Roth IRA Calculator

Enter your age, retirement age, current Roth balance, yearly contribution, and an expected return. You'll get your projected tax-free balance at retirement, the split between what you put in and what growth added, and a side-by-side comparison with the same dollars in a taxable account.

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The Roth deal in one sentence

You pay income tax on the money before it goes in, and then you never pay tax on it again: not on the growth along the way, and not on qualified withdrawals in retirement. That second part is the whole game. Forty years of compounding can turn modest contributions into a sum where most of the balance is growth, and in a Roth IRA every dollar of that growth is yours. This calculator shows you the projection, and then does the thing we think matters most: it puts the same dollars in a plain taxable account next to it, so you can see what the tax-free wrapper is actually worth in dollars.

How the projection works

We compound your balance once a year at your expected return and add your annual contribution at the end of each year. That is a deliberate, stated convention: real life is messier (most people contribute monthly, and returns arrive in lumps), but year-end annual contributions keep the math transparent and slightly conservative, since your money gets credited a little later than it would with monthly deposits.

The taxable-account comparison uses a simplifying assumption we want you to see plainly: it grows the same contributions at your return minus tax, as if all growth were taxed every year at your current marginal rate. Real taxable investing is often gentler than that (long-term capital gains rates are lower, and tax is deferred until you sell), so treat the gap as the upper end of the Roth advantage. The honest range sits between roughly half the gap shown and the full gap, depending on how tax-efficiently you would have invested the taxable money.

One more dose of honesty: the expected return is your guess, not a promise. A 7% average over 35 years includes years down 20% and years up 30%. The projection is a planning tool, not a forecast.

The formula

FV = B × (1 + r)n + C × ((1 + r)n − 1) / r

B is your current balance, C the annual contribution added at the end of each year, r the expected annual return as a decimal, and n the number of years until retirement. The taxable comparison uses the same formula with r replaced by r × (1 − t), where t is your marginal tax rate.

2026 contribution limits

For the 2026 tax year per IRS, you can contribute up to $7,500 to your IRAs combined, or $8,600 if you are age 50 or older (the catch-up rose to $1,100). Your ability to contribute directly to a Roth phases out between $153,000 and $168,000 of modified adjusted gross income for single filers, and between $242,000 and $252,000 for married couples filing jointly. These figures adjust most years, so check the vintage if you are reading this later.

If you enter a contribution above the limit, we will flag it but still run the numbers. Households with two spouses each funding an IRA, or savers using a backdoor Roth conversion, can legitimately put away more than one person's limit, and this page is not in the business of pretending to know your situation.

The 5-year rule and qualified withdrawals

Tax-free treatment of earnings has two conditions: you are generally 59 and a half or older, and at least 5 years have passed since January 1 of the tax year of your first Roth IRA contribution. Miss either and withdrawn earnings can owe income tax and possibly a 10% penalty. Your own contributions are a different story: you can take them back out at any age, any time, with no tax and no penalty, because that money was taxed on the way in. That flexibility is a genuinely underrated feature of the Roth. (Source: IRS Publication 590-B covers the details and the exceptions.)

Roth vs traditional: the other question

This page assumes you have decided on Roth and shows what it grows to. The prior question, whether to pay tax now (Roth) or later (traditional), turns on comparing your tax rate today with your expected rate in retirement. Our Roth conversion calculator is built for exactly that comparison.

Worked example

A 30-year-old with a $0 balance contributes $7,000 at the end of every year until 65 and earns 7% a year. That is 35 years of compounding.

FV = 7,000 × ((1.07)35 − 1) / 0.07 = $967,658.15

Total contributed: 35 × $7,000 = $245,000.00. Growth: $722,658.15. Nearly three quarters of the final balance is growth, and in a Roth all of it comes out tax-free.

The same $7,000 a year in a taxable account, with growth taxed annually at a 22% marginal rate (an effective 5.46% return), ends at $695,889.80. The Roth advantage under that assumption: $271,768.35.

The mistake that costs the most

Waiting. The single biggest input in this projection is n, the number of years, because it sits in the exponent. In the example above, starting at 35 instead of 30 with identical contributions ends around $660,000 instead of $967,000: five skipped years and $35,000 of skipped deposits cost over $300,000 at the finish line. If you cannot fund the full limit, fund something. A partial contribution that starts today beats a full one that starts someday. When you are ready to plan the other end, our retirement withdrawal calculator shows how long the balance lasts, our compound interest calculator handles non-retirement savings, and our S&P 500 investment calculator shows what historical market returns actually looked like year by year.

Frequently asked questions

How much can I contribute to a Roth IRA in 2026?

$7,500 for the 2026 tax year per IRS, or $8,600 if you are age 50 or older (a $1,100 catch-up). That is up from $7,000 and $8,000 in 2025. The limit is shared across all your traditional and Roth IRAs combined, and you also cannot contribute more than you earned in taxable compensation that year.

What are the Roth IRA income limits for 2026?

For the 2026 tax year per IRS, the ability to contribute phases out between $153,000 and $168,000 of modified adjusted gross income for single filers and heads of household, and between $242,000 and $252,000 for married couples filing jointly. Below the range you can contribute the full amount, inside it a reduced amount, and above it nothing directly (some high earners use a backdoor Roth conversion instead).

Is Roth IRA growth really tax-free?

Yes, if the withdrawal is qualified. You contribute money that has already been taxed, and then qualified withdrawals of both contributions and earnings come out with zero federal income tax. Qualified generally means you are at least 59 and a half years old and your first Roth IRA has been open for at least 5 years.

What is the Roth IRA 5-year rule?

Earnings come out tax-free only after a 5-year clock that starts January 1 of the tax year of your first Roth IRA contribution, and you must also generally be 59 and a half or older. Your own contributions are different: you can withdraw them at any time, at any age, tax-free and penalty-free, because you already paid tax on that money.

Should I choose a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA?

The core question is whether your tax rate is higher now or in retirement. Roth means paying tax at today's rate and never again; traditional means deducting now and paying tax at your retirement rate. If you expect to be in a higher bracket later, Roth tends to win. Our Roth conversion calculator lets you compare the two paths with your own numbers.

What return should I assume for a Roth IRA?

It depends entirely on what you hold inside it. A Roth IRA is an account, not an investment, so a portfolio of stock index funds has historically averaged roughly 7% a year after inflation over long periods, while bonds and cash earn less. We default to 7% as a planning number, but real returns arrive unevenly and are not guaranteed.

What happens if I contribute more than the Roth IRA limit?

Excess contributions are hit with a 6% excise tax for every year they stay in the account. The fix is to withdraw the excess plus its earnings before your tax filing deadline, or recharacterize it. If you entered a contribution above the limit in this calculator, the projection still runs, since spousal accounts and multi-account households can legitimately save more per household.

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