Where to Find Roth IRA Contributions on Your W-2

Roth IRA contributions do not appear anywhere on your W-2. A Roth IRA is a personal account you fund from your bank, so it never touches your employer’s payroll and never gets reported there. If you have workplace Roth contributions in mind, those live in Box 12 with a two-letter code: AA for a Roth 401(k), BB for a Roth 403(b), or EE for a governmental Roth 457(b).

Why a Roth IRA Never Shows Up on the W-2

A Roth IRA is opened by you, through a brokerage or bank, and funded with money you move out of your own account. Your employer plays no role. The W-2 reports compensation and deductions that pass through payroll, and a Roth IRA contribution does neither. If you’re trying to document IRA contributions for your tax return, look at year-end statements from the IRA custodian, not your W-2.

What people usually mean when they go hunting on the W-2 is a designated Roth contribution to an employer plan. Those are after-tax salary deferrals routed straight from your paycheck into a Roth 401(k), Roth 403(b), or governmental Roth 457(b). Because the money moves through payroll, the IRS requires the employer to report it.¹

Box 12 Is Where Workplace Roth Contributions Appear

Box 12 sits in the lower half of the W-2. It has four lines, labeled 12a through 12d, and each line pairs a letter code on the left with a dollar amount on the right. If an employer needs to report more than four items, they issue a second W-2 for the overflow.²

Three codes cover designated Roth contributions:

Code AA is a Roth contribution to a 401(k) plan. This is the most common one and covers most private-sector employees.
Code BB is a Roth contribution to a 403(b) plan, used by public schools, universities, hospitals, and other tax-exempt employers.
Code EE is a Roth contribution to a governmental 457(b) plan, for state and local government workers. Tax-exempt employers that offer 457(b) plans cannot maintain a designated Roth account.³

The dollar figure next to the code is your total employee deferral for the year. It does not include employer matching contributions, investment earnings, or anything else added to the account outside of payroll.

Don’t Confuse Roth Codes With Pre-Tax Codes

Each Roth code has a pre-tax counterpart that looks similar and means the opposite. Code D is a pre-tax 401(k) deferral, Code E is a pre-tax 403(b) salary reduction, and Code G is a pre-tax 457(b) deferral. If you signed up for the Roth option but your W-2 shows D, E, or G, the contribution may have been coded incorrectly.²

The tax treatment is completely different. Pre-tax deferrals reduce your Box 1 wages, cutting your income tax now, and you pay tax when you withdraw the money. Roth deferrals stay in Box 1 because you’ve already paid tax on them, and qualified withdrawals later come out tax-free.⁴ A wrong code changes what you owe.

Box 14 Is Not the Right Place

Box 14, labeled “Other,” is a free-form area employers sometimes use for supplemental information. The IRS allows voluntary after-tax contributions to be reported there, but those are not designated Roth contributions. Your Roth deferrals belong in Box 12 with code AA, BB, or EE. If you see a Roth-sounding label in Box 14 and nothing in Box 12, ask payroll to confirm the reporting.²

How Roth Deferrals Interact With the Rest of the Form

Box 1: Wages, Tips, and Other Compensation

Because designated Roth contributions are after-tax, they stay in your Box 1 wages. A worker who earned $80,000 and deferred $10,000 into a Roth 401(k) still shows roughly $80,000 in Box 1 before other adjustments. The same $10,000 deferred pre-tax would drop Box 1 to about $70,000. The Box 12 figure tells you how much of that Box 1 total was routed into the Roth account.⁴

Box 13: The Retirement Plan Checkbox

If you contributed to any workplace retirement plan, including a Roth 401(k) or Roth 403(b), the employer should mark the “Retirement plan” box in Box 13. That checkmark tells the IRS you’re an active participant in an employer plan, which can reduce or eliminate your ability to deduct contributions to a separate traditional IRA depending on filing status and income.³

Governmental 457(b) plans are an exception. Code EE by itself does not trigger the Box 13 checkbox, so participation in that plan alone won’t affect a traditional IRA deduction.

Employer Roth Matches Go on a 1099-R Instead

Under a SECURE 2.0 provision effective in 2023, employers can deposit matching and nonelective contributions directly into a designated Roth account. When they do, those matching dollars are not on your W-2 at all. They’re reported on Form 1099-R with distribution code G in box 7, and they aren’t subject to federal income tax withholding, Social Security tax, or Medicare tax at the time of contribution. You still owe income tax on the amount for the year it’s allocated, but the reporting happens on the 1099-R.⁵ If a 1099-R shows up unexpectedly for employer Roth contributions, that’s why.

If Your W-2 Has the Wrong Code or Amount

Start with your employer’s payroll or HR department. They can issue a corrected Form W-2c showing the right code and dollar amount. Once you get the corrected form, you may need to file an amended return on Form 1040-X for the affected year.⁶

If the employer hasn’t corrected the form by the end of February, you can call the IRS at 800-829-1040 or visit a Taxpayer Assistance Center. The IRS will contact the employer and request a corrected W-2 within ten days. If the corrected form still hasn’t arrived by your filing deadline, file using Form 4852 as a substitute W-2, estimating wages and withholdings from your final pay stub. If the eventual W-2c shows different numbers, reconcile with Form 1040-X.⁷

1
Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3
2
Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Common Errors on Form W-2 Codes for Retirement Plans
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs on Designated Roth Accounts
5
Internal Revenue Service. SECURE 2.0 Act Impacts How Businesses Complete Forms W-2
6
Internal Revenue Service. Fixing Common Mistakes – Correcting a Roth Contribution Failure
7
Internal Revenue Service. W-2 – Additional, Incorrect, Lost, Non-Receipt, Omitted