self-certified late rollovers (code SC), and contributions made under a federally declared disaster extension (code FD).¹

Why Form 5498 Arrives So Late

Form 5498 does not show up in January with your W-2 and 1099s. The custodian’s deadline to file with the IRS and send you a copy is May 31, or the next business day if that falls on a weekend or holiday.⁶ The late timing exists because you can make IRA contributions for a given tax year all the way up to the April filing deadline, and the custodian waits for that window to close before finalizing the numbers.

By the time it arrives, you will usually have filed your return already. That is by design. You already know what you contributed because you made the deposits, so nothing on Form 5498 is required to prepare your taxes. When it comes, use it to confirm the custodian’s records match yours.

What to Do When Form 5498 Arrives

Compare the contribution totals and the year-end fair market value against your own bank and brokerage statements. If something is wrong, say a rollover coded as a regular contribution, contact your custodian and ask them to refile. There is no separate “corrected” version; the custodian simply resubmits Form 5498 with the right information and sends updated copies to you and the IRS.⁷

Catching contribution errors early matters. Amounts above the annual limit are excess contributions and carry a 6 percent penalty for every year they stay in the account.⁸ You can avoid the penalty by pulling the excess (and any earnings on it) out before the filing deadline, including extensions.

Pair It With Form 8606 for Nondeductible Contributions

If your income was too high to deduct a traditional IRA contribution, you made a nondeductible contribution and reported it on Form 8606. The IRS specifically instructs taxpayers to keep Forms 5498 to verify the nontaxable portion of future distributions.⁹ Without that record, you could pay tax twice on the same money: once when you earned it, and again when you withdraw it in retirement.

Each year you make a nondeductible contribution, the Box 1 amount on your Form 5498 should match what you enter on Line 1 of Form 8606. Together the forms build a running total of your cost basis in the IRA, which determines how much of each future distribution comes out tax-free.

Inherited IRAs

When you inherit an IRA, the custodian keeps filing Form 5498 every year the account exists. The form shows your name alongside the original owner’s, such as “Jane Smith as beneficiary of John Smith,” and Box 5 reports the year-end value as usual.⁶

If you inherited a traditional IRA and owe RMDs, whether under the life-expectancy method or the 10-year rule, Box 11 may be checked. Non-spouse beneficiaries who inherited after 2019 generally must empty the account within 10 years and may owe annual RMDs during that period, depending on the original owner’s age at death. Watching the Box 11 flag on the inherited-account Form 5498 helps you stay on schedule.

Self-Directed IRAs Holding Alternative Assets

If your IRA holds non-traditional investments such as real estate, private company stock, LLC interests, or partnership stakes, your custodian reports them in Boxes 15a and 15b. Box 15a gives the fair market value; Box 15b uses a letter code (A through H) to identify the asset type, from unlisted stock (A) to real estate (D) to a catch-all for illiquid holdings without a readily available value (G).¹⁰

The IRS collects this detail because self-directed IRAs holding illiquid or closely held investments carry a higher risk of prohibited transactions, such as personally using property owned by the account, which can disqualify the entire IRA. Reviewing Boxes 15a and 15b tells you your custodian is valuing and categorizing these holdings correctly.

How Long to Keep Form 5498

The general IRS retention guideline is three years from the date you file a return, or six years if you underreport income by more than 25 percent. For IRA records specifically, the IRS advises keeping documentation until all benefits have been paid out of the account and enough time has passed that the plan will not be audited.¹¹ In practice, keep your Forms 5498 and 8606 for as long as you have money in the IRA, and for at least three years after your final distribution. Because IRAs often span decades, storing them digitally alongside your annual tax records is the safest approach.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498 2025 IRA Contribution Information
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 5498-SA, HSA, Archer MSA, or Medicare Advantage MSA Information
4
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
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Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
6
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025) – Corrected Form 5498
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts and Annuities
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8606
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498 – Asset Information Reporting Codes and Common Errors
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Internal Revenue Service. Maintaining Your Retirement Plan Records