2025 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution
For 2025, the 401(k) Catch-Up Contribution is +$7,500 (Catch-up limit, age 50 and over), +$11,250 (Catch-up limit, ages 60 through 63) and $145,000 (Roth catch-up wage threshold).
Effective 2025-01-01Source: Notice 2024-80 (IRS)Verified 2026-09-01
Compared with 2024
| Item | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catch-up limit, age 50 and over | +$7,500 | +$7,500 | +$0 (+0.0%) |
| Catch-up limit, ages 60 through 63 | - | +$11,250 | - |
| Roth catch-up wage threshold | - | $145,000 | - |
Who it applies to
Participants in an applicable employer plan who are aged 50 or over and want to contribute above the regular elective deferral limitation, and the plan administrators who apply the limitation. The notice states these amounts for applicable employer plans other than the SIMPLE arrangements it addresses in separate sentences. The higher figure reaches only participants who attain ages 60 through 63 during 2025.
What changed this year, and why
Notice 2024-80 states the catch-up contribution limitation under section 414(v) for an applicable employer plan, which generally applies to individuals aged 50 or over, as $7,500 for 2025. The notice states that amount as remaining at that level rather than increasing. A separate limitation of $11,250 applies to individuals who attain ages 60 through 63 in 2025. Both figures are published in the notice as the cost-of-living adjusted limitations for 2025.
Common questions
- What is the catch-up contribution limit for 2025?
- For 2025 the catch-up contribution limitation under section 414(v) that generally applies to individuals aged 50 or over in an applicable employer plan is $7,500. Notice 2024-80 states that this amount remains at that level after the annual cost-of-living adjustment. It is an additional catch-up figure, stated separately from the elective deferral limitation the same notice adjusts under section 402(g).
- Is there a larger catch-up contribution for people in their early sixties?
- Yes. Notice 2024-80 states a second catch-up limitation under section 414(v) for individuals who attain ages 60 through 63 in 2025, and gives it as $11,250. The notice states $7,500 as the limitation that generally applies for individuals aged 50 or over, and $11,250 as the limitation that applies for that narrower age band. Each is written as a limitation in its own sentence. The larger of the two is widely called the super catch-up, which is not the notice’s own word for it: the notice names no such thing and states only the two limitations and the ages each applies to.
- Who qualifies for the higher catch-up limit at ages 60 through 63?
- Notice 2024-80 ties the higher figure to attaining ages 60 through 63 during 2025, not to holding that age for the whole year. Someone who reaches 60 at any point in 2025 falls inside the band the notice describes. The notice states the limitation for an applicable employer plan other than the SIMPLE arrangements it covers separately.
- What happens in the year I turn 64?
- Notice 2024-80 states the higher catch-up limitation only for individuals who attain ages 60 through 63 in 2025. Someone who attains 64 during 2025 is outside that band, so the figure the notice states for them is the limitation that generally applies for individuals aged 50 or over, which is $7,500 for 2025. The notice sets no separate amount above that age band.
- Do SIMPLE plans use these same catch-up amounts?
- No. Notice 2024-80 states the $7,500 and $11,250 figures for an applicable employer plan other than the SIMPLE arrangements it addresses separately. For a SIMPLE retirement account the notice states its own catch-up limitations under section 414(v), including a separate figure for individuals who attain ages 60 through 63 in 2025. Those SIMPLE amounts are lower and appear in their own paragraphs of the notice.
- Do catch-up contributions have to be designated Roth contributions?
- For some people, yes. Notice 2024-80 states a Roth catch-up wage threshold under section 414(v), which remains $145,000, and describes it as the figure used to determine whether an individual's catch-up contributions to an applicable employer plan for 2025 must be designated Roth contributions. The threshold is read against the wages the notice states it for, which is the year before this one, not 2025 itself. Someone whose wages from the employer sponsoring the plan were above $145,000 that year makes their 2025 catch-up as designated Roth contributions; someone at or below it is not made to by this threshold. It is a wage test, stated in its own sentence and separately from the $7,500 catch-up limitation, so it changes how a catch-up is made rather than how much of one there is.
- Where does the 2025 catch-up limit come from?
- It is published in Notice 2024-80, the annual IRS notice of amounts relating to retirement plans and IRAs as adjusted for changes in cost-of-living. Section 415 of the Internal Revenue Code provides for limitations on benefits and contributions under qualified retirement plans, and section 415(d) requires the Secretary of the Treasury to adjust those limitations annually for cost-of-living increases. The catch-up figures are adjusted at the same time and in the same manner as the limitation of section 415(b).
- Why did the catch-up contribution limit stay the same?
- Notice 2024-80 states the amount for 2025 as remaining $7,500 rather than increasing. The notice applies the cost-of-living adjustment described in section 415(d) and then applies rounding rules before publishing each figure, so a movement smaller than a rounding step leaves the published amount unchanged. The notice uses the word remains for figures in that position and increased from for the ones that moved.
Every amount on this page is a published figure rather than yours. The Catch-up contribution per pay period takes the number you enter and works it out against them, showing which published figure it used.
Your plan has to allow it, and you must turn 50 by year end
A 401(k) plan does not have to offer catch-up contributions. Even if you are eligible by age, you can only make these additional contributions if the plan document expressly allows them. The IRS requires that you reach age 50 by the last day of the calendar year to qualify; turning 50 sometime during the year is enough. Once the plan permits it and you meet the age test, you may defer up to an extra $7,500 beyond the basic elective deferral limit. However, the catch-up amount is also subject to two other constraints: your catch-up contributions for the year cannot exceed the catch-up contribution limit itself, and they cannot exceed the excess of your compensation over the elective deferrals you have already made that are not catch-up contributions. In other words, you cannot catch up on more than you actually earned after accounting for your regular deferrals.
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 (2025), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The catch-up sits outside the overall contribution limit
Defined contribution plans are subject to an overall annual additions limit, which is based on the participant's compensation and a dollar cap. This limit covers employer contributions, employee after-tax contributions, and forfeitures allocated to the account. Catch-up contributions are treated differently: they are explicitly excluded from this overall limit. This means that a participant age 50 or older who makes the full $7,500 catch-up contribution does not have that amount counted against the general annual additions ceiling. The catch-up sits outside the annual additions cap entirely, allowing older participants to save more in total without triggering the general limitation that applies to all other additions to the account.
Catch-up contributions (discussed later under Limit on Elective Deferrals) aren't subject to the above limit.
Publication 560 (2025), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
Your pay can cap the catch-up below the stated limit
Even if the plan permits the full catch-up amount and you meet the age requirement, your actual catch-up contributions for the year cannot exceed the lesser of two amounts. The first is the catch-up contribution limit itself, which is $7,500 for 2025. The second is the excess of your compensation over the elective deferrals you have already made that are not catch-up contributions. This means that if your compensation is low relative to your regular deferrals, the catch-up may be reduced below the stated limit. For example, if your compensation is only slightly more than your regular elective deferrals, the remaining compensation available to shelter as a catch-up contribution may be less than $7,500, and that lower amount becomes your effective catch-up ceiling.
A participant's catch-up contributions for a year can't exceed the lesser of the following amounts.
Publication 560 (2025), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The plan document itself must enforce the deferral limit
The plan document itself must contain a provision that prevents employees from deferring more than the applicable limit for the year. This is not merely an individual responsibility; the plan sponsor must build the cap into the plan's administrative terms. The limit applies to all salary reduction contributions and elective deferrals across all plans in which the employee participates. If an employee works for more than one employer and the combined deferrals exceed the limit, the excess is included in the employee's gross income. The plan-level requirement ensures that the limit is enforced structurally, not just through individual taxpayer compliance.
Your plan must provide that your employees can't defer more than the limit that applies for a particular year.
Publication 560 (2025), 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 elective deferrals across all plans exceed the annual limit, the excess must be corrected. The employee can have the excess deferral paid out of any of the plans that permit such distributions. The employee must notify the plan by April 15, 2026 (or an earlier date specified in the plan) of the amount to be distributed from each plan. The plan must then pay the employee that excess amount, plus any earnings on that amount through the end of 2025, by April 15, 2026. If the excess is withdrawn by that deadline, it is not taxed again in 2026, though the earnings on the excess are includible in income for 2025.
If the total of an employee's deferrals is more than the limit for 2025, the employee can have the difference (called an excess deferral) paid out of any of the plans that permit these distributions.
Publication 560 (2025), 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, $23,500 for 2025, 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 2025. Two things follow. Someone who defers less than $23,500 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 treated as catch-up contributions for 2025 until they exceed the $23,500 limit ($24,500 limit for 2026), the ADP test limit of section 401(k)(3), or the plan limit (if any).
Publication 560 (2025), Retirement Plans for Small Business (SEP, SIMPLE, and Qualified Plans) (IRS)
The larger catch-up for ages 60 through 63
Under section 109 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, deferred compensation plans—including most 401(k) and 403(b) plans—can permit participants to make a larger catch-up contribution in the tax year in which they reach age 60, 61, 62, or 63. For 2025, that higher catch-up limit is $11,250, compared with the regular catch-up limit of $7,500 that applies to participants age 50 and over. This special rule applies to defined contribution plans other than SIMPLE plans; for SIMPLE plans, the higher catch-up amount available to participants ages 60 through 63 is $5,250. The increased limit is available each year the participant is 60, 61, 62, or 63, beginning in 2025. Workers in this age group who participate in a 401(k) plan should check with their plan administrator to confirm the plan permits the higher catch-up and to coordinate their deferrals so they can take full advantage of it.
Higher catch-up contribution limit for ages 60 to 63. Beginning in 2025, section 109 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 permits a deferred compensation plan (including most 401(k) and 403(b) plans) to allow participants to make a higher amount of catch-up contributions in a tax year in which they attain age 60, 61, 62, or 63. For 2025 and 2026, the higher limit on catch-up contributions for such participants is $11,250 ($5,250 for SIMPLE plans).
Publication 560 (2025), 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 2024-80 (IRS)
- Catch-up limit, age 50 and over
The 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) that generally applies for individuals aged 50 or over remains $7,500.
- Catch-up limit, ages 60 through 63
The limitation under section 414(v)(2)(E)(i) for catch-up contributions to an applicable employer plan other than a plan described in section 401(k)(11) or section 408(p) that applies for individuals who attain age 60, 61, 62, or 63 in 2025 is $11,250.
- Roth catch-up wage threshold
The Roth catch-up wage threshold for 2024, which under section 414(v)(7)(A) is used to determine whether an individual’s catch-up contributions to an applicable employer plan (other than a plan described in section 408(k) or (p)) for 2025 must be designated Roth contributions, remains $145,000.