2024 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution
The 2024 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution is +$7,500.
Effective 2024-01-01Source: Notice 2023-75 (IRS)Verified 2026-09-03
Compared with 2023
Every figure on this page is unchanged from 2023.
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catch-up limit, age 50 and over | +$7,500 | +$7,500 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
Who it applies to
Individuals aged 50 or over who participate in applicable employer plans other than SIMPLE or salary-reduction SEP plans
What changed this year, and why
Under section 414(v), the catch-up contribution limit for individuals aged 50 or over remains $7,500 for 2024, unchanged from the prior year. The limit applies effective January 1, 2024.
Common questions
- How much can someone age 50 or older contribute as a catch-up in 2024?
- Participants aged 50 or over could make an additional $7,500 in catch-up contributions on top of the regular elective deferral limit, effective January 1, 2024.
Your plan has to allow it, and you must turn 50 by year end
A 401(k) plan does not have to allow catch-up contributions; the plan document must specifically permit them. Even if the plan does permit them, you are only eligible if you reach age 50 by the last day of the calendar year. If you turn 50 on December 31, 2024, you qualify for the full year. The catch-up limit is an additional $7,500 for 2024, on top of the regular elective deferral limit. Note that deferrals are not treated as catch-up contributions automatically; they are only reclassified as catch-up after your regular deferrals exceed the standard annual limit, the ADP test limit, or any plan-specific limit. So you cannot simply designate part of your early-year contributions as catch-up; the catch-up treatment applies only to amounts deferred above those thresholds.
Catch-up contributions. A 401(k) plan can permit par- ticipants who are age 50 or over at the end of the calendar year to also make catch-up contributions.
Publication 560 (2024), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The catch-up sits outside the overall contribution limit
Defined contribution plans have an overall annual limit on total contributions and additions to a participant's account. This limit covers employer contributions, employee contributions, and forfeitures combined. Catch-up contributions are explicitly excluded from that overall cap, which means they are not counted when determining whether the annual additions limit has been reached. This exclusion allows participants age 50 or over to contribute the additional catch-up amount of +$7,500 for 2024 without it reducing the space available for other types of contributions under the plan. The catch-up contributions still must be permitted by the plan and are subject to their own separate limit and eligibility rules, but they do not compete with regular employer or employee contributions for room under the annual additions ceiling.
Catch-up contributions (discussed later under Limit on Elective Deferrals) aren't subject to the above limit.
Publication 560 (2024), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
Your pay can cap the catch-up below the stated limit
The catch-up contribution limit sets a maximum amount that eligible participants can defer beyond their regular elective deferrals. However, this limit is not absolute. A participant's actual catch-up contributions for the year cannot exceed the lesser of two amounts: the stated catch-up contribution limit or the excess of the participant's compensation over the elective deferrals that are not catch-up contributions. In other words, your catch-up deferrals cannot exceed the compensation you have left after accounting for your regular deferrals. If your remaining compensation after regular deferrals is less than the catch-up limit, the catch-up amount is capped at that remaining compensation figure. This rule ensures that catch-up contributions cannot exceed the pay from which they are sourced.
A participant's catch-up contributions for a year can't exceed the lesser of the following amounts.
Publication 560 (2024), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The plan document itself must enforce the deferral limit
The plan document itself is responsible for enforcing the elective deferral limit. The plan must include provisions that prevent employees from deferring more than the annual limit that applies for each year. This is a structural requirement built into the plan's operational rules, not just a guideline for participants. The limit applies to all salary reduction contributions and elective deferrals across all plans the employee participates in. If the deferral limit is exceeded when considering all plans together, the excess amount is included in the employee's gross income. The plan's administrative procedures and contribution processing systems must be designed to track and enforce this limit, ensuring that employees cannot inadvertently or intentionally defer beyond what the tax code allows for that year.
Your plan must provide that your employees can't defer more than the limit that applies for a particular year.
Publication 560 (2024), 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's total deferrals across all plans exceed the annual limit, the excess amount is called an excess deferral. The employee can request that this excess be distributed from any of the plans that permit such distributions. The employee must notify the plan by April 15, 2025 (or an earlier date if the plan specifies) about the amount to be paid from each plan. The plan must then distribute the excess deferral amount plus any earnings on that amount through the end of 2024, also by April 15, 2025. If the excess is withdrawn by this deadline, it is not reported again as income for 2025. This correction mechanism addresses situations where an employee works multiple jobs and participates in more than one retirement plan, potentially causing their combined deferrals to exceed the legal limit.
the employee can have the difference (called an excess deferral) paid out of any of the plans that permit these distributions.
Publication 560 (2024), 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, $23,000 for 2024, 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 $7,500 for 2024. Two things follow. Someone who defers less than $23,000 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 de- ferrals aren't treated as catch-up contributions for 2024 until they exceed the $23,000 limit ($23,500 limit for 2025), the ADP test limit of section 401(k)(3), or the plan limit (if any).
Publication 560 (2024), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
You must tell the plan by April 15 to pull out an excess catch-up deferral
For a 401(k) plan, if your elective deferrals exceed the annual limit - including any catch-up contributions you are entitled to make once you reach age 50 - the excess must be removed from the plan. You must notify the plan administrator by whatever date the plan itself requires. If you participate in more than one plan, you may choose which plan or plans the excess is distributed from, provided those plans permit this kind of payout, but you must tell each plan separately how much is to come out of it. Once notified, the plan must pay you the excess deferral, together with any income it earned while in the account, by April 15 of the year after the year of the deferral. You must also include the excess in your taxable income for the year it was deferred. If the excess is not withdrawn by that April 15 deadline, it stays in the plan and is taxed twice: once when contributed and again when eventually distributed.
The plan must then pay you the amount of the ex- cess, along with any income earned on that amount, by April 15 of the following year.
Publication 525 (2024), Taxable and Nontaxable Income (IRS)
Leave the excess in the plan and it is taxed twice
If an excess deferral is not withdrawn from a 401(k) plan by the April 15, 2025 deadline, the excess amount - although already taxable in 2024 - is not included in the employee's cost basis when figuring the taxable portion of any future distributions from the plan. As a result, the same dollars are taxed once when contributed and taxed again when eventually paid out. In addition, if the excess is allowed to remain in the plan and the employee participates in no other employer's plan, the plan itself may be disqualified by the IRS. The employee must therefore notify the plan of the excess and arrange for its timely distribution, along with any income earned on it, to avoid this double tax and protect the plan's qualified status.
If the employee doesn't take out the excess deferral by April 15, 2025, the excess, though taxable in 2024, isn't included in the em- ployee's cost basis in figuring the taxable amount of any eventual distributions under the plan. In effect, an excess deferral left in the plan is taxed twice, once when contrib- uted and again when distributed. Also, if the employee's excess deferral is allowed to stay in the plan and the em- ployee participates in no other employer's plan, the plan can be disqualified.
Publication 560 (2024), 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 2023-75 (IRS)
- Catch-up limit, age 50 and over
The dollar limitation under section 414(v)(2)(B)(i) for catch-up contributions to an applicable employer plan other than a plan described in section 401(k)(11) or section 408(p) for individuals aged 50 or over remains $7,500.