401(k) limits for 2026
You can put $24,500 of your pay into a 401(k) for 2026, more from 50. With your employer’s money, up to $72,000 can go in for you.
The 2026 figures
Set by the IRS each fall for the year ahead. Catch-ups sit on top of everything else.
| Your own pay, before tax or Roth | $24,500 |
| Catch-up from 50 | $8,000 |
| Catch-up at 60 to 63, instead | $11,250 |
| Everything into one employer’s plan | $72,000 |
| Pay a plan can count | $360,000 |
So your own most is $32,500 from 50, and $35,750 in the years you turn 60 to 63.
How they add up
Your own part, $24,500, is what comes out of your pay, before tax or as Roth. The limit is yours, not the plan’s: it counts across every 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE and SARSEP plan you are in that year. A 457(b) has a limit of its own.
Catch-ups depend on your age on December 31. From 50 you can add $8,000. In the years you turn 60, 61, 62 or 63 the plan can let you add $11,250 instead, and at 64 it goes back to $8,000. If your Social Security wages from the employer were over $150,000 in 2025, your catch-ups there have to go in as Roth.
The total, $72,000, is everything one employer’s plan takes for you in a year: your own part, the match or profit sharing, and after-tax money. It can’t be more than your pay. It is per employer, so a second, unrelated job has its own, though your own part is still one limit across both.
After-tax money is how the room between your own part and the total can become Roth: the mega backdoor Roth.
A job’s plan and a Solo 401(k)
Working for yourself on the side, you can have a Solo 401(k) beside a job’s plan. Your own $24,500 is shared between them: whatever you defer at the job comes off what you can put in as your own business’s employee.
The employer part is not shared. Your business can add 25% of your earned income, which is 20% of profit after half the self-employment tax, and that counts toward your Solo 401(k)’s own $72,000, not the job’s.
Someone 40 years old who defers $15,000 at a $120,000 job and clears $60,000 on the side can still put $9,500 into a Solo 401(k) as the employee and $11,152 as the employer. Work out yours.
Questions people ask
What is the 401(k) limit for 2026?
$24,500 of your own pay, before tax or as Roth. With your employer’s money and any after-tax money, up to $72,000 can go into one employer’s plan for you, plus catch-ups.
What is the 401(k) catch-up for 2026?
$8,000 if you are 50 or older on December 31, so $32,500 of your own. If you turn 60, 61, 62 or 63 in 2026, it is $11,250 instead, $35,750 of your own, when the plan offers it.
Does my employer’s match count toward my own limit?
No. The match counts toward the $72,000 for everything going into that employer’s plan, not toward your $24,500.
I have two jobs. Do I get two limits?
Not for your own part: the $24,500 is yours across every 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE and SARSEP plan you are in. The $72,000 total is per employer, so unrelated employers each have their own.
Do Roth 401(k) contributions have an income limit?
No. Roth money in a 401(k) counts toward the same $24,500 and has no income limit, unlike a Roth IRA.
When is the last day?
Your own part comes out of pay, and only pay through December 31 counts for 2026. A change can take a paycheck or two to show, so make it by early December.
Checked on October 2, 2026 against IR-2025-111, 2026 401(k) and IRA limits, Notice 2025-67, Deferring in more than one plan, 26 U.S.C. 415(c), the annual additions limit and Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business. An estimate for your records, not tax advice.
Where the 401(k) sits among your other accounts, from the match to the rest: the savings waterfall.
More if you save or invest
- Tax-equivalent yield calculatorThe money market fund that pays you most after tax
- Savings waterfall calculatorWhich account your next dollar goes to, and how much
- Roth IRA income limitsWhere a Roth IRA shrinks and stops, by filing status
- Backdoor RothOver the income line, step by step, and the mega backdoor
- 529 tax deduction by stateWhat 529 money takes off your state taxes
Put more back in your pocket.
Reimburse works out what your 401(k), an HSA and an IRA take off your taxes, and reminds you before each one's last day.