The maximum 401(k) contribution for 2026 is $24,500 in employee elective deferrals, up from $23,500 in 2025. That’s the amount you can direct from your paycheck into your 401(k) on a pre-tax or Roth basis. But your total limit can be significantly higher depending on your age, your employer’s contributions, and your income level.
The Standard Employee Limit
For 2026, you can contribute up to $24,500 of your own salary to a 401(k). This cap applies whether you make traditional pre-tax contributions, Roth after-tax contributions, or a mix of both. The IRS adjusts this number periodically based on inflation, and it applies equally to 403(b) plans, governmental 457 plans, and the federal Thrift Savings Plan.
This limit counts only the money you choose to defer from your paycheck. It does not include anything your employer contributes on your behalf, such as matching contributions or profit-sharing deposits. Those fall under a separate, higher cap.
Catch-Up Contributions After Age 50
If you turn 50 or older during the calendar year, you can contribute beyond the standard $24,500 limit. The standard catch-up contribution for workers aged 50 and over is $7,500, which would bring your personal contribution ceiling to $32,000.
Starting in 2025, a provision from the SECURE 2.0 Act created an even larger catch-up allowance for a narrow age window. If you are between 60 and 63 years old during the plan year, your catch-up limit jumps to $11,250, pushing your maximum employee contribution to $35,750. Once you turn 64, the catch-up drops back to the standard $7,500. This higher catch-up is designed to help workers in their early 60s accelerate savings right before retirement.
Catch-up contributions are available only if your plan allows them, though most large employer plans do. Check your plan’s summary or talk to your HR department if you’re unsure.
Total Limit Including Employer Contributions
Your 401(k) account can receive far more than just your salary deferrals. When you add employer matching contributions, profit-sharing contributions, and any after-tax contributions your plan permits, the total cap for 2026 is $72,000. This is sometimes called the Section 415 limit.
For workers eligible for catch-up contributions, the 415 limit is effectively $72,000 plus whatever catch-up amount applies to your age. So a 55-year-old could have up to $79,500 flow into their account from all sources, while a 62-year-old could receive up to $83,250.
Most people won’t hit this combined ceiling unless their employer offers generous profit-sharing or the plan allows voluntary after-tax (non-Roth) contributions. But if your company does offer those features, knowing this upper boundary matters for tax planning and maximizing your retirement savings.
The Compensation Cap
There’s another limit that indirectly affects how much can go into your 401(k). The IRS caps the amount of your annual salary that can be factored into contribution calculations. For high earners, this means your employer can only calculate its matching or profit-sharing contributions based on a capped portion of your pay, not your full salary.
If you earn well above this threshold, the compensation cap may reduce the employer contributions you’d otherwise expect. For example, if your employer matches 5% of pay but only the first portion of your salary up to the compensation limit counts, the match tops out at 5% of that capped amount rather than 5% of your total earnings.
Limits for Highly Compensated Employees
If you earn more than a certain threshold (based on prior-year compensation) or own more than 5% of the company, the IRS classifies you as a Highly Compensated Employee, or HCE. This classification can restrict how much you’re actually allowed to defer, even if you haven’t hit the $24,500 cap.
The restriction comes from nondiscrimination testing. Each year, your employer must run what’s called an ADP test, which compares the average deferral rate of HCEs against the average deferral rate of all other employees. If higher-paid employees are saving at a much higher rate than everyone else, the plan fails the test. When that happens, the employer typically has to refund some of the HCE contributions or make additional contributions to lower-paid employees to bring the plan into compliance.
In practice, this means some HCEs get capped at a deferral rate of 4% to 6% of pay, well below the $24,500 limit. If your employer sends you a refund check after the plan year ends, this is likely the reason. Plans that use a “safe harbor” design, where the employer makes a minimum matching or nonelective contribution to all employees, can skip the ADP test entirely and let HCEs contribute up to the full limit.
Pre-Tax vs. Roth 401(k) Contributions
The $24,500 limit is a single cap that covers both traditional pre-tax and Roth 401(k) contributions combined. You can split the limit however you like, putting $15,000 in pre-tax and $9,500 in Roth, for instance, but the total of both cannot exceed $24,500.
Traditional pre-tax contributions lower your taxable income now, and you pay income tax when you withdraw the money in retirement. Roth contributions come out of after-tax pay, so they don’t reduce your current tax bill, but qualified withdrawals in retirement are completely tax-free. The right split depends on whether you expect your tax rate to be higher or lower in retirement than it is today.
How Contributions Work Across Multiple Jobs
The $24,500 employee deferral limit follows you, not your employer. If you work two jobs and both offer 401(k) plans, your combined deferrals across both plans cannot exceed $24,500 for the year. The same applies if you switch jobs mid-year. Your new employer’s plan has no way to know what you contributed at your previous job, so tracking this is your responsibility.
If you accidentally go over the limit, you need to withdraw the excess amount before your tax filing deadline for that year. Otherwise, the excess gets taxed twice: once in the year you contributed it and again when you eventually withdraw it in retirement. The total employer contribution limit of $72,000, however, applies separately to each employer’s plan.