What Is the Domestic Abuse Survivor Penalty Exception?

If a spouse or domestic partner has abused you, the domestic abuse survivor penalty exception lets you pull money from your retirement account without the usual 10% early withdrawal tax. For 2026, the penalty-free amount is capped at $10,500 or half your vested balance, whichever is less.¹ The withdrawal is still taxable income, but the extra 10% goes away. The rule was added by the SECURE 2.0 Act and applies to distributions taken after December 31, 2023.² You also have three years to put the money back and recover taxes you paid.

Who Qualifies

Two things decide eligibility: the kind of abuse and the timing.

The law reads domestic abuse broadly. It covers physical, psychological, sexual, and emotional harm, including behavior meant to control, isolate, humiliate, or intimidate. Financial abuse counts too, meaning a partner who deliberately blocks your access to money or economic resources. The abuser must be your spouse or domestic partner.²

Timing is strict. The distribution must be taken during the one-year period that begins on the date you experienced the abuse. A withdrawal 13 months after an incident does not qualify, even if you are still dealing with the aftermath. Each new qualifying incident starts a fresh one-year clock.

Which Accounts You Can Draw From

Most common retirement accounts are eligible. That includes 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457(b), and 401(a) profit-sharing plans, along with traditional IRAs, SEP-IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs.³⁴

Two kinds of plans are excluded: defined benefit pensions and any plan subject to joint and survivor annuity rules that require spousal consent for distributions.²

One catch on the employer-plan side: adopting this distribution type is optional for plan sponsors. Your 401(k) is not required to add it. If the plan hasn’t, the administrator may decline to process your request as a domestic abuse distribution, and you’ll need to use the workaround below.

IRAs have no such gatekeeper. You can take a distribution from a traditional IRA at any time and claim the exception yourself on your return.

How Much You Can Withdraw

The maximum penalty-free amount is the lesser of the inflation-adjusted dollar cap or 50% of your vested account balance. For 2026, the dollar cap is $10,500.¹ If your vested balance is $16,000, your ceiling is $8,000, not $10,500.

Vested means the part of the account that already belongs to you. Employer matching contributions that haven’t fully vested don’t count toward the 50%.² Your own salary deferrals are always fully vested.

The withdrawal is taxable income in the year you receive it. The exception waives the 10% penalty; it does not make the money tax-free. Plan for roughly your marginal rate when estimating what you’ll owe.

Self-Certifying With Your Plan

You do not need to hand over police reports, protective orders, or medical records. You self-certify in writing, confirming two things: that you experienced domestic abuse from a spouse or domestic partner, and that the distribution falls inside the one-year window.² Many administrators include a checkbox on the distribution request form; electronic submission is fine when the plan supports it. The administrator can rely on your certification and does not have to investigate.

Keep a personal copy of what you sign, along with dates and any communications you’re comfortable holding onto. Records tied to a tax position should be kept as long as their contents could still matter.

When your plan processes the distribution under this rule, it skips the 20% mandatory withholding that normally applies to early distributions from employer plans, so more of the money reaches you upfront.² Default withholding for nonperiodic distributions may still apply unless you elect out, so some tax will likely still come out at the source.

If Your Plan Doesn’t Offer This Distribution

Because the provision is optional, plenty of plans haven’t added it. You still get the penalty exception; you just take a different route. Request a standard early distribution (or any other distribution type you’re eligible for), let the plan withhold what it normally would, and then claim exception code 22 on Form 5329 when you file.⁵ If a 10% penalty was withheld, you recover it as part of your refund. The same $10,500 or 50% cap applies.

Filing: The 1099-R and Form 5329

At the start of the year after your withdrawal, your plan or IRA custodian will issue a Form 1099-R. Box 7 will usually show distribution code 1, the same code used for any pre-59½ withdrawal.⁶ Nothing on the 1099-R flags the exception. That part is on you.

Claim it by filing Form 5329 with your Form 1040. On Part I, enter the distribution amount and put exception code 22 on line 2 to identify it as a domestic abuse victim distribution.⁵ Get the code right. Code 02, for example, is for substantially equal periodic payments and would mischaracterize your withdrawal.

File Form 5329 even if your plan already processed the distribution without a penalty. The IRS matches reported distributions against reported exceptions, and skipping the form can trigger an automated notice.

Putting the Money Back

You have three years to return all or part of the withdrawal to an eligible retirement plan. The clock starts the day after you receive the money. A repayment is treated as a rollover, which effectively unwinds the tax hit.²

If you already reported the distribution as income and paid tax on it in a prior year, file Form 1040-X for that year to recover those taxes after you repay. File a separate 1040-X for each year you’re correcting and explain in Part II that you’re claiming a refund because you repaid a domestic abuse victim distribution. Most tax software accepts electronic 1040-X filing. Processing generally runs 8 to 12 weeks and can take up to 16.⁷

Partial repayments are allowed. If you took $10,000 and can return only $6,000 within three years, you amend to reflect taxes owed on the $4,000 you kept. The repayment can go to any eligible retirement plan where you’re a participant or beneficiary and that accepts rollovers.

1
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs – Notice 2025-67
2
Internal Revenue Service. Notice 2024-55 – Guidance on Domestic Abuse Victim Distributions
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 402 – Taxability of Beneficiary of Employees Trust
5
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 – Exceptions to the Additional Tax on Early Distributions
6
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498
7
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1040-X