Anyone with earned income and a modified adjusted gross income below the IRS threshold for their filing status can invest in a Roth IRA. For 2026, the contribution limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older, and there is no minimum or maximum age. The threshold that decides how much of that limit you actually get depends on how you file and what you earn.
You Need Earned Income
The first requirement is compensation from work you performed. Wages, salary, tips, commissions, and bonuses shown in Box 1 of your W-2 qualify. So does net self-employment income after your self-employment tax deduction and retirement plan contributions.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
Money that arrives without work does not count. Rental income, dividends, interest, pension payments, annuity distributions, and Social Security benefits are all excluded for contribution purposes.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) Your contribution cannot exceed your earned income for the year. If you earned $4,000 from a part-time job, $4,000 is your ceiling even though the general limit is higher.
W-2s document employee earnings; 1099s cover freelance and contract work. If you are self-employed, keep clean records of business income and expenses, because the IRS can ask you to show that your earnings actually support the amount you contributed.
Age Is Not a Barrier
There is no age restriction on Roth IRA contributions, at either end. Federal law removed the age 70½ cutoff that once applied to traditional IRAs in 2020, and Roth IRAs never had one to begin with.2Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits A 75-year-old consultant with earned income can contribute on the same terms as a 25-year-old.
Children can contribute too, as long as they have earned income. A teenager earning money from a summer job, babysitting, or lawn care can fund a Roth IRA up to their earnings or the annual limit, whichever is lower.1Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) Because minors generally cannot open financial accounts on their own, a parent or guardian sets up a custodial Roth IRA and manages it until the child reaches the age of majority under state law, usually 18 or 21. The account belongs to the child. Keep records of any informal work, because the IRS expects the earnings to be real and the pay reasonable for what was done.
2026 Income Phase-Out Ranges
The second gate is your modified adjusted gross income. MAGI starts with the adjusted gross income on your tax return, then adds back certain items such as the student loan interest deduction and the foreign earned income exclusion. As your MAGI climbs into the phase-out range for your filing status, the amount you can contribute shrinks proportionally until it reaches zero.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
For 2026, the ranges are:4Internal 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 MAGI, reduced between $153,000 and $168,000, and none at $168,000 or above.
- Married filing jointly: full contribution below $242,000 MAGI, reduced between $242,000 and $252,000, and none at $252,000 or above.
- Married filing separately, if you lived with your spouse at any point during the year: reduced contribution between $0 and $10,000, and none at $10,000 or above.5Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted
The married-filing-separately range catches people off guard. If you lived with your spouse at any point in the year and file separately, you are effectively locked out of direct Roth contributions unless your income is near zero. The IRS does not adjust this range for inflation, so it stays at $0 to $10,000 every year.
How Much You Can Contribute and When
The standard 2026 Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,500. If you are 50 or older by year-end, you can add $1,100 in catch-up contributions for a total of $8,600.4Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500 These limits are the combined cap across all of your traditional and Roth IRAs. You can split contributions between the two, but the total cannot exceed the annual amount.
You have until the tax filing deadline to contribute for a given year. For 2025 contributions, that deadline is April 15, 2026. For 2026 contributions, it will typically be mid-April 2027. Filing a tax extension does not extend the contribution deadline. Early in a calendar year, you can direct a contribution to either the prior tax year or the current one, as long as the prior year’s deadline has not passed.
Spousal Contributions for a Non-Working Partner
Normally you need your own earned income to contribute. The spousal IRA rule creates an exception: if you are married and file jointly, the working spouse’s income can support contributions to both spouses’ accounts, even if one spouse earned nothing.6Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) – Section: Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA Limit
The working spouse’s taxable compensation must be enough to cover the combined deposits. If one spouse earns $80,000 and the other earns nothing, each can contribute up to $7,500, or $8,600 if 50 or older, so long as the total does not exceed the working spouse’s income. Each account is owned separately by the spouse whose name is on it. This is a practical route for stay-at-home parents and caregivers to keep building retirement savings in their own name.
If You Earn Too Much: the Backdoor Roth
Direct contributions cut off above the phase-out range, but federal law places no income limit on converting funds from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. The backdoor Roth uses that gap: you make a nondeductible contribution to a traditional IRA, then convert those funds to a Roth.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
The conversion is a taxable event. Any earnings between the contribution and the conversion, and any prior deductible balances sitting in traditional IRAs, get pulled into the tax calculation. The IRA aggregation rule treats all of your traditional IRAs as a single pool. If you hold $200,000 in a rollover IRA from an old 401(k) and convert a $7,500 nondeductible contribution, you cannot isolate the nondeductible piece; the taxable portion is computed proportionally across the entire balance.
File Form 8606 for every year you make a nondeductible traditional IRA contribution or a Roth conversion. The form tracks your basis so the same dollars are not taxed twice.7Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 8606 Conversions must be completed by December 31 to count for that tax year.
What Happens If You Contribute Too Much
Contributing more than your allowed amount triggers a 6% excise tax on the excess, charged every year the excess stays in the account.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4973 – Tax on Excess Contributions to Certain Tax-Favored Accounts and Annuities This is a real risk if you contribute the full amount early in the year and then a raise or bonus pushes your MAGI into the phase-out range.
You can avoid the penalty by withdrawing the excess and any earnings it produced before your tax filing deadline, including extensions.9Internal Revenue Service. IRA Year-End Reminders The withdrawn earnings are taxable in the year the contribution was made, and if you are under 59½, they may be hit with a 10% early withdrawal penalty. You can also recharacterize the excess as a traditional IRA contribution before the deadline, which avoids the excise tax. Miss the deadline, and the 6% tax applies every year until you fix it.