What Is IRS Form 5498: IRA Contribution Information?

IRS Form 5498 is an informational return your IRA custodian sends to both you and the IRS each year, reporting your contributions, rollovers, Roth conversions, recharacterizations, and the account’s year-end fair market value.¹ You don’t attach it to your tax return. Its job is to give the IRS a record of what your custodian saw, and to give you a document you can check your return against.

Why It Arrives After You’ve Already Filed

Most tax forms land in January. Form 5498 doesn’t, and that catches people off guard. The delay is built into the rules: you can make IRA contributions for the prior tax year all the way up to the April 15 filing deadline,² so custodians have until May 31 to send the form.¹

The practical consequence is that you’ll almost always file before you receive it. You need to track your own contributions to claim any deduction by April 15. Then, when the form shows up in late May, you compare it against your return. If the numbers don’t match, you may need to file an amended return.

The Boxes That Actually Matter

The form has more than a dozen numbered boxes. A few of them do most of the work.

Box 1: Traditional IRA Contributions

Box 1 shows your total regular contributions to a Traditional IRA for the tax year, including any contributions made between January 1 and April 15 of the following year that you designated for the prior year.³ Whether that amount is deductible depends on your income and whether you or your spouse are covered by a workplace retirement plan.⁴ If any portion was nondeductible, you should have filed Form 8606 to record your basis. Skipping that form is one of the most costly mistakes people make with Traditional IRAs: without it, the IRS has no record that part of your contributions was already taxed, and you can end up paying tax on that money again at withdrawal.⁵

Box 2: Rollovers

Box 2 reports rollover contributions received during the year.³ Rollovers don’t count against your annual contribution limit. If you moved a 401(k) balance into an IRA, or received a distribution from one IRA and redeposited it within 60 days, it lands here. Direct trustee-to-trustee transfers between two IRAs of the same type, where the money never touches your hands, generally aren’t reported on Form 5498 at all.⁶

Box 3: Roth Conversions

When you move money from a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, the amount lands in Box 3 on the receiving Roth’s Form 5498.³ Conversions are taxable in the year they happen, so verifying this number matters. The sending Traditional IRA side generates a separate Form 1099-R showing the distribution.

Box 4: Recharacterized Contributions

Box 4 reports contributions you recharacterized from one IRA type to another, along with the attributable earnings.⁶ A recharacterization treats a contribution you made to one type of IRA as if you’d originally made it to the other. That’s different from a conversion; it effectively undoes your original contribution choice.

Box 5: Fair Market Value

Box 5 shows the account’s total balance as of December 31.³ This figure doesn’t hit your current tax bill, but your custodian uses it to calculate next year’s required minimum distribution. If your IRA holds hard-to-value assets like real estate or private company stock, the accuracy of this number depends on proper valuation, and a bad valuation propagates into a bad RMD.

Boxes 8, 9, and 10: SEP, SIMPLE, and Roth

Box 8 reports SEP IRA contributions and Box 9 reports SIMPLE IRA contributions. Box 10 reports regular Roth contributions, including those made through April 15 of the following year and designated for the prior tax year.³ Roth contributions are never deductible, but Box 10 is worth saving. The cumulative record establishes your Roth basis, which determines how much you can withdraw tax-free and penalty-free later.

Box 11 and Boxes 12a/12b: RMD Flag

If Box 11 is checked, you’re required to take a minimum distribution from that IRA for the following year.⁶ Box 12a shows the deadline; Box 12b shows the calculated amount. If Box 11 is checked but Box 12b is blank, your custodian must either provide the RMD amount or offer to calculate it in a separate statement by January 31.³ Note the limit here: an unchecked Box 11 doesn’t mean no RMD is owed. The checkbox is a reminder, not a legal determination.

Boxes 15a and 15b: Alternative Assets

If your IRA holds assets outside publicly traded stocks and bonds, such as real estate, private company stock, partnership interests, or private debt, your custodian reports the fair market value and asset type in Boxes 15a and 15b using designated codes.⁷ This requirement has been in place since 2015. If you have a self-directed IRA with these kinds of holdings, check the valuation carefully: it feeds Box 5, and Box 5 feeds your future RMD.

Watching for the RMD and Its Penalty

Once you reach age 73, you must start taking annual withdrawals from your Traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs.⁸ Roth IRAs are exempt from RMDs during the owner’s lifetime. Your first RMD is due by April 1 of the year after you turn 73; each subsequent RMD is due by December 31. The amount is your year-end fair market value (Box 5) divided by a life expectancy factor from IRS tables.

Missing an RMD, or not withdrawing enough, triggers a 25% excise tax on the shortfall.⁸ The penalty drops to 10% if you correct the mistake within a two-year window by taking the missed distribution and filing an updated return. You report and calculate the excise tax on Form 5329.⁹ A checked Box 11 is the practical reason to open the envelope when Form 5498 arrives.

Using It to Verify Your Return

You never attach Form 5498 to your Form 1040. Your custodian sends its copy directly to the IRS. The form’s value to you is verification: confirming that what the IRS has on file matches what you reported.¹

If you claimed a Traditional IRA deduction on Schedule 1, check Box 1 against what you deducted. If you made a Roth conversion, confirm Box 3 matches the amount you reported as taxable. If you made nondeductible contributions, you should have filed Form 8606 to establish basis.⁵ For Roth contributions in Box 10, there’s nothing to deduct, but hold onto every year’s form. That record is what proves your basis when you eventually take distributions.

What to Do If a Box Is Wrong

Errors on Form 5498 happen more often than you’d expect. Common ones include a contribution posted to the wrong tax year, a Roth conversion misidentified, duplicate forms, and incorrect RMD information.¹⁰

If something looks off, contact your custodian and ask for a corrected form. Be specific. “You reported my 2025 contribution as a 2024 contribution” gives the custodian something to act on. Keep your own documentation, whether that’s confirmation emails, bank transfer records, or contribution receipts, so you can show the correct information.

An uncorrected error can turn into a real problem. If the IRS sees a mismatch between the custodian’s report and your return, you may get a notice asking you to explain or pay additional tax. Catching and correcting the error before the IRS flags it is always the easier path.

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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information
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Internal Revenue Service. Traditional and Roth IRAs
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498, IRA Contribution Information
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Internal Revenue Service. IRA Deduction Limits
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8606, Nondeductible IRAs
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498 – Asset Information Reporting Codes and Common Errors
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Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 5329 (2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 5498 – Errors by IRA Trustees, Issuers and Custodians May Cause Tax Trouble