Quick Answer
If you are age 60, 61, 62 or 63 at the end of 2026, the most you can defer from your own pay into a 401(k) is $35,750 — the $24,500 base employee limit plus the $11,250 super catch-up created by SECURE 2.0 Section 109.
Everyone else age 50 and older gets the ordinary catch-up of $8,000, for a total of $32,500. Under age 50, the limit is the $24,500 base. The super catch-up window is exactly four years wide: turn 64 during the year and you drop back to $32,500.
Two details that change the answer for a lot of people. First, the super catch-up amount did not rise for 2026 — it stayed at $11,250 while the base limit went up $1,000, so figures carried over from 2025 are wrong by exactly that $1,000. Second, starting January 1, 2026, if your 2025 Social Security wages from the employer sponsoring the plan exceeded $150,000, your catch-up must be made as Roth under SECURE 2.0 Section 603 — you no longer get to take it pre-tax. Note that this threshold is indexed: the $145,000 in the statute is adjusted in $5,000 increments, and IRS Notice 2025-67 set it at $150,000 for the 2026 plan year.
Key Takeaways
- $35,750 total for ages 60–63 in 2026 — $24,500 base plus the $11,250 super catch-up
- The window is four years and does not reopen. At age 64 the catch-up reverts to $8,000 and the total falls to $32,500
- $11,250 did not change for 2026. The statute sets it at the greater of $10,000 or 150% of the 2024 catch-up, and inflation indexing has not yet moved it
- High earners lose the pre-tax option this year. 2025 wages above $150,000 from that employer force the catch-up into Roth (SECURE 2.0 Section 603; threshold indexed, per IRS Notice 2025-67)
- The age test is your age at year end, not your age on the day you contribute — someone who turns 60 in December 2026 qualifies for all of 2026
What a General AI Assistant Says, and What Is Actually True
This section documents one specific, dated, checkable answer. It is not a claim that AI assistants are always wrong about retirement limits — they are frequently right, and a model refreshed after November 2025 may well give you the correct figure. The point is narrower and, we think, more useful: you cannot tell from the answer itself whether the number is current, because a confident wrong answer and a confident right answer look identical.
Answering from training data, with no tools connected
Tested: August 8, 2026. Prompt: “I turn 61 in 2026 and my employer's 401(k) allows catch-up contributions. What is the maximum I can contribute from my own pay for 2026?”
A commonly reproduced answer: “Because you are between 60 and 63, you qualify for the enhanced catch-up of $11,250 on top of the $23,500 elective deferral limit, so your maximum is $34,750.”
The reasoning is right and the super catch-up is correctly identified. The base limit is a year stale: $23,500 was the 2025 figure, and IRS Notice 2025-67 raised it to $24,500 for 2026. The answer is short by $1,000 — a full year of unused tax-deferred room.
A second answer we see just as often skips the elevated tier entirely and returns $32,500 ($24,500 plus the ordinary $8,000 catch-up), which is the correct answer for a 55-year-old and the wrong one for a 61-year-old.
Why this specific failure happens. Two mechanisms compound. Contribution limits are re-issued every autumn, so any fixed set of model weights is describing a snapshot that expires; the 2025 figures were published in November 2024 and had a full year to saturate the web before the 2026 figures appeared in November 2025. And the super catch-up itself is young — it first applied in 2025, so there is far less written about it than about the ordinary age-50 catch-up that has existed since 2002. Thin, recent, annually-revised data is exactly the shape of fact a language model is worst at.
This is not a knock on the models. It is an argument about architecture: a statutory limit should be looked up, not recalled.
The Same Question Through a Deterministic Engine
Our MCP server exposes the same engine this site's calculator uses. Asked the identical question, an assistant with the server connected makes one check_contribution_eligibility call with kind: "401k" and birth_year: 1965 (age 61 in 2026). The table below is that engine response, field for field.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
rule_year | 2026 |
age_in_rule_year | 61 |
contributionLimit | $24,500 |
catchUpEligible | true |
superCatchUpApplies | true |
catchUpAmount | $11,250 |
totalContributionLimit | $35,750 |
meta.source | IRS Notice 2025-67; SECURE 2.0 Act Section 109 (ages 60–63 super catch-up) |
The difference is not that the engine is smarter. It is that the engine carries a rule_year and a source along with the number, so the answer can be checked without trusting the thing that produced it. If Congress changes the limit, one data file changes and every answer changes with it.
2026 401(k) Deferral Limit by Age
Find your age at the end of 2026 — not your age today. The IRS age test for both catch-up tiers is the age you attain during the taxable year, so a birthday in late December counts for the whole year.
| Age at end of 2026 | Base limit | Catch-up | Total you may defer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 50 | $24,500 | $0 | $24,500 |
| 50 to 59 | $24,500 | $8,000 | $32,500 |
| 60, 61, 62 or 63 | $24,500 | $11,250 | $35,750 |
| 64 and older | $24,500 | $8,000 | $32,500 |
Every row above is the output of the same engine call shown in Section 3, run across the age range. Base limit per IRS Notice 2025-67; catch-up tiers per SECURE 2.0 Section 109.
The age-64 drop-off
The elevated tier is written as ages 60 through 63 and stops there. A participant who turns 64 in 2026 loses $3,250 of deferral room compared with the prior year and does not get it back — the window is four calendar years, once. If you are approaching 64 and have the cash flow, the years before it are the most tax-advantaged deferral years the code currently offers a wage earner.
Why 2025 Figures Are Still Circulating
The three numbers moved independently between 2025 and 2026, which is what makes a stale answer so easy to produce and so hard to spot. The super catch-up is set by statute as the greater of $10,000 or 150% of the 2024 catch-up limit of $7,500, and 150% of $7,500 is $11,250 — so it stayed flat while the other two rose.
| Figure | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base elective deferral | $23,500 | $24,500 | +$1,000 |
| Ordinary catch-up (50–59, 64+) | $7,500 | $8,000 | +$500 |
| Super catch-up (60–63) | $11,250 | $11,250 | No change |
| Total, ages 50–59 and 64+ | $31,000 | $32,500 | +$1,500 |
| Total, ages 60–63 | $34,750 | $35,750 | +$1,000 |
The 2026 column is engine output. The 2025 column is the prior-year IRS schedule, shown for comparison only — it is the source of the stale answers documented above, not a figure you should use for a 2026 contribution.
If you see $34,750 quoted as a 2026 maximum, the base limit behind it is a year old. If you see $31,000, both components are.
New for 2026: Your Catch-Up May Have to Be Roth
This is the change most likely to be missing from an answer written before late 2025, and it does not affect the dollar amount at all — it affects the tax treatment, which is arguably worse to get wrong because it changes this year's tax bill.
SECURE 2.0 Section 603 took effect January 1, 2026. If your 2025 Social Security wages (Form W-2, Box 3) from the employer sponsoring the plan exceeded $150,000, your catch-up contributions to that plan must be designated Roth. You keep the full $11,250 of room; you simply cannot take the deduction on it.
Watch the number itself: $145,000 is the base amount written into the statute, not the amount that applies for 2026. It is indexed for inflation in $5,000 increments, and IRS Notice 2025-67 raised the lookback threshold to $150,000 of 2025 wages for the 2026 plan year. If you earned between $145,001 and $150,000 in 2025, you keep the pre-tax election that the older figure would have denied you.
The details that determine whether this applies to you:
- It is per employer, not per household. The test looks at wages from the one employer that sponsors the plan. Two jobs at $100,000 each do not trigger it; one job at $150,000 does
- It uses Box 3 Social Security wages, not total compensation and not adjusted gross income
- It applies to 401(k), 403(b) and governmental 457(b) plans — not to SEP or SIMPLE plans
- Wages below the threshold keep the choice. If your 2025 wages were at or under $150,000, you may still make catch-up contributions pre-tax if your plan allows it
- The IRS final regulations allow reasonable good-faith compliance through January 1, 2027, so plan administration may vary during the transition. Ask your plan sponsor how they are applying it
If this rule catches you, the practical question stops being “how much” and becomes “Roth or traditional” for the rest of your deferral. Our Roth 401(k) versus traditional comparison works through that trade-off.
A silver lining worth knowing
A forced Roth catch-up is not purely a cost. Roth 401(k) balances are no longer subject to required minimum distributions during the account owner's lifetime — SECURE 2.0 Section 325 removed that requirement beginning in 2024. Money you are compelled to put in as Roth at ages 60 through 63 is money that will not drive an RMD later. Whether that outweighs losing the deduction depends on your bracket now versus in retirement.
Check This Yourself in Two Minutes
Do not take our word for either half of this page. The test is short.
- Ask your assistant, with no tools or web browsing enabled: “I turn 61 in 2026 and my employer's 401(k) allows catch-up contributions. What is the maximum I can contribute from my own pay for 2026?”
- Check the base limit it used. If the answer is built on $23,500, it is a year stale. The 2026 base is $24,500
- Check whether it mentioned Section 603. An answer that does not raise the Roth catch-up question for a 61-year-old is incomplete for 2026, whatever number it gave
- Verify against the primary source: the IRS announcement of the 2026 limits(opens in new tab) is one page and states the base and catch-up figures directly
If your assistant gets it right, good — that is a real data point too, and we would rather the answer be right than be able to say we told you so. Report a figure you think we have wrong through the about page; we correct dated content and say when we did.
See what $35,750 a year actually builds
The limit is only half the question. Four years of maximum deferral at ages 60 through 63 lands differently depending on your balance, your match and your retirement date.
Sources
- IRS — 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500 (Notice 2025-67)(opens in new tab)
- IRS — Retirement topics: catch-up contributions(opens in new tab)
- IRS — COLA increases for dollar limitations on benefits and contributions(opens in new tab)
- SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 — Section 109 (higher catch-up limit at ages 60–63) and Section 603 (Roth treatment of catch-up contributions)(opens in new tab)
- Federal Register — Catch-Up Contributions, final regulations (September 2025)(opens in new tab)
Important Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This content is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Contribution limits described here are statutory maximums; your plan document may impose lower limits, and nondiscrimination testing can further restrict deferrals for highly compensated employees. Individual circumstances vary, and you should consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making retirement contribution decisions. While we strive for accuracy, laws and regulations change frequently. Data current as of August 2026.
Content reviewed by Mark at Markco Labs. Learn more about our accuracy standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
For 2026 the super catch-up is $11,250, available only to participants who are age 60, 61, 62 or 63 at the end of the calendar year. Added to the $24,500 base employee deferral limit, that produces a total employee deferral of $35,750. The super catch-up amount did not change from 2025; the base limit rose from $23,500 to $24,500 and the ordinary age-50 catch-up rose from $7,500 to $8,000.
No. SECURE 2.0 Section 109 limits the elevated catch-up to participants who attain age 60, 61, 62 or 63 during the taxable year. A participant who turns 64 during 2026 drops back to the ordinary $8,000 catch-up, for a total of $32,500. The four-year window does not reopen.
It must be Roth if your 2025 Social Security wages from the employer sponsoring the plan exceeded $150,000. SECURE 2.0 Section 603 took effect January 1, 2026 and applies to 401(k), 403(b) and governmental 457(b) plans. The $145,000 figure written into the statute is indexed in $5,000 increments, and IRS Notice 2025-67 set the 2025 lookback threshold at $150,000. The test uses Box 3 wages from that one employer, not household income, and the IRS final regulations allow a reasonable good-faith transition through January 1, 2027. If your prior-year wages were at or below the threshold, you may still make catch-up contributions pre-tax.
$11,250 is the catch-up amount; $34,750 was the 2025 total (a $23,500 base plus $11,250). The correct 2026 total for ages 60 through 63 is $35,750. Answers quoting $34,750 for 2026 have carried forward last year's base limit. Per IRS Notice 2025-67 the 2026 base is $24,500.
No. SECURE 2.0 Section 109 applies to 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457(b) and SIMPLE plans, not to Traditional or Roth IRAs. The 2026 IRA limit is $7,500 with a $1,100 catch-up at age 50 and older, for a total of $8,600 regardless of whether you are 60 to 63. See our IRA Calculator for the phase-out rules that can reduce it further.
No. The $35,750 figure is the employee elective-deferral limit under IRC Section 402(g) plus the catch-up. Employer matching and profit-sharing contributions count against the separate total annual additions limit under IRC Section 415(c), which is a much larger number. Check your plan document, because plans are permitted to impose lower internal limits than the statutory maximum. Our guide to maximizing your match covers how the two limits interact.