Roth Ira Investment Calculator
A Roth IRA is the only retirement account where decades of compound growth can be withdrawn completely tax-free, so the number that matters most is the balance at the end, not just the contributions you put in. This calculator projects your Roth IRA’s future value from your current balance, monthly contribution, expected annual return and time horizon, breaks the result into contributions versus tax-free growth, shows milestone balances at years 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40, and checks your contribution rate against the 2026 IRS limits.
| Year | Projected balance |
|---|
Projection assumes monthly contributions at the end of each month, a constant annual return compounded monthly, and no fees, taxes on qualified withdrawals, or inflation adjustment. The 2026 IRS limit check uses the limits in IRS Notice 2025-67 ($7,500 under 50; $8,600 at 50+, including the $1,100 catch-up). This is an educational estimate, not financial advice.
Quick Answer
$500 a month at 7% for 30 years, starting from $5,000, projects to $650,567.99, of which $465,567.99 (about 72%) is tax-free growth. Your $185,000 of contributions does less than a third of the work; compounding does the rest, and on a qualified withdrawal you keep every dollar of it.
For 2026, maxing the IRS limit ($7,500 a year, or $625 a month, from a $0 start) at the same 7% over 30 years projects to $762,481.87. The milestones table in the results shows exactly when the balance starts running away from the contributions.
Key takeaways
- On a typical 30-year projection, roughly two-thirds or more of the final balance is growth, not contributions. The return assumption and the time horizon move the result far more than small changes in the monthly amount.
- The 2026 IRS contribution limit is $7,500 under age 50 and $8,600 at 50+ (per IRS Notice 2025-67). This calculator checks your monthly rate against those limits automatically.
- Contributions compound monthly in this model, at each month's end. That slightly understates a beginning-of-month saver, so treat the figure as mildly conservative.
- Five idle years early in a career cost about $216,905 of final balance on the worked example, more than a decade of extra saving later can recover.
- A projection is a planning input, not a promise: returns vary, fees and inflation are not modeled, and the tax-free result assumes qualified withdrawals.
How to use this calculator
Enter your current balance (0 if you are starting fresh), your monthly contribution, the annual return you expect, and the number of years until you plan to retire, then press Project my Roth IRA. The results split the future value into total contributions and tax-free growth, state the balance you could withdraw tax-free on a qualified distribution, and list milestone balances at years 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 so you can see the compounding curve bend upward.
Your age is optional and does only one job: the 2026 IRS limit check. If your monthly contribution times twelve exceeds $7,500 (or $8,600 at age 50+), a warning appears saying so and noting that the projection still assumes the full amount. Leave age blank to skip the check. Reset restores the worked example; Copy my results and Share results sit inside the results box.
Worked example: the $500-a-month saver
A 35-year-old holds $5,000, contributes $500 a month, expects 7% a year, and has 30 years to retirement. Monthly rate = 7% ÷ 12, compounded over 360 months. The calculator returns:
- Projected balance: $650,567.99, withdrawable tax-free at retirement on a qualified distribution
- Total contributions: $185,000.00 ($5,000 start plus $500 × 12 × 30)
- Tax-free growth: $465,567.99, about 71.6% of the final balance
| Milestone | Balance | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $11,557.74 | Compounding is back-loaded: the first 10 years add about $96,000, while the last 10 years add roughly $370,000. Every year you delay the start costs more than the year before it. |
| Year 5 | $42,884.58 | |
| Year 10 | $96,590.71 | |
| Year 20 | $280,657.02 | |
| Year 30 | $650,567.99 |
Same saver, different monthly amounts (7%, 30 years, $5,000 start): $300 a month projects to $406,573.79, and $625 a month to $803,064.36. And maxing the full 2026 limit, $625 a month from a $0 start, projects to $762,481.87 on $225,000 of contributions. Enter any of these in the calculator to reproduce them.
How the math works
The projection uses standard monthly compounding. The monthly rate is the annual return divided by 12, and the future value is the current balance times (1 + monthly rate) raised to 12 × years, plus the future value of the monthly annuity: monthly contribution × (((1 + monthly rate)^(12 × years)) − 1) ÷ monthly rate. Total contributions are the starting balance plus monthly × 12 × years, and earnings are the difference. A 0% return is handled as a special case (no division by zero), and the years input is read as whole years.
Two modeling choices, stated plainly. Contributions are assumed at each month's end, which slightly understates results versus beginning-of-month deposits, a mild conservative bias. Contributions are assumed constant: the model does not escalate them with inflation or raises, and it does not subtract fees, so a high-fee portfolio will land below the projection.
The 2026 contribution limits and the limit check
The IRS raised the limits for 2026 in Notice 2025-67. The combined ceiling across all your Traditional and Roth IRAs is $7,500 if you are under 50, or $8,600 at 50+ (the $7,500 base plus the $1,100 catch-up, which became inflation-indexed under SECURE 2.0). Contributions also cannot exceed your taxable compensation for the year, and direct Roth contributions phase out at higher incomes.
| 2026 rule | Figure |
|---|---|
| Annual limit, under 50 | $7,500 (about $625/month) |
| Annual limit, 50+ | $8,600 (about $717/month), including the $1,100 catch-up |
| Single / head of household MAGI phase-out | $153,000 to $168,000 |
| Married filing jointly MAGI phase-out | $242,000 to $252,000 |
The calculator's warning compares your monthly contribution × 12 against the limit for your age and flags any excess, because projecting $1,000 a month when the law caps you at $625 builds a fantasy. One honest limitation: the check looks only at the dollar ceiling. It does not test the income phase-outs or the compensation rule, so a high earner can pass the dollar check and still be ineligible for direct contributions (the backdoor Roth is the usual workaround, covered in the FAQs).
A note on currency: these limits are hard-coded from the 2026 IRS figures and will need refreshing when the IRS announces the next year's cost-of-living adjustments each autumn.
Roth versus taxable: pricing the tax shelter
The tax-free wrapper is worth a concrete dollar figure. On the worked example, the same $185,000 of contributions in a taxable account, paying a 15% long-term capital-gains rate on the growth at withdrawal, ends at about $580,732.79 instead of $650,567.99: the Roth shelters roughly $69,835.20 of growth from tax. To run the comparison yourself on any projection, apply your expected gains rate to the earnings line only.
That comparison actually understates the real gap, because taxable accounts also leak to dividend and interest taxes year after year, while the Roth compounds untouched. The 15% figure is the most favorable case for the taxable side; for high earners facing the 20% rate plus the 3.8% net investment income tax, the shelter is larger still.
What competing Roth IRA calculators miss
Most Roth calculators project a balance and stop there. After testing the current field, the gaps that matter:
- No contribution-limit check. Several tools happily model $1,000-a-month contributions no one can legally make. This page checks your monthly rate against the 2026 IRS limits and warns you when the projection assumes money you cannot contribute.
- Annual-only contributions. Tools that take one yearly figure hide the difference between monthly compounding and a year-end lump sum. Monthly inputs match how people actually save, and monthly compounding is the honest math.
- No milestone table. A single final number does not show the curve. The year 1/5/10/20/30/40 milestones here make the back-loaded nature of compounding visible, which is what convinces people to start earlier.
- Stale limits. Some tools still quote the 2025 figures ($7,000/$8,000). The IRS raised the 2026 limits to $7,500/$8,600 in Notice 2025-67, and this page's check and prose use the current numbers.
- No taxable comparison. Without pricing the tax shelter, the Roth advantage stays abstract. The section above puts the worked example's $69,835 shelter in dollars.
If you are weighing whether to convert existing Traditional money into this tax-free wrapper instead of contributing fresh, our IRA conversion to Roth calculator models the conversion tax bill. Federal employees comparing the Roth TSP against a Roth IRA can use our Roth TSP calculator, and the deposit growth calculator runs the same compounding math without the Roth framing. When the balance is built and you start spending it, the Roth IRA distribution calculator applies the IRS ordering rules to estimate the tax, penalty and net on withdrawals.
Frequently asked questions
$7,500 a year if you are under 50, or $8,600 at 50 or older (the $7,500 base plus the $1,100 catch-up), per IRS Notice 2025-67. That limit is shared across all your Traditional and Roth IRAs combined, not per account, and it cannot exceed your taxable compensation for the year. Income phase-outs reduce direct eligibility at higher incomes: $153,000 to $168,000 of MAGI for single filers, $242,000 to $252,000 for married couples filing jointly.
With monthly compounding: each month's balance grows by the monthly rate (annual return divided by 12) and each contribution is added at month's end. Over 30 years at 7%, $500 a month from a $5,000 start grows to about $650,568, of which roughly $465,568 is growth. The calculator above runs this exact formula and shows milestone balances at years 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40.
For money you will not need before retirement, usually yes: the same contributions avoid all tax on the growth once withdrawals qualify. On the worked example, a 15% gains rate prices that shelter at about $69,835 ($650,568 minus $580,733), and the real advantage is larger because taxable accounts also pay tax on dividends along the way.
More than intuition suggests, because early years compound the longest. On the worked example, starting 5 years later (25 years instead of 30) leaves $433,662.94 instead of $650,567.99, a cost of about $216,905. That is more than the entire $185,000 contributed, which is why starting beats optimizing.
A diversified stock-heavy portfolio has averaged roughly 7% a year after inflation over long periods (about 10% before inflation). Many planners use 5 to 7% for projections to stay conservative, and some run a lower scenario alongside. Real returns swing widely year to year, so treat any single projection as the middle of a wide range, not a promise.
Qualified withdrawals are completely tax-free: generally you must be 59½ or older and have held the account at least five years. Contributions (not earnings) can usually be withdrawn at any time without tax or penalty, because the IRS treats withdrawals as coming from contributions first under its ordering rules.
Excess contributions face a 6% excise tax each year they stay in the account. You can fix it by withdrawing the excess plus any earnings on it before the tax-filing deadline (including extensions) for the year of the contribution. This is one reason the calculator's limit check exists: it is cheaper to catch an over-contribution in the planning stage than on the tax return.
Not directly above the phase-out ranges, but the backdoor Roth remains available: contribute to a non-deductible Traditional IRA (no income limit on contributions) and convert it to Roth. Watch the pro-rata rule if you hold other pre-tax Traditional IRA balances, since the IRS taxes conversions proportionally across all of them.
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References
- Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – IRA Contribution Limits. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. IR-2025-111: 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. COLA Increases for Dollar Limitations on Benefits and Contributions. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 451, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Roth Comparison Chart. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Publication 590-B (2025), Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute. 26 U.S.C. § 408A – Roth IRAs. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Journal of Accountancy (AICPA). Inflation adjustments to retirement account limits issued for 2026. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- KPMG TaxNewsFlash. Notice 2025-67: Increased retirement plan contribution limits for 2026. Accessed October 23, 2026.