For married couples filing jointly in 2026, each spouse can contribute up to $7,500 to a Roth IRA, or $8,600 if age 50 or older, as long as your combined modified adjusted gross income stays below $242,000. Between $242,000 and $252,000, the contribution phases out. At $252,000 and above, direct Roth contributions are off the table entirely, though a workaround exists.
What Each Spouse Can Contribute in 2026
The contribution limit is per person, not per couple. Both spouses under 50 can each put in $7,500, for $15,000 combined. If both are 50 or older, the catch-up adds $1,100 apiece, bringing the couple’s ceiling to $17,200.1Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Limit Increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA Limit Increases to $7,500 One spouse can hit the catch-up limit while the other doesn’t; the ages are tracked individually.
One rule overrides the dollar limits: your total Roth contribution can’t exceed your taxable compensation. Wages, salaries, tips, self-employment income, and commissions count. Investment income, rental income, pension payments, and Social Security don’t.2Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements
A note on the SECURE 2.0 “super catch-up” for ages 60 through 63: it exists, but only for employer-sponsored plans like 401(k)s. IRA limits don’t get that bump.
The Income Limit and the Phase-Out
For joint filers in 2026, the IRS starts reducing your allowable Roth contribution once combined MAGI hits $242,000. At $252,000, contributions drop to zero.3Internal Revenue Service. Notice 25-67 – 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs The $10,000 gap in between is the phase-out range.
Modified adjusted gross income for Roth purposes starts with your AGI and adds back items like the student loan interest deduction and the foreign earned income exclusion. For most W-2 households without foreign income, MAGI equals AGI.
If you land in the phase-out range, here is the math for each spouse’s reduced limit:4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 408A – Roth IRAs
- Subtract $242,000 from your MAGI. Say your MAGI is $247,000; the excess is $5,000.
- Divide by $10,000. That’s 0.50, or 50%.
- Multiply the full limit by that percentage. For someone under 50: $7,500 × 0.50 = $3,750.
- Subtract from the full limit. $7,500 − $3,750 = $3,750 allowed per spouse.
The result is rounded up to the nearest $10, and there’s a $200 minimum contribution guaranteed as long as your MAGI is still inside the phase-out range. The math runs separately for each spouse’s account, so in the example above both partners could contribute $3,750, or $7,500 combined.
Funding a Non-Working Spouse’s Roth IRA
This is one of the real advantages of filing jointly. If one spouse doesn’t work or earns very little, the working spouse’s income can fund a Roth IRA in the non-working spouse’s name. The only requirement is that the couple’s combined taxable compensation on the joint return equals or exceeds their total IRA contributions.5Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits
If one spouse earns $60,000 and the other earns nothing, both can still contribute the full $7,500 each. The combined compensation of $60,000 easily covers the $15,000 total. Each account is separately owned; the non-working spouse isn’t sharing or borrowing from the other’s account. Two independent retirement balances grow side by side.
When You Have to Fund the Account
You don’t have to contribute by December 31. The deadline is your tax return filing date, which for most couples is April 15, 2027, for 2026 contributions.6Internal Revenue Service. Traditional and Roth IRAs That’s useful, because many couples don’t know their exact MAGI until they sit down to file. You can wait, run the numbers, confirm eligibility, and then contribute.
When you contribute in the January-to-April overlap period, be clear with your IRA custodian about which tax year the contribution applies to. Most custodians ask you to designate the year at the time of deposit. Getting this wrong creates excess-contribution problems. Filing an extension to October does not extend the IRA contribution deadline.
If Your Joint Income Is Too High: The Backdoor Roth
Once combined MAGI clears $252,000, direct Roth contributions aren’t available. Roth conversions, though, aren’t income-restricted. That’s the gap the backdoor Roth strategy uses.
The mechanics are two steps. Contribute to a Traditional IRA on a non-deductible basis with after-tax dollars, then convert that balance into a Roth IRA. Because the money going in was already taxed, converting the principal itself doesn’t generate additional tax. You report the non-deductible contribution and the conversion on IRS Form 8606.7Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8606 – Nondeductible IRAs
Skipping Form 8606 is a common mistake. The direct penalty for failing to file is $50, but the real cost is losing track of your basis and paying tax again on money you’ve already been taxed on. Overstating your non-deductible contributions on the form triggers a $100 penalty.7Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8606 – Nondeductible IRAs
The Pro-Rata Rule
The backdoor works cleanly only when you have no pre-tax money sitting in any Traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA. If you do, the IRS treats every dollar across all your non-Roth IRAs as one pool and taxes the conversion proportionally.8Internal Revenue Service. Transcript for the Basics of Roth Conversions
An example: you have $93,000 in a pre-tax rollover IRA and you make a $7,500 non-deductible Traditional IRA contribution. Your total IRA pool is $100,500. Only $7,500, about 7.5%, is after-tax. If you convert $7,500 to a Roth, only 7.5% is tax-free. The other 92.5% is taxable ordinary income. That can erase most of the benefit.
The usual fix is rolling any existing pre-tax IRA balances into your employer’s 401(k) before converting, assuming your plan accepts incoming rollovers. That moves pre-tax money out of the IRA aggregation calculation and lets the non-deductible contribution convert tax-free. If no 401(k) is available, run the numbers before you convert.
The rule applies to each spouse individually. One spouse’s pre-tax rollover IRA doesn’t affect the other spouse’s backdoor conversion. So if only one of you has an old rollover IRA, the other can still execute a clean backdoor Roth.
Fixing an Excess Contribution
If you contribute more than you’re allowed — most often because year-end income turned out higher than expected and pushed you past $252,000 — the IRS charges a 6% excise tax on the excess for every year it stays in the account.9Internal Revenue Service. IRA Year-End Reminders The penalty compounds annually, so timing matters.
You have three options:
- Withdraw the excess plus any earnings it generated by April 15 (or October 15 with an extension). The 6% penalty doesn’t apply. The earnings portion is taxable and may face the 10% early-withdrawal penalty if you’re under 59½.
- Recharacterize the contribution as a Traditional IRA contribution instead. Same filing deadline applies. Useful when you’re over the Roth MAGI limit but still eligible to contribute to a Traditional IRA.
- Apply the excess to a future year by reducing next year’s contribution. You’ll owe the 6% for the year the excess remained, but it stops accruing once corrected.
If you contributed to both a Roth and a Traditional IRA in the same year and the combined total exceeds your limit, IRS regulations require you to remove the excess from the Roth IRA first.