2026 Retirement Plan Contribution Limits

This page is the 2026 reference for every IRS retirement plan contribution limit. Use the table below to jump to the one you need. Each row links to a deeper article or to a plain-English explanation further down. It's written for plan sponsors, advisors, and CPAs who want the numbers fast without wading through the tax code.

The figures here come from IRS Notice 2025-67, released in November 2025, plus the Social Security Administration's 2026 wage-base announcement and the PBGC's 2026 premium rates. We refresh this page each fall, when the IRS publishes the next year's cost-of-living adjustments.

Key Takeaways for 2026

• The 401(k) salary deferral limit rose to $24,500, plus an $8,000 catch-up at age 50+ and an $11,250 “super catch-up” at ages 60 to 63.
• The 401(k)/profit-sharing account limit rose to $72,000, the cap on everything that goes into one defined contribution account in a year.
• The defined benefit / cash balance limit rose to $290,000, the largest annual pension a plan can promise, which is what drives how big a cash balance contribution an owner can make.
• The pay cap rose to $360,000, the most pay any plan can count for anyone, owners included.
• The “highly compensated employee” threshold held flat at $160,000 for the second year running, so 2026 testing keys off who earned above that line in 2025.
• The Social Security Wage Base jumped to $184,500 (up $8,400), which shifts a key breakpoint in plans that integrate with Social Security.
• SECURE 2.0’s Roth catch-up rule starts in 2026: employees who earned more than $150,000 from the employer in 2025 must make any catch-up contributions on a Roth (after-tax) basis.
• A well-designed cash balance plus 401(k)/profit-sharing combo can still deliver $250,000 to $300,000+ in deductible contributions for a small-business owner, depending on age and staff.

At a Glance: 2026 IRS Retirement Plan Limits

What Employees Can Contribute

401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) Salary Deferrals

For 2026, you can put up to $24,500 of your own pay into a 401(k), 403(b), or governmental 457(b) plan. That cap is per person, not per plan, so changing jobs mid-year doesn’t reset it. Government 457(b) plans have their own separate limit, so someone covered by both a 401(k) and a government 457(b) can defer up to about $49,000 between them.

Roth 401(k) contributions count against the same limit as pre-tax ones. The Roth-versus-pre-tax decision is about when you pay tax, not about how much you can put in.

Catch-Up Contributions (Age 50+) and the New “Super Catch-Up” (Ages 60 to 63)

If you turn 50 or older by year-end, you can add $8,000 on top of the regular limit for 2026. SECURE 2.0 created a larger $11,250 catch-up for ages 60 through 63, which drops back to the standard amount at age 64. The $11,250 figure held flat from 2025 to 2026.

One change worth flagging: starting in 2026, employees who earned more than $150,000 from the employer in the prior year must make any catch-up contributions on a Roth (after-tax) basis. If the plan doesn’t offer Roth catch-up, those employees can’t make catch-up contributions at all, so plans and payroll systems need this set up before the first 2026 catch-up runs.

SIMPLE IRA Deferrals

SIMPLE IRAs have their own limit, separate from regular 401(k)s. For 2026 the deferral limit is $17,000, with a $4,000 catch-up at age 50+ and a $5,250 super catch-up at ages 60 through 63. Employers with no more than 25 employees get a slightly higher limit ($18,100 deferral, $3,850 catch-up) under SECURE 2.0.

IRA and Roth IRA

You can contribute up to $7,500 to a traditional or Roth IRA for 2026, plus a $1,100 catch-up at age 50+. Whether a traditional IRA contribution is tax-deductible phases out based on your income and whether you (or your spouse) are covered by a workplace plan. Roth IRA eligibility phases out based on income regardless of workplace-plan coverage.

What Employers Can Contribute

How Much Can Go Into a 401(k)/Profit-Sharing Account in a Year

Everything that lands in one person’s defined contribution account in a year (employer contributions, the employee’s own deferrals, and reallocated forfeitures) is capped at the lesser of $72,000 or 100% of pay for 2026. Age 50+ catch-ups don’t count toward it, so a 55-year-old’s real ceiling is $80,000.

This is the limit that governs profit sharing plans, money purchase plans, and the 401(k)/profit-sharing side of a combo plan. SEP-IRAs use the same $72,000 ceiling (or 25% of pay, whichever is less); for a self-employed person that works out to roughly 20% of net self-employment income.

Defined Benefit and Cash Balance Plan Limits

Defined benefit and cash balance plans work differently from 401(k)s: the limit is on the pension the plan can promise, not on the contribution. For 2026 that maximum pension is $290,000 a year. The actual deductible contribution is whatever the actuary calculates is needed to fund that pension, which for an owner is often well into six figures.

One catch in the early years: a brand-new plan’s maximum is phased in over its first 10 years (10% in year one, which works out to $29,000 of pension), so a first-year proposal that quotes the full $290,000 is overstating things. There’s also a separate limit on how much an employer can deduct when it runs a defined benefit plan and a 401(k)/profit-sharing plan side by side, and those interactions are where combo plan design lives. Full treatment in the defined benefit plan contribution limits guide.

The Pay That Counts

The Pay Cap: Only the First $360,000 Counts

No plan can count more than $360,000 of a person’s pay for 2026, no matter how much they actually earn. This applies to everyone, owners included. An owner making $500,000 is treated as making $360,000 for every plan calculation: contributions, accruals, top-heavy minimums, all of it. It’s also why the $72,000 account limit doesn’t grow even when an owner earns far more than the cap.

The Social Security Wage Base (and Why It Matters for Plan Design)

The 2026 Social Security Wage Base is $184,500, set by the Social Security Administration. Beyond payroll taxes, it matters for plan design: a plan can be set up to “integrate” with Social Security, providing a higher contribution or benefit rate on pay above that breakpoint than below it. For a small professional practice where the owner earns well above $184,500 and most staff earn below it, that’s a quiet but effective way to tilt contributions toward the owner while staying inside the nondiscrimination rules.

Who Counts as “Highly Paid” for Testing

Highly Compensated Employees (HCEs)

An employee is a “highly compensated employee” for 2026 if they either (1) owned more than 5% of the business at any time in the current or prior year (counting stock owned by close family), or (2) earned more than $160,000 in 2025. The threshold rounds in $5,000 steps and didn’t move this year. HCE status drives essentially every nondiscrimination test a plan has to pass, so getting the classification right is the foundation for everything downstream.

There’s also a “top-paid group” election that lets a plan treat only the top 20% of employees by pay as HCEs, which helps when a large share of the workforce earns above the threshold. Full treatment of the family-ownership rules, the top-paid group election, and worked examples in the highly compensated employee guide.

Key Employees and Top-Heavy Plans

“Key employee” is a separate label, used for the top-heavy rules. For 2026 a key employee is an officer earning more than $235,000, a more-than-5% owner, or a more-than-1% owner earning more than $150,000. It overlaps heavily with HCE status in owner-run businesses, but it isn’t the same thing: key-employee status drives the top-heavy test, while HCE status drives the general nondiscrimination tests. Many small-business plans end up “top-heavy” because the owners are both 5% owners and key employees, which triggers a required minimum contribution for the non-key staff.

PBGC Premiums (Pension Insurance)

Most defined benefit and cash balance plans pay an annual insurance premium to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. For 2026 that’s $111 per participant as a flat rate, plus an extra $52 per $1,000 of any underfunding (the “variable-rate” premium), with that variable piece capped at $751 per participant.

A well-funded plan only pays the flat $111 per head. There’s an important exemption: professional-service employers (doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, and the like) with 25 or fewer participants are exempt from PBGC coverage entirely, which is why most small physician, attorney, and accounting cash balance plans pay no PBGC premiums at all. The trade-off is no PBGC insurance if the plan ever fails. For how the PBGC’s funding measure relates to a plan’s accounting numbers, see the accumulated benefit obligation article.

When These Numbers Change Each Year

The IRS publishes the cost-of-living-adjusted limits each fall, usually October or November (the 2026 figures here come from IRS Notice 2025-67, released November 2025). The Social Security Administration announces the wage base separately, typically in mid-October, and the PBGC posts its premium rates in the fall. All of them take effect January 1. We update this page as soon as the new figures are out, so it carries the upcoming year’s numbers from the moment they’re known.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 limits are the framework every retirement plan decision sits inside. Knowing the dollar figures is the easy part. The real value, especially for a small-business owner, is in how these limits interact: which plan design squeezes the most deductible contribution out of them while keeping the plan compliant and the staff cost reasonable.

If you’re setting up a plan or advising someone who is, an actuary can model the contribution, deduction, and testing math across all of these before you commit.

The IRS Code Sections Behind These Limits

For advisors and accountants who want the citation behind each number:

• Salary deferrals (401(k), 403(b), 457(b)): §402(g)
• Catch-up and super catch-up: §414(v); the ages 60 to 63 amount was added by SECURE 2.0 §109, and the Roth catch-up requirement is §414(v)(7) / SECURE 2.0 §603
• SIMPLE IRAs: §408(p)
• IRAs: §219(b)
• 401(k)/profit-sharing account limit: §415(c)
• Defined benefit / cash balance limit: §415(b), with the early-years phase-in at §415(b)(5)
• Employer deduction limits (including the combined DB/DC limit): §404 and §404(a)(7)
• Annual pay cap: §401(a)(17)
• Highly compensated employee threshold and top-paid group election: §414(q)
• Key-employee thresholds: §416(i)
• Social Security Wage Base: §230 of the Social Security Act
• PBGC premiums: ERISA §4006, with the small professional-employer exemption at ERISA §4021
• Social Security integration (“permitted disparity”): §401(l)

The 2026 dollar amounts come from IRS Notice 2025-67.