What your Roth IRA result shows
The headline is the balance at the retirement age you set, and on a Roth that figure needs no asterisk: withdrawals after 59½ from an account at least five years old are tax-free, so what you see is what you can spend. That is the difference between a Roth projection and a 401(k) projection of the same size, where a slice of the total still belongs to the IRS.
The split beneath it is the point of the account. Early on, almost all of the balance is money you contributed; over a few decades growth overtakes contributions and eventually dwarfs them. Because none of that growth is ever taxed, the longer the runway the more the Roth wrapper is worth — which is why it is usually the first retirement account a younger saver should fill.
If you entered an income, one more figure appears: the contribution the IRS actually permits at that income. It is the single most common error in Roth planning, and four of the five most-visited Roth calculators do not ask about income at all.
How to use this Roth IRA calculator
- Your age and retirement age — the gap between them is the compounding runway, and it matters more than any other input on this page.
- Current balance — what the account holds now, across all your Roth IRAs.
- Annual contribution — what you intend to add each year. Enter more than the law allows and the projection uses the legal maximum, because a forecast built on an impossible contribution is worse than useless.
- Expected return — your own assumption. Run it twice, optimistic and pessimistic, and treat the gap as the real answer.
- Filing status and MAGI — optional, but this is what tells you whether you can contribute at all.
- Advanced — add your marginal tax rate to see how far ahead the Roth finishes against a taxable account holding the same money.
What is a Roth IRA?
A Roth IRA is an individual retirement account funded with after-tax money. You get no deduction for contributing, and in exchange the account is never taxed again: no tax on dividends, no tax on capital gains, no tax on qualified withdrawals in retirement.
That is the mirror image of a traditional IRA or a 401(k), where the contribution is deducted now and every dollar is taxed on the way out. Which side of the trade wins comes down to one question — whether your tax rate in retirement will be higher or lower than it is today. Nobody knows the answer, which is a strong argument for holding some of each.
Two structural advantages are easy to miss. Roth IRAs have no required minimum distributions in the owner's lifetime, unlike traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, so the money can keep compounding untouched — see the RMD calculator for what that obligation looks like elsewhere. And your contributions, though not your growth, can be withdrawn at any time without tax or penalty, which makes a Roth an unusually flexible place for long-term savings.
How much you can contribute
For 2026 the IRS caps total contributions across all your traditional and Roth IRAs at $7,500, rising to $8,600 from age 50 — a catch-up of $1,100. The limit is per person, not per account, so opening a second Roth IRA does not double it. You also cannot contribute more than you earned.
Then income narrows it. Above a threshold your permitted contribution phases down in a straight line, and above the top of the band it reaches zero:
- Single or head of household: phases out between $153,000 and $168,000 of modified adjusted gross income.
- Married filing jointly: between $242,000 and $252,000.
- Married filing separately (if you lived with your spouse): between $0 and $10,000 — this band is not adjusted for inflation.
Figures from the IRS, IR-2025-111. Enter your MAGI above and the calculator applies the reduction rather than leaving you to work it out.
Roth versus taxable: why the wrapper matters
Put identical contributions and identical returns into a Roth and into an ordinary brokerage account, and the Roth wins by exactly the tax the brokerage account pays along the way. Dividends and realised gains are taxed each year in a taxable account, so every tax bill is money that stops compounding — a drag that grows with time rather than staying constant.
Add your marginal rate in the advanced panel and the result quantifies the gap. Over thirty years at a realistic return the difference typically runs to tens of thousands of dollars on maximum contributions, and it comes entirely from the wrapper, not from picking better investments. That is the strongest argument for filling tax-advantaged space before investing anywhere else, and for keeping the taxable account for money you may need before retirement.
When you can take the money out
Qualified withdrawals — tax-free and penalty-free — need two conditions met at once: you are at least 59½, and the account has existed for five tax years. Contributions can come out earlier without tax or penalty because you already paid tax on them; growth generally cannot, and taking it early normally costs income tax plus a 10% penalty.
There are carve-outs, including a first-home purchase up to a lifetime limit, and disability. They are narrower than they sound, so treat the account as retirement money and use a savings goal for anything with a nearer date.
The five-year clock is worth understanding because there is more than one. The clock that makes growth withdrawable starts with your first contribution to any Roth IRA and never restarts, so opening an account early has value even if you fund it with a token amount. Converted money runs its own five-year clock per conversion, which is why conversion strategies are usually sequenced years in advance rather than decided in December — the same planning horizon the retirement calculator works on. And an inherited Roth follows different rules again, generally requiring the account to be emptied within a decade.
What this calculator assumes
- A steady return, every year. Markets deliver an average as a sequence of good and bad years, and the order matters near retirement in a way this projection cannot show.
- Contributions at year end, the conservative convention. Contributing in January each year would finish slightly ahead.
- Today's limits, held flat. The IRS indexes the cap and the phase-out bands to inflation, so real future limits will be higher — the projection does not guess at the increases.
- Your income stays in the same band. A raise can phase you out mid-career; a sabbatical can phase you back in.
- No conversions or rollovers modelled, and no state tax, which a handful of states apply differently.
These are planning estimates, not tax advice. Contribution eligibility turns on details of your own return.
Roth IRA questions people ask
What if I earn too much for a Roth IRA?
Direct contributions stop above the top of the phase-out band, but a Roth conversion — contributing to a traditional IRA and converting it — is not income-limited, which is why high earners use it. Conversions have their own tax consequences, particularly if you hold other traditional IRA money, so this is a question for a tax professional rather than a calculator.
Roth IRA or 401(k) first?
If your employer matches, contribute enough to the 401(k) to capture the full match first — that is an immediate return no market can promise. After the match, a Roth IRA usually offers wider investment choice and lower costs than a typical plan menu, and no required minimum distributions later.
Can I contribute if I have no earned income?
Not on your own, because contributions cannot exceed your taxable compensation. A spousal IRA is the exception: a working spouse can contribute on behalf of a non-earning one, up to the same per-person limit, on a joint return.
What return should I assume?
Something you can defend rather than something that flatters the answer. Long-run US stock market returns have averaged in the region of 7% a year after inflation over very long periods, but any individual decade can land far above or below that. Model a lower figure and treat anything better as upside.