Who Is Eligible for a Roth IRA? Income, MAGI, and Age Rules

You are eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA if you have earned income during the year and your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) sits below the limit for your filing status. For 2026, single filers can contribute the full amount with a MAGI under $153,000, and married couples filing jointly qualify for the full contribution with a combined MAGI under $242,000.¹ There is no age cap, and being in a 401(k) at work does not disqualify you. Whether you can contribute, and how much, comes down to three things: what counts as earned income, the dollar limits for the year, and where your MAGI falls in the phase-out range.

You Need Earned Income

Compensation from work is the starting point. Wages, salary, tips, professional fees, bonuses, commissions, and net self-employment earnings (after the deductible portion of self-employment tax) all count.² Taxable alimony from divorce agreements finalized before 2019 qualifies, and so does military differential pay and taxable graduate stipends.³

Passive income does not count. Interest, dividends, capital gains, rental income, pensions, annuities, and Social Security benefits are all excluded from compensation for Roth IRA purposes.² Someone living entirely on investment income cannot make a Roth IRA contribution that year, regardless of the dollar amount.

One narrow rule helps foster caregivers. Since December 2019, difficulty-of-care payments (a type of qualified foster care payment normally excluded from gross income) can be treated as compensation for IRA purposes. If those payments are your only work-related income, they can make you eligible to contribute.⁴

2026 Contribution Limits

The base limit for 2026 is $7,500 if you’re under 50, and $8,600 if you’re 50 or older thanks to a $1,100 catch-up.¹ Both figures are up from 2025, when the base was $7,000 and the catch-up was $1,000.⁵

These caps apply across all your traditional and Roth IRAs combined, not per account. Your contribution also cannot exceed what you actually earned. The IRS gives a student example: someone with $3,500 in wages can contribute only $3,500.⁵

The SECURE 2.0 “super catch-up” for ages 60 through 63 ($11,250 for 2026) is worth mentioning only to rule it out: that higher amount applies to employer plans like 401(k)s and 403(b)s, not to IRAs.¹

You have until the tax filing deadline to make a prior-year contribution. That means 2026 contributions can be made as late as April 15, 2027, and 2025 contributions are still open through April 15, 2026.

2026 Income Limits by Filing Status

Earned income gets you in the door. MAGI decides whether you can contribute the full amount, a reduced amount, or nothing at all.

Single, Head of Household, or Married Filing Separately If You Did Not Live With Your Spouse

Full contribution below $153,000 MAGI. Partial contribution from $153,000 to $168,000. No direct Roth contribution at $168,000 or above.¹

Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Surviving Spouse

Full contribution below $242,000 combined MAGI. Partial contribution from $242,000 to $252,000. No direct contribution above $252,000.⁶

Married Filing Separately If You Lived With Your Spouse

This is the tightest rule in the system. The phase-out runs from $0 to $10,000, so any MAGI above $10,000 shuts you out entirely.⁷ The IRS has not adjusted this $10,000 figure for years, and it holds for 2026 as well.

How the Phase-Out Math Works

Falling inside the phase-out range reduces your limit but does not eliminate it. The IRS lays out the calculation in Worksheet 2-2 of Publication 590-A. For 2026 the steps are:

Subtract the bottom of your phase-out range from your MAGI. That’s $153,000 for single filers or $242,000 for joint filers.
Divide by the width of the range: $15,000 for single filers, $10,000 for joint filers or married filing separately.
Multiply that decimal by $7,500 (or $8,600 if you’re 50 or older). This is your reduction.
Subtract the reduction from $7,500 (or $8,600). Round up to the nearest $10. If the result is under $200, you can still contribute $200.

A single filer with a 2026 MAGI of $160,000 subtracts $153,000 to get $7,000, divides by $15,000 to get 0.467, multiplies by $7,500 to get roughly $3,500, and subtracts from $7,500. Contribution limit: $4,000.⁴

What MAGI Includes for Roth IRA Purposes

MAGI starts with adjusted gross income from line 11 of Form 1040, then adds back specific items: the student loan interest deduction, the traditional IRA deduction, foreign earned income and housing exclusions, savings bond interest excluded under Form 8815, and employer-provided adoption benefits.⁸ You then subtract any income from converting a traditional IRA to a Roth and any rollover from a qualified plan to a Roth.

For a typical W-2 employee without foreign income exclusions or a traditional IRA deduction, MAGI equals AGI. The Roth IRA formula is specific to Roth IRAs, though; the MAGI you calculate for other tax benefits will not necessarily match.

Spousal Roth IRA When One Spouse Doesn’t Work

You do not personally need earned income if your spouse has enough and you file jointly. A non-working or low-earning spouse can contribute to their own Roth IRA based on the working spouse’s compensation. Each spouse can contribute up to $7,500 ($8,600 if 50 or older) for 2026, as long as combined contributions do not exceed the couple’s combined taxable compensation.⁵

The spousal IRA is a separate account in the non-working spouse’s name, not a joint account. The married-filing-jointly MAGI thresholds still apply, so the couple’s combined income must be under $242,000 for full contributions and under $252,000 for any contribution.

Backdoor Roth IRA When Your Income Is Too High

Being over the income limit does not end the conversation. High earners can still get money into a Roth through a two-step process, sometimes called the backdoor Roth. There is no income limit on nondeductible traditional IRA contributions, and there is no income limit on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth. The statute treats the conversion as a rollover, which is not bound by the MAGI limits on regular contributions.⁹

Contribute up to $7,500 ($8,600 if 50 or older) to a traditional IRA on a nondeductible basis for 2026.
Convert that traditional IRA balance to a Roth IRA. Because the money was already taxed, the conversion itself is generally tax-free.

The pro-rata rule is the main trap. If you hold other pre-tax money in any traditional IRA from deductible contributions or rollovers, the IRS treats all your traditional IRA balances as one pool, and your conversion becomes partly taxable based on the pre-tax to after-tax ratio. Nondeductible contributions and conversions get reported on Form 8606. Rolling any existing pre-tax traditional IRA balances into a 401(k) first, if the plan accepts them, leaves only the nondeductible contribution to convert.

Age and Employer Plans Do Not Disqualify You

There is no age limit on Roth IRA contributions and never has been. The SECURE Act removed the age cap on traditional IRA contributions for tax years beginning in 2020, so neither IRA type has one now.⁵ With earned income, you can contribute at 75 or 85.

Participating in a 401(k), 403(b), or other employer plan has no effect on Roth IRA eligibility. The rule differs for traditional IRAs, where a workplace plan can limit deductibility based on income.¹⁰ For a Roth IRA, only earned income and MAGI matter. You can max out both a 401(k) and a Roth IRA in the same year.

1
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500
2
eCFR. 26 CFR 1.219-1 – Deduction for Retirement Savings
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 219 – Retirement Savings
4
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
5
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
6
IRS.gov. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted for Changes in Cost-of-Living
7
Internal Revenue Service. Amount of Roth IRA Contributions That You Can Make for 2024
8
Internal Revenue Service. Modified Adjusted Gross Income – Section: Roth IRA Contributions
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
10
Internal Revenue Service. Roth Comparison Chart