401(k) Contribution Limit Calculator (2026)

You can defer $24,500 of your own pay in 2026 into a 401(k), 403(b) or governmental 457(b), before and after tax (Roth) combined. If you reach 50 by December 31, a catch-up of $8,000 sits on top, for $32,500. If you reach 60, 61, 62 or 63 in 2026, the catch-up is $11,250 instead of $8,000, for $35,750; it replaces the age 50 amount and does not add to it (IRS Notice 2025-67; 26 CFR 1.414(v)-1(c)(2)). At 64 it goes back to $8,000.

You cannot defer more than your pay, so a part-year worker earning $20,000 is capped at $20,000. Employer match and profit sharing are on top of all of this, up to the annual additions limit below. Your plan can set a lower limit than the law allows.

Since 2026 (or later for some plans), if your wages from the employer that sponsors the plan were more than $150,000 in the previous year, your catch-up contributions have to be Roth (26 U.S.C. 414(v)(7); 26 CFR 1.414(v)-2(a)(2)). For 2026 the test is your 2025 wages. The rule is “more than”: exactly $150,000 is not enough. Only the catch-up has to be Roth. The first $24,500 can still be pre-tax, so a 55-year-old who is over the line can put in $24,500 pre-tax and $8,000 Roth, and at 61 it is $24,500 and $11,250.

The wages are the social security wages in box 3 of your W-2 from that employer, not box 1. Your own 401(k) deferrals are wages for social security and Medicare tax (26 U.S.C. 3121(v)(1)), so they are in box 3 even though box 1 leaves them out. Wages from a different employer are not added (1.414(v)-2(b)(4)), and money that is not wages does not count: the regulation's own example is a partner whose pay from the firm was $60,000 of wages plus $155,000 of partnership income, which was not over the regulation's illustrative $155,000 threshold (1.414(v)-2(d), example 2). Someone who did not work for the employer last year has no wages from it and is not covered by the rule.

If the Roth rule applies to you and the plan has no Roth program, the regulation sets the maximum catch-up for you at $0 (1.414(v)-2(b)(2)), so you are limited to the regular $24,500: $24,500 in the example above instead of $32,500. The plan is not breaking the rules by having no Roth option; you simply cannot catch up in it. If you are not over the wage threshold, a plan without Roth lets you catch up before tax as usual. The regulation applies from 2027, and until then a reasonable, good-faith reading is accepted (1.414(v)-2(e)(2)(i)), so ask your plan administrator how your plan treats 2026.

By the regulation's wording, yes. A catch-up deferral has to be Roth only to the extent you have not already made Roth deferrals in the year that equal the dollar catch-up limit (1.414(v)-2(b)(1)). Someone over the wage line who has put in $8,000 as Roth and $16,500 pre-tax by midyear has reached $24,500, and the remaining $8,000 of room can be pre-tax. The calculator uses that reading. Your plan may not do it that way: the regulation also lets a plan treat every deferral over the limit as an irrevocable Roth election, as long as you have a chance to choose differently (1.414(v)-2(c)(3)(i)(B)), so check what payroll will do before you rely on it.

Take the room left and divide it by the paychecks left. With $18,000 put in and 6 of 26 biweekly paychecks to go, the room is $6,500 and each paycheck has to carry $1,083. On a $130,000 salary, one paycheck is $5,000, so that is about 21.7% of it. Two cautions. Whether your employer's match is paid on each paycheck or trued up at year end depends on the plan, so find out before you front-load deferrals and stop early. And if the amount is more than a paycheck, the limit cannot be reached in the paychecks that are left, which the calculator flags.

Section 415(c) caps what goes into your account in the year from all sources: your deferrals, your employer's match and profit sharing, and any after-tax contributions. For 2026 it is the lesser of $72,000 and your pay. Catch-up contributions are not counted (1.414(v)-1(d)(1)), so a person who reaches 50 adds the catch-up on top. With $24,500 of deferrals and $10,000 from the employer, the most that can still go in as after-tax money is $37,500, if the plan allows after-tax contributions at all; many do not.

The regular limit is one limit for you, not one per plan: the law limits “the elective deferrals of any individual” for the year (26 U.S.C. 402(g)(1)), so deferrals at two employers add together. If you go over, the excess is included in your income unless it is Roth, and you can fix it by telling the plan by March 1 and having the plan pay it out, with its earnings, by April 15 of the next year (402(g)(2)). The Roth wage test, by contrast, looks only at the wages from the employer that sponsors the plan (1.414(v)-2(a)(2), (b)(4)).