IRS Spousal IRA Rules: Contribution Limits, Roth Income Caps, and RMDs

A spousal IRA is not a separate account type but a contribution rule: when a couple files jointly, a working spouse’s earned income can fund a standard Traditional or Roth IRA held in the name of a non-working or lower-earning spouse. That’s the whole idea behind the spousal IRA rules. For 2026, each spouse can put in up to $7,500, or $8,600 at age 50 or older, which effectively doubles a household’s tax-advantaged retirement savings even when only one partner brings home a paycheck.¹ The account belongs entirely to the spouse whose name is on it. They control the investments and the withdrawals. The formal name is the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA.²

Who Qualifies

Three conditions all have to be true in the year you contribute.

You file jointly. Married filing separately kills eligibility, even for couples still living together.²

The working spouse has enough earned income to cover both contributions. If you want to max both IRAs at $7,500 each, the working spouse needs at least $15,000 in taxable compensation for the year.³

The spouse receiving the contribution earns less than the contributing spouse. The lower-earning spouse can have some income; the rule is that their compensation is lower and the couple’s combined contributions don’t exceed their combined taxable compensation.⁴

Earned income means wages, salaries, tips, self-employment earnings, and nontaxable combat pay. Rental income, interest, dividends, and pension payments don’t count.² Deployed service members should note that nontaxable combat zone pay does qualify, so it can fund a spousal IRA even when it doesn’t show up in taxable income.⁵

One boundary worth naming: if one spouse is a nonresident alien, the couple can only use spousal IRA rules by electing to treat that spouse as a U.S. resident for tax purposes and filing jointly.⁶

How Much You Can Contribute in 2026

The spousal IRA follows the standard annual IRA cap. For 2026:

Under age 50: up to $7,500 per person
Age 50 or older: up to $8,600 per person (the $7,500 base plus a $1,100 catch-up)

A couple where both partners are 50 or older can put away up to $17,200 combined.¹ The catch-up applies based on the age of the spouse whose IRA is receiving the money, not the working spouse.

Contributions for the 2026 tax year are due by the April 2027 filing deadline. A filing extension does not extend the contribution deadline.⁷ And the earned-income ceiling still applies: a couple with only $12,000 in combined taxable compensation can contribute at most $12,000 across both IRAs, even though the per-person limits are higher.³

Is the Contribution Deductible?

Only Traditional IRA contributions are ever deductible. Whether yours is depends on workplace retirement plan coverage and income.

If neither spouse is covered by a workplace plan like a 401(k), both IRAs are fully deductible with no income limit.²

If the working spouse does have a workplace plan, two different 2026 phase-outs apply, both measured against the couple’s combined modified adjusted gross income:

The working spouse’s own IRA deduction phases out between $129,000 and $149,000 of MAGI.
The non-working spouse’s spousal IRA deduction phases out between $242,000 and $252,000 of MAGI, because that spouse is not personally covered by a workplace plan.

The practical result: many couples can still fully deduct the spousal IRA contribution even when the working spouse’s own IRA deduction is partly or entirely phased out.¹

Nondeductible Traditional IRA contributions are still allowed. The money grows tax-deferred, and you’ll only owe tax on the earnings at withdrawal. If you go this route, file Form 8606 to track the basis.⁸

Roth Spousal IRA Income Limits

A Roth version offers the opposite trade. You get no deduction now, but qualified withdrawals in retirement come out tax-free, including all the growth.

Roth contributions have a hard income cutoff. For 2026, joint filers can contribute the full amount below $242,000 MAGI. Between $242,000 and $252,000 the allowed contribution shrinks. Above $252,000, direct Roth contributions are not allowed.¹ The same range applies to both spouses’ Roth accounts.

The Backdoor Roth for Couples Above the Cutoff

Couples over the Roth income limit can still get money into a Roth in two steps. First, contribute to a nondeductible Traditional IRA, which has no income limit of its own. Then convert those funds to a Roth IRA. Because the contribution went in after-tax, the conversion is generally tax-free.

Watch the pro-rata rule. If the spouse doing the conversion already has pre-tax money in any Traditional IRA, the IRS treats all Traditional IRA balances together when calculating the taxable share of the conversion. A spouse starting from a zero Traditional IRA balance, which is common for the non-working spouse, gets a clean conversion. A spouse with a large existing rollover IRA will owe tax on a proportional share. Each spouse files their own Form 8606 to report the contribution and conversion.⁸

Withdrawal Rules

A spousal IRA follows the standard IRA distribution rules. The spouse whose name is on the account controls it, full stop. The contributing spouse has no claim on the money simply because they funded it.

Traditional IRA withdrawals before age 59½ are subject to ordinary income tax plus a 10% early distribution penalty.⁹ Roth contributions (not earnings) can come out anytime tax- and penalty-free. Earnings pulled before 59½ face the 10% penalty unless the account has been open at least five years and a qualifying exception applies.

After 59½, Traditional withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income but not penalized. Roth withdrawals of both contributions and earnings are tax-free once the account has been open five years.¹⁰

The IRS waives the 10% early-withdrawal penalty in specific situations, including total and permanent disability, unreimbursed medical costs above 7.5% of AGI, health insurance premiums during unemployment, qualified higher education expenses, a first-time home purchase (up to $10,000 lifetime), a substantially equal periodic payment schedule, birth or adoption expenses (up to $5,000 per child), personal emergencies (up to $1,000 per year), domestic-abuse distributions (up to the lesser of $10,000 or 50% of the account), and federally declared disasters (up to $22,000). An exception waives the penalty only; regular income tax on a Traditional IRA distribution still applies.¹⁰

Required Minimum Distributions

A Traditional spousal IRA is subject to required minimum distributions starting at age 73. The first RMD is due by April 1 of the year after you turn 73, with the amount based on your account balance and life expectancy.¹¹ Missing one triggers a 25% penalty on the amount you should have withdrawn, dropping to 10% if corrected within two years.¹²

A Roth spousal IRA has no lifetime RMDs for the original owner. The account can keep growing tax-free indefinitely. RMDs only apply after the owner’s death, when the account passes to beneficiaries.

Fixing an Excess Contribution

Putting in more than the annual limit, or more than the couple’s combined earned income, creates an excess contribution. The IRS charges a 6% excise tax each year the excess sits in the account.³ To avoid it, withdraw the excess plus any earnings on it before the tax-filing deadline for that year, including extensions. If you already filed without correcting, you get six additional months from the original filing deadline to pull the money out and amend.¹³ Any earnings you take out with the excess are taxable in the year the contribution was made.

Divorce and Death

Because the spousal IRA belongs to the spouse whose name is on it, divorce doesn’t reverse that ownership. The receiving spouse keeps the account. IRA assets can be split tax-free between ex-spouses as part of a divorce decree using a trustee-to-trustee transfer; after the transfer, the receiving ex-spouse handles the tax on any future withdrawals. Pulling funds out of your own IRA and handing them to your ex as part of a settlement, rather than transferring directly, is treated as a taxable distribution to you, with the 10% penalty attached if you’re under 59½.¹⁴

After the divorce, contributions to a former spouse’s IRA are no longer deductible. Taxable alimony or separate maintenance does count as compensation for IRA purposes, so a previously non-working spouse receiving alimony can begin contributing on their own income.¹⁴

When one spouse dies, a surviving spouse who is the sole beneficiary has the most flexibility of any IRA heir. They can roll the inherited account into their own IRA and treat it as if it had always been theirs, which resets the RMD clock to their own age. Alternatively, they can keep it as an inherited IRA, useful if the survivor is under 59½ and wants access without the early-withdrawal penalty, since inherited IRA distributions escape the 10% penalty regardless of the beneficiary’s age. If the account is split among multiple beneficiaries, the spouse’s favorable options apply to their share only if the beneficiary determination is finalized by September 30 of the year after the account holder’s death.¹⁵

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 (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)
3
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 219 – Retirement Savings
5
Internal Revenue Service. Armed Forces’ Tax Guide
6
Internal Revenue Service. Nonresident Spouse
7
Internal Revenue Service. Traditional and Roth IRAs
8
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8606 (2025)
9
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs Regarding IRAs Distributions (Withdrawals)
10
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions
11
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
12
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
13
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 (2025)
14
Internal Revenue Service. Filing Taxes After Divorce or Separation
15
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary