Roth IRA Calculator
See what your Roth IRA could be worth at retirement, how much of that balance is tax-free growth, and how it stacks up against putting the same money in a taxable brokerage account.
Enter your details to project your tax-free retirement balance.
The calculator takes your current balance and grows it each year at your expected return, then adds your annual contribution at the end of the year. It repeats that until your retirement age. Since qualified Roth withdrawals are tax-free, the final number is what you'd actually get to spend.
The taxable comparison runs the same contributions through the same market, with one difference: the annual return gets reduced by your marginal tax rate. That models the tax drag of paying taxes on dividends and realized gains every year. A 7% return at a 22% tax rate becomes an effective 5.46% after-tax return. It doesn't sound like much, but over 30 years it adds up to six figures.
Contributions are capped at the 2026 limits: $7,500 if you're under 50, and $8,600 if you're 50 or older (the base limit plus a $1,100 catch-up). The projection holds your contribution constant, so if the IRS raises limits in future years and you keep maxing out, you'd end up ahead of this estimate.
Say you're 30 with $10,000 already in a Roth IRA. You contribute the 2026 maximum of $7,500 every year until 65, and your investments average 7% a year. Here's how it plays out:
- Projected balance at 65: about $1,143,542, all withdrawable tax-free
- Total contributions: $272,500 ($10,000 starting balance plus 35 years of $7,500)
- Tax-free growth: about $871,042, more than three times what you put in
- Same money in a taxable account at a 22% marginal rate: about $809,876
- Roth advantage: about $333,667
That last line is the whole argument for the Roth. Same savings, same market, same years. The only difference is the tax treatment, and it's worth a third of a million dollars in this example.
FV = P(1 + r)^n + C × [((1 + r)^n − 1) / r]
P is your current balance, r is the annual return as a decimal, n is the number of years until retirement, and C is the annual contribution (added at the end of each year). For the taxable account, the calculator swaps r for r × (1 − t), where t is your marginal tax rate.
| Rule | 2026 amount |
|---|---|
| Contribution limit (under 50) | $7,500 |
| Catch-up contribution (50 and older) | $1,100 (total $8,600) |
| MAGI phase-out: single or head of household | $153,000 to $168,000 |
| MAGI phase-out: married filing jointly | $242,000 to $252,000 |
| MAGI phase-out: married filing separately | $0 to $10,000 |
Below the bottom of your phase-out range, you can contribute the full amount. Inside the range, your limit shrinks proportionally. Above the top, direct contributions aren't allowed (though a backdoor Roth may still be an option).