Roth IRA Calculator

How the MAGI phase-out actually works

The IRS does not simply let anyone contribute to a Roth IRA regardless of income. Instead, each filing status has a MAGI (Modified Adjusted Gross Income) range: below the start of the range, you can contribute the full annual limit; at or above the end of the range, you cannot contribute anything directly; and in between, your allowed contribution shrinks in a straight line as your MAGI rises.

For 2026, the published ranges are:

• Single or Head of Household: full contribution below $153,000, phased out between $153,000 and $168,000, no contribution at or above $168,000.
• Married Filing Jointly: full contribution below $242,000, phased out between $242,000 and $252,000, no contribution at or above $252,000.
• Married Filing Separately: phased out between $0 and $10,000, a much narrower band than the other two statuses under the real IRS rules for this filing status specifically, with no contribution allowed at or above $10,000.

Take a worked example: a single filer with a MAGI of $160,000. That falls inside the $153,000 to $168,000 range, so the contribution is reduced proportionally to how far into the range the MAGI sits. The math is: take the annual limit, then multiply it by one minus the fraction of the range already used up.

The fraction used up is (160,000 − 153,000) ÷ (168,000 − 153,000), which is 7,000 ÷ 15,000, or about 0.4667. Subtracting that from 1 leaves about 0.5333, the remaining share of the limit still available. For someone under 50, the annual limit is $7,500, so the maximum contribution comes out to 7,500 × 0.5333, which is $4,000.

One honest simplification worth noting: the IRS technically rounds the phased-out figure to the nearest $10 as a matter of convention, rather than to the nearest cent as the raw formula above produces. In practice that rounding difference is only a few dollars either way, and it never changes whether a given MAGI lands you as fully eligible, partially eligible, or ineligible.

Age also matters for the starting limit before any phase-out is applied. For 2026, the annual Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,500 for someone under 50, and $8,600 for someone 50 or older, the extra $1,100 being the IRS's catch-up allowance for savers closer to retirement. It is worth restating clearly: this is not a Roth-only limit. The IRS sets one combined limit across Traditional and Roth IRA contributions together, so putting money into both in the same year still counts against the same ceiling.

The table below runs that formula across a spread of incomes for both age groups, so you can read off the ceiling without doing the arithmetic.

How the Roth IRA calculator projects growth

Once you know roughly how much you are allowed to contribute this year, the growth projector above estimates what a Roth IRA funded at that level, or any amount you choose to enter, could become by the time you retire. The projection simulates the account month by month rather than year by year: each month, one twelfth of your annual contribution is added first, and then the whole balance is grown by that month's share of your expected annual return. This mirrors how most people actually fund a Roth IRA, through smaller contributions spread across the year rather than one lump sum, and it is the same convention used by the sibling IRA calculator and 401(k) calculator.

A useful baseline is the no-growth case, which strips out compounding entirely so you can see what the projection reduces to when there is nothing but deposits. Contribute $6,000 a year for 10 years at a 0% expected return, and the projected balance comes out to exactly $60,000, the sum of every contribution with nothing added and nothing lost. That is a deliberate sanity check built into the underlying math: turn the return rate to zero and the tool should show you your own money back, dollar for dollar, and nothing else.

From that baseline, any positive expected return compounds on top of every contribution already made, which is why starting earlier tends to matter more than contributing more later. A dollar contributed in year one has decades to compound; a dollar contributed in the final year barely grows at all before the projection window ends. The tool reports your total contributions and total investment growth separately underneath the headline balance, so you can see how much of the final number came from your own deposits versus how much came from the market doing the rest of the work.

For a concrete case, the table below runs $100 a month for 30 years from a zero balance at four yearly returns, with the taxable side taxed at 22%. It uses the same projection as the calculator, so entering a $0 balance, a $1,200 annual contribution, and a 30-year horizon reproduces the figures.

How the Roth-vs-taxable comparison in the growth section works

The growth section also shows a “Taxable account” balance next to the Roth IRA figure, using the marginal tax rate you enter. The two accounts start with the same balance and receive the exact same contribution every month; the only difference is that the taxable account's investment growth is taxed, at your entered rate, as it accrues each month, the way dividends and realized gains in an ordinary brokerage or mutual fund account are typically taxed as they occur rather than deferred until a future sale. The Roth IRA side is never taxed, by definition. Set the marginal tax rate to 0% and the two balances will match exactly, which is a useful sanity check: with no tax drag at all, there is nothing left to make the taxable account fall behind. At any positive tax rate, the gap between the two balances is a rough estimate of a Roth IRA's tax advantage over investing the identical dollars in a plain taxable account, not a precise one, since real taxable accounts often mix ordinary income, qualified dividends, and long-term capital gains taxed at different rates rather than one flat rate applied uniformly.

Roth IRA contributions: the rules beyond the income limit

Beyond the MAGI phase-out covered above, a few other rules govern who can put money into a Roth IRA and when. You (or your spouse, if filing jointly) need taxable compensation, such as wages or self-employment income, at least equal to whatever you contribute for the year; investment income alone does not count. Unlike a Traditional IRA under the pre-2020 rules, there is no upper age limit on Roth IRA contributions, so a working 70-year-old with earned income and an eligible MAGI can still contribute. A non-working or lower-earning spouse can also contribute through a spousal Roth IRA, based on the working spouse's income, as long as the couple files a joint return. Contributions for a given tax year can be made any time from January 1 of that year through the following year's tax filing deadline (mid-April for most filers), which is why it is common to see a contribution dated for “last year” made in the first few months of the current one.

Roth IRA distribution details

A Roth IRA distribution is “qualified”, meaning entirely tax- and penalty-free, once two conditions are both met: the account is at least five tax years old (the clock starts January 1 of the year of your very first Roth contribution to any Roth IRA you own, not each individual deposit), and you are at least 59½, disabled, using up to a lifetime $10,000 for a first home purchase, or deceased (with the distribution going to a beneficiary). Withdraw before meeting both conditions and the IRS applies a specific ordering rule to figure out what is actually being withdrawn: your own contributions come out first (always tax- and penalty-free, since they were already taxed before going in), then converted amounts in the order they were converted, and only after all of that is exhausted do you reach the account's earnings, which are the piece that can trigger both income tax and a 10% early withdrawal penalty if withdrawn before the account qualifies. In practice, this ordering rule is exactly why many people treat Roth contributions (not earnings) as a genuine, penalty-free emergency fund of last resort, even though letting the money keep compounding is almost always the better outcome if it is not actually needed.

Pros of a Roth IRA

Tax-free qualified withdrawals, including all investment growth, are the headline benefit, and the projection above already reflects that: unlike a Traditional IRA or a 401(k), nothing is subtracted from the balance shown when you actually spend it in retirement. A Roth IRA also has no Required Minimum Distributions during the original owner's lifetime, so the account can keep compounding for as long as you like, or pass to an heir, without a forced annual withdrawal. The contribution-first ordering rule above gives Roth contributions real flexibility as an emergency fund without fully sacrificing the account's tax-advantaged status. And because contributions are made with after-tax dollars, a Roth IRA is a hedge against the risk that tax rates, yours or the country's in general, are higher by the time you retire than they are today.

Cons of a Roth IRA

The MAGI phase-out covered earlier is the most immediate limitation: high earners can be reduced to a partial contribution or shut out of a direct contribution entirely. Roth contributions also do not reduce your taxable income today the way a traditional 401(k) or deductible Traditional IRA contribution does, which can matter if you are in a high tax bracket right now and would genuinely benefit from the up-front deduction. The combined annual contribution limit shared with a Traditional IRA is also fairly low next to a 401(k)'s, which limits how much tax-advantaged Roth space is available in a single year through an IRA alone. And if a bet on paying tax now turns out wrong, meaning your tax rate in retirement ends up lower than expected, a traditional account would have come out ahead in hindsight, a risk inherent to any decision made without knowing future tax policy.

How converting a traditional IRA to a Roth works

A Roth conversion moves money from a Traditional IRA (or an eligible employer plan) into a Roth IRA, paying ordinary income tax on the converted amount in the year of the conversion in exchange for tax-free growth and withdrawals afterward; unlike an early withdrawal, a conversion itself does not trigger the 10% early withdrawal penalty. There are three recognized ways to actually move the money: a 60-day rollover, where you receive a distribution from the Traditional IRA and personally deposit it into a Roth IRA within 60 days to avoid it counting as a permanent withdrawal; a trustee-to-trustee transfer, where the money moves directly between two different financial institutions without ever passing through your hands; and a same-trustee transfer, where both accounts sit at the same institution and the provider simply re-registers the funds from the Traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. The trustee-to-trustee and same-trustee methods are generally preferred in practice, since they remove any risk of missing the 60-day window. One detail worth flagging: each conversion starts its own separate five-year clock for penalty-free withdrawal of that specific converted amount, distinct from the account's overall five-year clock described above, which is one reason a converted amount withdrawn early, even after the account itself is well past five years old, can still face a penalty if that particular conversion has not.

The tax on a conversion depends on every other Traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRA balance you own, so a proper Roth conversion calculator needs more inputs than this page collects. The backdoor Roth IRA guide works through that arithmetic with real numbers.

Scope note: this calculator covers US Roth IRAs only, using the 2026 IRS contribution limits and MAGI phase-out ranges, both of which the IRS republishes and adjusts most years, so check the current year's figures before relying on this Roth IRA retirement projection for a real contribution decision. As a Roth IRA investment calculator, the growth projection is general compounding math with a flat assumed return; it does not model market volatility, fees, changing contribution amounts, or future changes to the tax code, and none of this is personalized tax or investment advice.