Where Do I Find My IRA Contributions: Form 5498 and Transcripts

To find how much you’ve put into an IRA, start with IRS Form 5498, the information return your custodian files each year that reports your contributions by type. If you need the number before Form 5498 arrives in May, your year-end brokerage statement, your online account portal, and an IRS Wage and Income Transcript will also show it. Confirming where to find your IRA contributions matters because exceeding the annual limit triggers a 6 percent excise tax on the excess for every year it stays in the account, and for 2026 the limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older.¹

Form 5498 Is the Definitive Record

Every financial institution that holds an IRA must file Form 5498 with the IRS to report contributions, rollovers, conversions, and the account’s year-end fair market value. You receive your own copy, but it typically arrives in May rather than during tax season. The delay is built in: you can make prior-year contributions up through the April filing deadline, so your custodian waits for the final tally before reporting.²

Contributions are split across several boxes depending on the account type:

Box 1 shows traditional IRA contributions you made for the tax year. Rollovers, conversions, SEP, and SIMPLE contributions are reported separately.
Box 2 shows rollover contributions moved in from another retirement account.
Box 3 shows amounts converted from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA during the year.
Box 5 shows the fair market value of the account as of December 31.
Box 8 shows SEP IRA contributions made by your employer.
Box 9 shows SIMPLE IRA contributions.
Box 10 shows Roth IRA contributions you made for the tax year.

If you contribute to both a traditional and a Roth IRA, you will likely receive more than one Form 5498. Your combined contributions across all traditional and Roth IRAs cannot exceed the annual limit, so add Box 1 and Box 10 together to confirm you stayed within bounds.²

Year-End Brokerage Statements

If you need the number before Form 5498 shows up, your December statement is the fastest paper alternative. Most statements include a section labeled something like “Year-to-Date Contributions” or “Summary of Activity” with the cumulative total of deposits into your IRA.

Read the statement carefully. Dividends, interest, and capital gains credited to the account will also appear there, and none of them count as contributions or against your annual limit.³ Focus on the transfers from your bank account into the IRA. If your statement doesn’t break contributions out separately, add up the individual deposit transactions for the year.

Your Custodian’s Online Portal

Logging in is usually the quickest way to check contributions at any point during the year. Most brokerages group this data under a tab labeled “Activity,” “Transaction History,” or “Tax Center.” Filter by transaction type, look for a category like “Contributions,” and set a date range covering the full calendar year.

Many custodians also provide a tax-forms section where you can download Form 5498 electronically once it’s available. One thing to watch: if you made contributions for the prior tax year between January 1 and the April filing deadline, confirm those deposits appear under the correct tax year in the portal rather than the calendar year in which you made them.

IRS Wage and Income Transcript

If you have lost your records and can’t get them from your financial institution, the IRS keeps its own copy of what was reported on Form 5498. Request a Wage and Income Transcript through the IRS “Get Transcript” tool online. It shows all information returns third parties filed on your behalf, including your custodian’s Form 5498 data.⁴

To use the online tool, you verify your identity with your Social Security number, date of birth, filing status, and address from your most recent return. Because Form 5498 isn’t due to the IRS until May 31, the IRA contribution details on the transcript may not appear until after that date. If you need the number sooner, stick with your brokerage statements or online portal.

What If You Find You Contributed Too Much

Checking your records sometimes uncovers a problem: you contributed more than the annual limit. The excess is subject to a 6 percent excise tax for every year it stays in the account. The tax applies to the excess amount or 6 percent of the total account value, whichever is less.⁵

You can avoid the penalty entirely by withdrawing the excess plus any earnings it generated before the due date of your return, including extensions. For a 2026 return with an extension, that deadline is October 15, 2027. When you pull the excess and its earnings out in time, the excess is treated as if it was never contributed, and the earnings are added to your taxable income for the year the contribution was made.¹

Miss the deadline and you can still take the excess out, but you’ll owe the 6 percent tax for every year it sat in the account. Another option is to apply the excess toward the following year’s contribution limit, so long as the combined total for that next year stays within the cap.

If the Numbers on Form 5498 Look Wrong

Custodians occasionally report the wrong contribution amount or assign a deposit to the wrong tax year. If your own records disagree with the form, contact your financial institution and ask them to issue a corrected Form 5498. Custodians are required to fix errors as soon as they’re identified.⁶ If your custodian is unresponsive, you can report the problem to the IRS by calling the number on your most recent IRS notice or the general taxpayer assistance line.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
2
Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498 IRA Contribution Information
3
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
4
Internal Revenue Service. Get Your Tax Records and Transcripts
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts and Annuities
6
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498