Roth IRA eligibility requirements come down to two tests: you need earned income during the year, and your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) has to fall below the ceiling for your filing status. For 2026, single filers begin losing the ability to contribute at $153,000 of MAGI and are shut out entirely above $168,000; married couples filing jointly begin phasing out at $242,000 and are cut off above $252,000. If you clear both tests, you can put in up to $7,500 for the year, or $8,600 if you’re 50 or older.
You Need Earned Income
The gatekeeper rule is earned income. The IRS calls it “taxable compensation,” and it means money you actively worked for: wages, salaries, commissions, tips, bonuses, and self-employment income all count.1Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 309, Roth IRA Contributions Your contribution for the year can never exceed your earned income. Made $4,000 from a part-time job? Then $4,000 is your ceiling, regardless of the general limit.
What doesn’t qualify matters just as much. Interest, dividends, and capital gains don’t count. Neither do Social Security benefits, unemployment compensation, pension payments, or rental income. These are all passive income for IRA purposes, even though they’re taxable on your return.
One carve-out is worth knowing. Nontaxable military combat pay counts as earned income for Roth IRA purposes, even though it’s excluded from your tax return.2Internal Revenue Service. Miscellaneous Provisions – Combat Zone Service The rule exists so deployed service members can keep building retirement savings while their taxable pay drops.
Graduate students and postdocs get caught by a quieter rule. Fellowship and stipend income is taxable, but the IRS does not classify it as compensation for IRA purposes. A graduate student whose only income is a $30,000 fellowship cannot contribute to a Roth IRA at all. If the same student also holds a paid teaching or research assistant position with W-2 wages, only those wages qualify.
How Much You Can Contribute in 2026
The annual limit for 2026 is $7,500 if you’re under 50. At 50 or older, you can add an extra $1,100 in catch-up contributions, for a total of $8,600. The higher catch-up amounts for workers aged 60 through 63 under SECURE 2.0 apply only to employer plans like 401(k)s, not to IRAs.3Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
The limit is shared across all your IRAs. If you contribute $3,000 to a traditional IRA, you have $4,500 left for a Roth (under age 50). And you have time. Contributions for a given tax year can be made up to the tax filing deadline the following April, so 2026 contributions can be made through mid-April 2027.
Income Phase-Out Ranges by Filing Status
Even with earned income, your MAGI decides whether you can make a full contribution, a partial one, or none. MAGI starts with adjusted gross income and adds back certain deductions such as the foreign earned income exclusion. The IRS then applies phase-out ranges that shrink your allowed contribution as income climbs.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 408A – Roth IRAs
For 2026:3Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
- Single or head of household: full contribution below $153,000, reduced between $153,000 and $168,000, none above $168,000.
- Married filing jointly: full contribution below $242,000, reduced between $242,000 and $252,000, none above $252,000.
- Married filing separately, if you lived with your spouse at any point during the year: reduced contribution between $0 and $10,000, none above $10,000.
That last row is punitive by design. If you’re married, filed separately, and lived with your spouse for even part of the year, your phase-out effectively starts at zero, and most people in that bucket are locked out of direct Roth contributions. Married individuals who filed separately and lived apart from their spouse for the entire year are treated as single filers.
If your income lands inside a phase-out range, the IRS uses a formula. Take the amount your MAGI exceeds the low end of the range, divide by the width of the range ($15,000 for single filers, $10,000 for joint filers), and multiply by the full contribution limit. Subtract the result from the full limit to get your allowed contribution. The IRS rounds up to the nearest $10, and if any contribution is allowed at all, the floor is $200.
Spouses and Minors
You don’t need your own paycheck if your spouse has one. Under the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA rule, a non-working spouse can make a full Roth contribution based on the couple’s joint earned income.5Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits The couple has to file jointly, and combined contributions can’t exceed the total taxable compensation on the joint return. In practice, this doubles a household’s IRA capacity when only one person works.
There is no minimum age.5Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits A 14-year-old who earns $2,000 from a summer job can have the full $2,000 contributed to a Roth. A parent or guardian usually manages the account as custodian until the child reaches the age of majority. Anyone can fund the contribution, so long as the total doesn’t exceed the child’s own earned income for the year.
What If Your Income Is Too High
Income above the phase-out ceiling ends your ability to contribute directly, but not your ability to get money into a Roth. There’s no income limit on either nondeductible contributions to a traditional IRA or on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth. That two-step is commonly called the backdoor Roth: contribute after-tax dollars to a traditional IRA, then convert them shortly afterward. Because the contribution was after-tax, the conversion produces little or no additional tax if the account hasn’t grown.
The catch is the pro-rata rule. If you already have pre-tax money in any traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA, the IRS treats a conversion as coming proportionally from all your traditional IRA balances, pre-tax and after-tax combined.6Internal Revenue Service. Rollovers of After-Tax Contributions in Retirement Plans If 80% of your combined traditional IRA balance is pre-tax, then 80% of any conversion is taxable. That can turn a near-zero-tax maneuver into a real bill.
The cleanest backdoor Roth is one where you have no pre-tax IRA money. If you do, a common fix is rolling those pre-tax balances into an employer 401(k) that accepts incoming rollovers, which clears the way for a tax-efficient conversion. Either way, you’ll file IRS Form 8606 to report the nondeductible contribution and the conversion.
Fixing an Excess Contribution
Contributing more than the rules allow triggers a 6% excise tax on the excess, and that tax repeats every year the excess sits in the account.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts The most common trap: someone contributes early in the year, then their income unexpectedly pushes past the phase-out.
You have three main ways out.
- Withdraw the excess plus any earnings it generated before the tax filing deadline (including extensions) for that year. The earnings portion is taxable and may face the 10% early withdrawal penalty if you’re under 59½.8Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 – Additional Taxes on Qualified Plans (Including IRAs) and Other Tax-Favored Accounts
- Recharacterize the contribution by moving the excess Roth amount and its allocable earnings into a traditional IRA. The IRS then treats the contribution as if it had gone to the traditional IRA from the start. Same deadline: the tax filing deadline, including extensions.
- Apply the excess against next year’s limit. You’ll owe the 6% penalty for the year the contribution was excess, but once a future year’s unused limit absorbs it, the problem ends.
Miss all these windows and the 6% tax keeps compounding until you fix it.