Who Can Contribute to an IRA? Income, Age, and 2026 Limits

You can contribute to an IRA if you (or your spouse, on a joint return) have taxable earned income during the year, and there is no age limit in either direction. For 2026, the cap across all your traditional and Roth IRAs combined is $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older by year-end.¹ Whether you can actually use a Roth, or deduct a traditional contribution, depends on your income and whether a workplace retirement plan is in the picture.

The Earned Income Rule

Eligibility starts with compensation. The IRS counts wages, salaries, tips, bonuses, commissions, and professional fees — essentially, pay for work you personally perform. If you are self-employed, your qualifying income is net self-employment earnings minus the deductible portion of self-employment tax.²

What does not count: interest, dividends, rental income, pension payments, annuity distributions, and Social Security benefits. If those are your only income sources, you cannot contribute. Your contribution is also capped at your actual earned income, so someone who earned $4,000 can contribute $4,000, not the full $7,500.²

Two categories of otherwise-unusual income do qualify. Nontaxable combat pay counts as compensation for IRA purposes, even though it is excluded from gross income elsewhere on your return.³ Taxable alimony counts if you receive it under a divorce or separation agreement executed on or before December 31, 2018; agreements finalized after that date produce alimony that is nontaxable to the recipient and does not qualify.²

No Age Limit, Top or Bottom

You can contribute at any age. The SECURE Act of 2019 removed the old cutoff at 70½ for traditional IRAs, so a working 80-year-old can contribute just like a working 30-year-old.⁴ There is no minimum age either, as long as the earned income is real.

How Much You Can Contribute in 2026

The 2026 limit is $7,500 across all your IRAs combined, plus a $1,100 catch-up if you are 50 or older, for a maximum of $8,600.¹ Under SECURE 2.0, the catch-up amount now adjusts for inflation instead of sitting fixed at $1,000.

The cap is per person, not per account. Splitting $5,000 into a traditional IRA leaves you $2,500 of room in a Roth (or $3,600 if you are 50-plus). And the total still cannot exceed your earned income for the year, whichever number is smaller.²

Contributing Based on a Spouse’s Income

Married couples filing jointly can fund an IRA for a spouse who earned little or nothing, as long as the working spouse’s compensation covers both contributions. The provision is known as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA, and each spouse gets their own separate account up to the annual limit.²

Combined contributions cannot exceed the taxable compensation on your joint return.⁴ A single-income couple could put in $15,000 total for 2026 ($7,500 each), or $17,200 if both spouses are 50 or older.¹ You have to be legally married by year-end and file jointly to use this.

Kids With a Job

A child with earned income can contribute at any age. A teenager’s part-time job, freelance work, acting income, or a small business all qualify. Gifts, allowances, and investment returns do not.⁴

Because minors generally cannot open accounts on their own, a parent or guardian sets up a custodial IRA. The child owns the assets; the adult manages the account until the child reaches the age of majority, which is 18 or 21 depending on the state. A parent or grandparent can put in the actual dollars on the child’s behalf, but the contribution still cannot exceed the child’s own earned income for the year.⁴

Can You Deduct a Traditional IRA Contribution?

Anyone with earned income can contribute to a traditional IRA, but the deduction is conditional. If neither you nor your spouse is covered by a workplace retirement plan such as a 401(k), the full contribution is deductible at any income level.²

If a workplace plan is involved, the deduction phases out over these 2026 modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) ranges:

Within the range, part of your contribution is deductible. Above the top, none of it is. You can still contribute, you just get no upfront tax break. Nondeductible contributions have to be reported on IRS Form 8606 so your after-tax basis is tracked. Skipping that form triggers a $50 penalty.⁵

Roth IRA Income Limits

Roth IRAs have their own income ceilings. Your ability to contribute directly phases out as MAGI climbs.⁶ For 2026:

Inside the phase-out, you can make a reduced contribution using the IRS formula. Above the top, direct Roth contributions are off the table for that year. Anything you put in above your allowed amount is treated as an excess contribution and hit with a 6 percent excise tax for every year it stays in the account.⁷

The Backdoor Roth for High Earners

If your income puts you above the Roth ceiling, a two-step route often called a backdoor Roth may still get money into a Roth account. There is no income limit on making nondeductible contributions to a traditional IRA, and no income limit on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth. Combined, the two steps produce Roth money.

You contribute to a traditional IRA without deducting it, then convert that balance to a Roth. Tax is owed on any earnings that accrued between contribution and conversion, which stays small if you convert quickly. The nondeductible contribution goes on Form 8606.⁵

Watch the pro rata rule. If you already hold pre-tax money in any traditional IRA — from deductible contributions, 401(k) rollovers, or SEP or SIMPLE IRAs — the IRS treats all your traditional IRA balances as one pool when calculating how much of any conversion is taxable. You cannot cherry-pick just the after-tax dollars; the conversion is taxed proportionally across pre-tax and after-tax money. The strategy works cleanest when you have no existing pre-tax traditional IRA balance.

Rolling a 529 Plan Into a Roth IRA

Since 2024, a 529 plan beneficiary can roll unused funds into a Roth IRA in their own name, courtesy of SECURE 2.0. The Roth income limits do not apply to these rollovers, but a stack of other conditions does:²

The 529 account must have been open more than 15 years.
Lifetime rollovers per beneficiary are capped at $35,000.
Each year’s rollover cannot exceed the annual Roth contribution limit ($7,500 for 2026, or $8,600 at 50-plus).
Contributions made to the 529 within the last five years, and their earnings, cannot be rolled over.
The transfer must go directly from the 529 trustee to the Roth IRA custodian.

The Roth IRA must be in the name of the same person who is the 529 beneficiary.

When to Contribute and What Happens If You Overdo It

The contribution deadline is your federal tax filing due date, not including extensions. For the 2026 tax year, that means April 15, 2027.² If you contribute early in a calendar year, tell your custodian which tax year the money is for.

Contribute more than allowed — over the dollar limit, past your earned income, or above the Roth income ceiling — and the excess draws a 6 percent excise tax each year it sits in the account.⁷ You can avoid the penalty by pulling out the excess plus any earnings it produced before your filing deadline, including extensions.⁴ Miss that deadline and the 6 percent applies for the year of the excess and every year after until you fix it.

1
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026; IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
2
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 219 – Retirement Savings
4
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
5
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 8606
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts and Annuities