What does the 401(k) limit actually cover?
Your own pay, and nothing else. In 2026 you can defer $24,500 of your salary into a 401(k). What your employer puts in does not count toward that figure, and neither does a catch-up contribution if you are old enough for one. Those sit under a separate ceiling of $72,000, which is nearly three times larger and which most people never hear about.
The practical version: somebody who says “I maxed out my 401(k)” has usually put in $24,500. The account may well have received considerably more.
What counts toward the $24,500?
Money you choose not to take home. Traditional deferrals and Roth deferrals share the one limit, so $24,500 split between them in any proportion is the same $24,500. It is not $24,500 each.
What does not count: your employer's match, their profit sharing, and any non-elective contribution they make. Those are their money, not deferred pay.
So what is the $72,000 figure?
The cap on everything landing in your workplace account in one year from one employer: your deferral, their match, their profit sharing, and after-tax contributions if your plan allows them. The IRS calls these annual additions. For 2026 it is the lesser of $72,000 or 100% of your compensation, and catch-up contributions sit above it rather than inside it.
Hardly anyone reaches it on deferral and match alone. It becomes real for people whose plans allow large after-tax contributions, and it is the ceiling any employer match has to fit under.
What about catch-up contributions?
From the year you turn 50 you can defer an extra $8,000, taking you to $32,500.
For the four years you turn 60, 61, 62 and 63 that catch-up is larger: $11,250 instead of $8,000, so $35,750 in total. It replaces the age-50 catch-up rather than adding to it, so what the window is really worth is the difference — $3,250 a year, for four years. At 64 it drops back to the ordinary catch-up with nothing announcing the change.
Eligibility runs on the age you reach during the calendar year, so a December birthday counts from January. Your plan has to offer it, which is a question for your employer.
Is the limit per job or per person?
Both, and this is where changing jobs catches people. The $24,500 deferral limit follows you across every plan you pay into in a year. Two employers, two 401(k)s, $24,500 between them. Neither payroll department can see the other, so neither will stop you going over, and sorting out an excess deferral after the fact means contacting the plan before April 15 of the following year.
The $72,000 annual-additions cap works the other way: it applies per employer. Two genuinely unrelated employers means two of those ceilings.
Does the IRA limit interact with any of this?
No. The IRA limit is separate and smaller — $7,500 in 2026, plus $1,100 from 50. Paying into a 401(k) does not reduce it. What a workplace plan can affect is whether a traditional IRA contribution is deductible, which is an income test, not a limit on the contribution itself.
Why this matters to a plan rather than just to a tax return
Because the gap between $24,500 and what actually lands in the account compounds for decades. Somebody deferring the full $24,500 with a 5% match on a $150,000 salary has $32,000 going in, not $24,500 — and a plan built on the smaller figure understates them every year.
It also decides whether a catch-up is worth the pay cut. The four years from 60 to 63 are the largest deferral window most people ever get, and they arrive at exactly the age when the answer to “how much does another $3,250 a year change things” stops being abstract.
What this doesn't model
MangoDime takes the contribution figures you enter and plans with them. It does not check them against these limits, and it does not model the $72,000 annual-additions cap at all — reaching it needs after-tax contributions the plan does not ask about. It also does not know whether your employer offers the 60-to-63 catch-up, because only your plan documents say.
Figures are the 2026 amounts from the IRS's own annual notice, and they change most years. This page is reviewed every January.
Where to check your own
Your payroll portal shows year-to-date deferrals, usually separating your contributions from your employer's — that split is the thing worth looking at. Your plan's summary description says whether after-tax contributions and the enhanced catch-up are offered.
Last updated October 7, 2026 · MangoDime