How Getting Married Affects Your Roth IRA

If you are getting married this year, you might be wondering how that will affect your Roth individual retirement account (Roth IRA) and that of your partner. The simple answer? It won’t.

The slightly more complicated answer is that in most cases, you’ll both be able to contribute to your Roth IRA just as you did before, unless your combined income is now higher than the income limits set by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for Roth IRAs. And you can’t get around that by either filing separately or contributing to your Roth IRA before your wedding day.

In this article, we’ll explain why.

Check the Roth IRA Income Limits

Getting married won’t normally affect your Roth IRA. If you were both making regular contributions before you got married, you can keep doing so afterward. The only complicating factor is that you’ll need to check the Roth IRA income limits for your filing status. Here are the limits:

Source: Internal Revenue Service

It’s important to note that it’s your status on the last day of the U.S. tax year (and calendar year)—Dec. 31—that counts. Even if you got married on Dec. 30, you will count as married as far as the IRS is concerned.

Most people who are married will file taxes jointly, so check that row in the table above. If your joint income—or, more precisely, your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI)—is below the full amount, then you can contribute up to 100% of your income or the Roth IRA contribution limit, whichever is less. The contribution limit in 2022 is $6,000 ($6,500 in 2023) or $7,000 if age 50 or older ($7,500 in 2023), so both you and your partner can contribute that amount.

If your income falls within the partial range, subtract your income from the full level, then divide that amount by the phaseout range to determine the percentage of the maximum that you are allowed to contribute.

If your joint income is above the full amount for a given year, then you will not be able to contribute to your Roth IRA for that year.

Understanding Your Filing Status

If your joint income will be too high to allow you to contribute to your Roth IRAs, you might think that you could get around this by contributing money before your wedding day. You can’t. It’s your status on Dec. 31 that counts, no matter when you got married and when you made the contributions.

But that also means that if you have already contributed to the Roth for the year and now your income disqualifies you, you still have time to undo the contribution before the tax year ends.

Similarly, you can’t get around the Roth limits by filing taxes separately. As you can see in the table above, the income limit is just $10,000 for married people filing separately if they lived with their spouse at any time during the year.

There are indirect ways of contributing to your Roth IRA, even if you are above the income limits.

The Bottom Line

Normally, getting married won’t affect your Roth IRAs. Both of you can keep contributing as you were before—up to $6,000 in 2022 ($6,500 in 2023) or $7,000 if age 50 or older in 2022 ($7,500 in 2023). The exception to this is if your joint income is now higher than the income limits for Roth IRAs set by the IRS: $204,000 in 2022; $218,000 in 2023.

You can’t get around this by contributing before your wedding date because it’s your status on the last day of the tax year that counts. And you can’t get around it by filing separately, because the income limit is just $10,000 for married people filing separately if you lived with your spouse at any time during the year.

There are indirect ways of contributing to your Roth IRA, even if you are above the income limits. Familiarize yourself with the various strategies by reading up on Roth IRAs and learning the income limits.