Total room (401(k) + IRA)
$18,000
You can read the 2027 contribution limits in a dozen places. What you cannot read anywhere is how much room is left for you after what you have already put in this year, and whether a rule that took effect in 2026 quietly cancels your catch-up. Enter your age and year-to-date contributions, and the page returns your remaining room and a yes-or-no on the Roth trap.
Room is what is left of the cap after your year-to-date contributions. If your prior-year FICA wages exceed the Roth threshold and your plan has no Roth, your catch-up is blocked and shown as zero above.
Every retirement site publishes the contribution limits. Few of them tell you the one thing you actually need: how much room is left for you, after the contributions you have already made, and whether a rule that started in 2026 has quietly taken some of that room away.
That rule is the SECURE 2.0 Roth catch-up mandate. For anyone whose prior-year FICA wages topped $150,000 in 2026, catch-up contributions must go into a Roth account. If your plan does not offer Roth, you simply cannot make that catch-up. The calculator applies that test and shows your real room, not the headline number.
Age 60-63 come with a super catch-up that is larger than the regular one. But the two do not add up: SECURE 2.0 makes the super catch-up a replacement for the regular catch-up at those ages, and at 64 you fall back to the regular amount. The calculator picks the correct tier from your age and never stacks them.
The trap only bites when two things are true at once: your prior-year FICA wages are above the threshold, and your plan has no Roth option. When both hold, your eligible catch-up becomes zero on this page, and your remaining 401(k) room is the deferral cap minus what you have already contributed.
| Age | 2026 catch-up | 2027 catch-up (projected) |
|---|---|---|
| Under 50 | $0 | $0 |
| 50-59 or 64+ | $8,000 | $8,500 |
| 60-63 | $11,250 | $11,750 |
The catch-up amounts in the table above sit on top of the employee deferral cap of $24,500 in 2026 and $25,500 in 2027 (projected), and on top of the IRA cap of $7,500 in 2026 and $7,500 in 2027 (projected).
The 2027 numbers on this page are the consensus projection, because the IRS has not published them yet. They are marked as projections wherever they appear, including in the figures table. Treat them as planning estimates; the official figures are expected in late October to mid-November 2026.
Remaining 401(k) room is the deferral cap, plus any catch-up you can actually use, minus what you have already contributed. Total room adds your remaining IRA space. If you have already contributed more than the cap allows, the page flags the excess rather than showing negative room.
The compensation limit does not reduce your dollar cap. It caps the pay a plan may take into account for nondiscrimination testing, which matters only if you are above it; the calculator notes it but does not change your room on that basis.
The 2026 limits are IRS official figures from Notice 2025-67. The 2027 limits are projections based on the statutory indexation formula and the September 2026 CPI, which the IRS uses. The Roth catch-up wage threshold follows the SECURE 2.0 indexing. Each figure on this page carries its publisher and retrieval date in the figures table below.
Your catch-up shows as zero only when two conditions hold together: your prior-year FICA wages exceeded the Roth threshold and your plan does not offer Roth. Under SECURE 2.0, your catch-up must then be Roth, and with no Roth available it cannot be made. Lower your prior-year wages below the threshold, or confirm your plan offers Roth, and the catch-up reappears.
Not yet. The IRS had not announced 2027 as of this page's retrieval date. The figures shown are the consensus projection from indexation and are marked as such everywhere, including the figures table. The official number is expected in late October to mid-November 2026.
No. The super catch-up for ages 60-63 replaces the regular catch-up; it does not add to it. At age 64 you return to the regular catch-up. The calculator applies the correct single tier from your age.
No. The compensation limit caps the pay a plan may consider for testing. Your dollar deferral cap is unchanged by it. It only matters if you are above the threshold, in which case the page notes it without reducing your room.
The page flags the excess as an over-contribution rather than showing negative room. You would typically need to request a return of excess contributions from your plan before the deadline to avoid the penalty.
The room is the same either way; the calculator does not assume one. Whether your deferral is pre-tax or Roth depends on your own bracket and plan, so that choice is left to you.
How much more can you put into a 401(k) and IRA this year? lists each external figure it uses once, with the publisher that issues it and the date it was retrieved. The calculator takes these as its defaults, so any of them can be replaced with a number of your own; a figure that is not in the list is one this page did not take from anywhere.
| Figure | Value | Published by | Retrieved | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elective deferral limit, 2027 | $25,500 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| Elective deferral limit | $24,500 | Internal Revenue Service | 2026-10-09 | Official |
| Annual additions limit on a defined contribution plan, 2027 | $75,000 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| Annual compensation limit, 2027 | $375,000 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| Prior-year FICA wages above which catch-up contributions must be Roth, 2026 | $150,000 | Internal Revenue Service, retirement topics: catch-up contributions | 2026-10-15 | Official |
| Prior-year FICA wages above which catch-up contributions must be Roth, 2027 | $155,000 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| Catch-up contribution, age 50 and over | $8,000 | Internal Revenue Service | 2026-10-08 | Official |
| Catch-up contribution, age 50 and over, 2027 | $8,500 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| Enhanced catch-up contribution, ages 60 to 63 | $11,250 | Internal Revenue Service | 2026-10-08 | Official |
| Enhanced catch-up contribution, ages 60 to 63, 2027 | $11,750 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
| IRA contribution limit | $7,500 | Internal Revenue Service | 2026-10-08 | Official |
| IRA contribution limit, 2027 | $7,500 | Marsh People and Investments (Mercer), 2027 retirement plan limit projections | 2026-10-15 | Projection |
A row marked Projection is a figure no agency has published yet, carried here because it is what the next filing season will run on. A row marked Official is a published figure. The two are never mixed without saying which is which, and every projected figure is named as a projection wherever it appears in the text above.
Values are the ones this page is built with, not a live feed. Where a figure is revised on a schedule, the retrieval date above is when it was read, and the next scheduled refresh is shown at the top of the page.
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Cluster us/investing · Unit us-investing-retirement-contribution-limits · Engine retirement-limits / room · Method: The calculator applies the IRS and SECURE 2.0 rules as published. The employee deferral cap is $25,500 for 2027 (projected) and $24,500 for 2026. Catch-up is tiered by age and the tiers do not stack: ages 60-63 get the higher super catch-up, ages 50-59 and 64+ get the regular catch-up, under 50 get none. The 2027 combined limit including the applicable catch-up is $75,000, and the 2027 compensation limit that caps the pay a plan may consider is $375,000; it does not lower your dollar deferral cap. Under SECURE 2.0, anyone whose prior-year FICA wages exceeded $150,000 in 2026 (and $155,000 projected for 2027) must make catch-up contributions on a Roth, after-tax basis. If the plan does not offer Roth, that catch-up portion cannot be made at all and the available room drops by exactly that amount. Roth versus pre-tax treatment of the deferral itself is left to you, because it depends on your own bracket, not on a published number.