When Can You Contribute to an IRA: Deadlines, Limits, Age Rules

The IRA contribution deadline for any given tax year is the federal tax filing deadline the following April, usually April 15. Contributions for a tax year can be made anytime between January 1 of that year and that April cutoff, so the window for 2026 contributions runs from January 1, 2026, through April 15, 2027. The 2026 limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you’re 50 or older, and you need earned income to contribute at all.¹

The Annual Deadline

The last day to fund a Traditional or Roth IRA for a given tax year is the federal tax filing deadline of the following year. That date is normally April 15, but it moves to the next business day when April 15 falls on a weekend or a legal holiday such as Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C.² For 2025 contributions, the cutoff is April 15, 2026. For 2026 contributions, it’s April 15, 2027.

A tax filing extension does not extend the IRA contribution deadline. Form 4868 gives you six extra months to submit your return, but the form itself notes that it does not extend the time to pay taxes or meet other deadlines.³ Miss the April date and that year’s contribution room is gone. The IRS does not let you make up missed years later.

Contributing for Two Tax Years at Once

Between January 1 and mid-April, a contribution can be applied to either the current tax year or the prior one. A deposit made in February 2027 could count toward your 2026 limit or your 2027 limit. That overlap is genuinely useful because it lets you wait until your income numbers are final before deciding which year gets the money.

You have to tell your financial institution which year the contribution is for. Most brokerages and banks default to the current calendar year if you don’t specify, and that default can waste your remaining prior-year room. When you deposit during the overlap window, look for the “prior year” or “contribution year” selection on the online portal or paperwork. Your custodian reports the contribution to the IRS on Form 5498, and a wrong year designation there means amended-return trouble.⁴

How Much You Can Contribute for 2026

For 2026, you can contribute up to $7,500 across all your Traditional and Roth IRAs combined. If you’re 50 or older at any point during the year, you get an additional $1,100 catch-up contribution, for a total of $8,600.¹ Both figures rose from the prior year, when the base limit was $7,000 and the catch-up was $1,000.⁵ The catch-up amount now adjusts annually for inflation under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.

The $7,500 is a combined cap across all your IRAs, not a per-account limit. Put $4,000 into a Traditional IRA and you can only put $3,500 into a Roth for the same year.

You Need Earned Income

Taxable compensation is required to contribute. The law caps your contribution at the lesser of the annual limit or your earned income for the year. Earn $4,000 in 2026 and you can contribute $4,000, regardless of the $7,500 headline number. Earned income covers wages, salaries, tips, and net self-employment income. It does not include investment income, rental profits, pension payments, Social Security benefits, or deferred compensation.⁶

Self-employed contributors calculate eligible compensation differently than W-2 employees. You start with net business profit and subtract the deductible portion of your self-employment tax; that reduced figure is your earned income for IRA purposes.⁷ For most freelancers and sole proprietors the reduction is too small to affect IRA eligibility, but it matters for larger plans like SEPs.

The Spousal Exception

There’s one significant exception to the earned income rule. If you file jointly and your spouse has taxable compensation, you can contribute to your own IRA even if you personally earned nothing. Each spouse can go up to the full $7,500 (or $8,600 if 50 or older), as long as combined contributions don’t exceed the couple’s total taxable compensation reported on the joint return.¹ This is one of the few ways to build retirement savings during years spent caregiving, in school, or between jobs.

Income Limits That Can Reduce What You Contribute

Having earned income gets you in the door. Earning too much can shrink or eliminate your ability to contribute to a Roth or to deduct a Traditional IRA contribution. These thresholds use modified adjusted gross income and adjust yearly for inflation.

Roth IRA Income Phase-Outs

Your ability to contribute directly to a Roth phases out as income rises. For 2026:⁵

Single or head of household: full contribution below $153,000, partial contribution between $153,000 and $168,000, none at $168,000 or above.
Married filing jointly: full contribution below $242,000, partial between $242,000 and $252,000, none at $252,000 or above.
Married filing separately: partial contribution below $10,000, none at $10,000 or above.

Within a phase-out range, the IRS reduces your allowable contribution proportionally. The married-filing-separately window of $0 to $10,000 effectively rules out Roth contributions for most people who file separate returns.⁸

Traditional IRA Deduction Phase-Outs

Anyone with earned income can contribute to a Traditional IRA at any income level. The income limits here decide whether the contribution is deductible. If neither you nor your spouse participates in an employer-sponsored plan like a 401(k), you can deduct the full contribution no matter what you earn. If you or your spouse are covered by a workplace plan, the deduction phases out at these 2026 thresholds:⁵

Single, covered by a workplace plan: full deduction below $81,000, partial between $81,000 and $91,000, none at $91,000 or above.
Married filing jointly, contributor covered by a workplace plan: full deduction below $129,000, partial between $129,000 and $149,000, none at $149,000 or above.
Married filing jointly, contributor not covered but spouse is: full deduction below $242,000, partial between $242,000 and $252,000, none at $252,000 or above.
Married filing separately, covered by a workplace plan: partial deduction below $10,000, none at $10,000 or above.

Losing the deduction doesn’t stop you from contributing. A nondeductible Traditional IRA contribution still grows tax-deferred; the year-of tax break is just smaller than for a deductible contribution or a Roth.

Age Rules

There is no age ceiling for IRA contributions. Before 2020, Traditional IRA contributions were prohibited after age 70½, but the SECURE Act of 2019 repealed that limit.⁹ Roth IRAs never had an age limit.¹⁰ A 75-year-old with part-time consulting income can contribute, and so can a 14-year-old with a summer job. Earned income is the only requirement in both cases.

For minors, a parent or guardian typically opens a custodial IRA. The limit is still the lesser of $7,500 or the child’s earned income for the year.

If You Contribute Too Much

Going over the limit triggers a 6% excise tax on the excess amount for every year it stays in the account.¹¹ The penalty recurs annually, so a $1,000 over-contribution left in place costs $60 every year. This happens more often than you’d think, especially when income fluctuates and a Roth contribution that looked fine in January turns out to exceed the phase-out once December bonuses land.

You can avoid the penalty by withdrawing the excess plus any earnings it generated before your tax filing deadline, including extensions. That’s the key difference from the contribution deadline itself: while contributions must be in by April 15, the deadline to fix an excess contribution extends to October 15 if you file for an extension. The withdrawn earnings are taxable income in the year of the original contribution, and if you’re under 59½, you’ll also owe the 10% early withdrawal penalty on those earnings. If you missed the extended deadline but filed your return on time, the IRS allows a further six-month grace period to withdraw the excess and file an amended return.¹²

SEP and SIMPLE IRAs Follow Different Deadlines

The April 15 rule applies to Traditional and Roth IRAs. Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRAs run on a more generous timeline: employer contributions can be made until the due date for the business’s federal tax return, including extensions.¹³ For a sole proprietor who files an extension, that pushes the SEP contribution deadline to October 15. Extra time is a real advantage for self-employed people who don’t know their final profit until well after April.

SIMPLE IRAs are on yet another schedule. Employee salary deferrals are tied to payroll rather than the tax return and are generally due within 30 days of the month in which they were withheld. Self-employed SIMPLE participants follow the same payroll-linked timing.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A
3
Internal Revenue Service. Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return
4
Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information
5
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 219 – Retirement Savings
7
Internal Revenue Service. Self-Employed Individuals: Calculating Your Own Retirement Plan Contribution and Deduction
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
9
House Committee on Ways and Means Democrats. Summary of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019
10
Internal Revenue Service. Roth IRAs
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts
12
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329
13
Internal Revenue Service. Simplified Employee Pension Plan (SEP)