2019 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution
The 2019 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution is +$6,000.
Effective 2019-01-01Source: Notice 2018-83 (IRS)Verified 2026-09-01
Compared with 2018
Every figure on this page is unchanged from 2018.
| Item | 2018 | 2019 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catch-up limit, age 50 and over | +$6,000 | +$6,000 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
Who it applies to
Participants in applicable employer plans (other than SIMPLE or § 401(k)(11) plans) who are age 50 or over
What changed this year, and why
The catch-up contribution limit for individuals aged 50 or over under § 414(v)(2)(B)(i) remained unchanged at $6,000 for 2019.
Common questions
- What is the catch-up contribution limit for participants aged 50 or over in 2019?
- For 2019, the catch-up contribution limit for individuals aged 50 or over is $6,000, the same as in 2018.
Your plan has to allow it, and you must turn 50 by year end
The IRS does not automatically grant catch-up contribution rights to every retirement plan participant. Two conditions must be met: first, the employer's 401(k) plan document must include language that affirmatively permits catch-up contributions. If the plan does not contain such a provision, no participant may make them, regardless of age. Second, the participant must reach age 50 by December 31 of the year in which the catch-up contribution is made. A participant who turns 50 on December 31 qualifies for the full catch-up amount for that entire year, while someone who turns 50 on January 1 of the following year does not qualify at all. For 2019, the catch-up limit for eligible participants is $6,000. This amount sits on top of the regular elective deferral limit and is available only within a plan that has adopted the catch-up feature and only to those who satisfy the age test by the last day of the calendar year.
A 401(k) plan can permit participants who are age 50 or over at the end of the calendar year to also make catch-up contributions.
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The catch-up sits outside the overall contribution limit
Defined contribution plans impose an annual additions limit on total employer and employee contributions to a participant's account. For 2019, the overall cap is the lesser of a dollar amount or the participant's full compensation. Catch-up contributions are carved out of this ceiling entirely. Because they sit outside the annual additions limit, a participant age 50 or over can contribute the full catch-up amount - which is $6,000 for 2019 - on top of whatever other contributions fill the general limit space. This separation ensures the catch-up mechanism actually allows older workers to save more rather than having their extra deferrals counted against the overall limit and effectively wasted. Without this exclusion, the catch-up provision would provide little practical benefit to participants who are already near the general annual cap.
Catch-up contributions (discussed later un- der Limit on Elective Deferrals) aren't subject to the above limit.
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
Your pay can cap the catch-up below the stated limit
Even when a plan permits catch-up contributions and the participant is age 50 or over, the actual catch-up amount cannot exceed the lesser of two figures. The first figure is the catch-up contribution limit itself - $6,000 for 2019. The second figure is the excess of the participant's compensation for the year over the elective deferrals that are not catch-up contributions. In practical terms, a participant cannot defer more in catch-up amounts than he or she earned in pay beyond the regular deferrals already contributed. This compensation-based cap prevents a catch-up contribution from exceeding the participant's remaining available earnings, ensuring that the contribution is grounded in real pay rather than an abstract dollar limit.
A participant's catch-up contributions for a year can't exceed the lesser of the following amounts.
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The plan document itself must enforce the deferral limit
The plan document must include an administrative provision that prevents employees from deferring more than the statutory limit for any given year. The plan sponsor - not the individual employee - bears responsibility for building this guardrail into the plan's written terms. The basic elective deferral limit is set by the IRS each year, and this ceiling applies across all salary reduction arrangements the employee participates in. If an employee works for more than one employer and the combined deferrals from every plan exceed the annual limit, the excess amount is included in the employee's gross income. The catch-up contribution of $6,000 for 2019 applies only to participants age 50 or over, but even for them, each plan must independently enforce the overall deferral limit so that no single plan allows deferrals beyond what the law permits.
Your plan must provide that your employ- ees can't defer more than the limit that applies for a particular year.
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
What to do when you defer too much across two jobs
When an employee works at two or more jobs during the same year and the combined elective deferrals from all plans exceed the annual limit, the employee has an excess deferral. The employee may request that the excess be distributed from any one - or more - of the plans that permit this type of payout. The employee must notify the plan administrator by April 15, 2020, identifying the amount to be withdrawn from each plan. The plan is then required to distribute the excess, plus any earnings attributable to that amount through the end of 2019, by the same April 15 deadline. Taking timely action avoids double taxation of the excess in the following year, though the earnings on the withdrawn amount remain taxable in the year distributed.
If the total of an employee's deferrals is more than the limit for 2019, the employee can have the difference (called an excess deferral) paid out of any of the plans that permit these distri- butions.
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
You do not elect a catch-up: your deferrals become one
Nothing on a payroll form is labelled catch-up. A participant makes one election - defer this much of my pay - and what it produces are ordinary elective deferrals until they pass a ceiling: the annual deferral limit, $19,000 for 2019, or the plan's own lower limit where it sets one, or the ADP test limit a plan is held to under the nondiscrimination rules. Whatever runs past whichever of those is reached first is what counts as the catch-up, up to $6,000 for 2019. Two things follow. Someone who defers less than $19,000 across the year never reaches the catch-up at all, however old they are, because there is nothing above the ceiling to reclassify. And someone who does reach it makes no second election to claim it: the reclassification is the plan administrator's arithmetic. The catch-up is the last money in, not the first.
Elective deferrals aren't trea- ted as catch-up contributions for 2019 until they exceed the $19,000 limit (or the $19,500 limit for 2020), the ADP test limit of section 401(k) (3), or the plan limit (if any).
Publication 560 (2019), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
How each figure was verified
Each number below was read from a stored copy of the document named beside it, and checked to occur word for word in the quoted sentence. The digest is of that stored text.
Notice 2018-83 (IRS)
- Catch-up limit, age 50 and over
The dollar limitation under § 414(v)(2)(B)(i) for catch-up contributions to an applicable employer plan other than a plan described in § 401(k)(11) or § 408(p) for individuals aged 50 or over remains unchanged at $6,000.