How Old Do You Have to Be to Open a Roth IRA?

There is no federal minimum age for a Roth IRA. But three questions are separate: can the child lawfully do the work, does the payment qualify as IRA compensation, and will a provider open an appropriate custodial account? For a minor, a parent or guardian generally opens and manages the IRA; the child owns it. The agreement and applicable law control when adult authority ends. For adults, independent account access depends on applicable law and the provider’s rules. There is also no federal maximum contribution age, but the compensation and contribution limits still apply.

The Statutory Answer — No Minimum Age (IRC §408A)

For a regular annual Roth IRA contribution, IRC §408A(c) applies compensation, annual-limit, and income tests:

1. Eligible compensation must support the contribution. A child generally needs their own compensation. A married person filing jointly may use the spousal IRA rules in IRC §219(c); each spouse has a separate IRA and limit.
2. Your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) can reduce or eliminate a direct Roth contribution. These are your filing-status limits, not a parent’s income test for a child’s separate IRA.
3. Your regular Roth and Traditional contributions share one annual limit. Opening another IRA does not create more room.

There is no minimum or maximum contribution age. The comparison table and Roth chapter in IRS Publication 590-A (2025 edition) confirm that age alone does not bar a Roth IRA. Age 50 matters for the higher contribution limit, not for permission to have the account. Opening an account is also different from being eligible to make a particular contribution.

For 2026, the direct-contribution phase-out bands are $153,000–$168,000 for single and head-of-household filers, and $242,000–$252,000 for joint filers and qualifying surviving spouses. Married filing separately generally uses $0–$10,000 if the spouses lived together at any time during the year; someone filing separately who lived apart all year uses the single-filer band. See IRS Notice 2025-67 and our eligibility guide.

A small example, not a work-law exception: suppose a six-year-old receives $50 of eligible wages for a genuine, lawfully arranged modeling job. Assume the provider accepts the custodial account, the child meets Roth income eligibility, and no other regular IRA contribution was made for 2026. The contribution ceiling is $50, the smaller of $50 compensation and the $7,500 annual limit. The example does not establish that any particular modeling arrangement is lawful, that a family photo shoot creates compensation, or that $50 is an audit safe harbor.

Before arranging work, check the applicable federal and state child-labor rules. They depend on the job, age, hours, employer, and any applicable exception; where both laws apply, follow the more protective rule. No federal IRA age floor gives a child permission to do a job.

Earned Income Is the Real Gatekeeper

For a child’s regular contribution, the ceiling is eligible compensation, subject to the shared annual IRA cap and Roth income limits. Common forms of compensation include:

• Wages, salaries, and tips for actual services. Keep wage and tip records; employee status and required reporting do not disappear because the employer is a parent.
• Adjusted net earnings from genuine self-employment. Start with business income less business expenses, then apply the IRA-compensation adjustments, including the deductible part of self-employment tax and applicable self-employed retirement-plan deductions. Gross customer payments or a Form 1099 amount are not the limit. Income can count even when no Form 1099 is issued.
• Special categories for adults. Nontaxable combat pay counts under IRC §219(f)(7); taxable non-tuition graduate or postdoctoral fellowship/stipend payments can also count under §219(f)(1). Taxable alimony under qualifying pre-2019 divorce or separation instruments can count; nontaxable alimony does not. Publication 590-A explains these exceptions.

What doesn't count:

• Allowance for ordinary chores (cleaning your room, etc.)
• Gifts and birthday/holiday money
• Investment income (dividends, interest, capital gains)
• Social Security survivor benefits
• Nontaxable alimony — the instrument’s date and any modification matter, not simply when a payment arrived
• Unemployment compensation
• Inherited principal and ordinary investment-income trust distributions — receiving money is not, by itself, compensation for services

Family-business work has its own responsibilities. Pay must reflect actual services, and the applicable wage, work, and payroll rules still matter. The IRS distinguishes a parent’s sole proprietorship or a partnership in which every partner is a parent from a corporation or other partnership. For the first group, a child’s wages are generally exempt from Social Security and Medicare tax before age 18 and FUTA before age 21, but income-tax withholding rules still apply. A corporation does not receive those child-employment exemptions merely because a parent owns it. An LLC label alone does not answer the payroll question. See the IRS’s family-employees guidance; confirm the entity’s tax treatment rather than assuming all family businesses work alike.

Keep dates, services, hours, rates, customers or employer, payments, and business expenses, together with wage statements and any Forms 1099. Records support the facts; they do not guarantee IRS acceptance or replace required tax reporting.

The $400 threshold is a filing rule, not an IRA minimum. A child with net earnings from self-employment of $400 or more generally must file a return and Schedule SE, even if no federal income tax is due. Schedule C reports a sole proprietor’s business profit or loss when a return is required; it is not limited to income over $400. Other filing requirements can apply below that threshold, and filing may be useful to recover wage withholding. See IRS Topic 554 and the Schedule C instructions.

Custodial Roth IRA for Minors

A provider that offers IRAs for minors generally uses an adult custodian. For example, Fidelity’s Roth IRA for Kids is an account for a child under 18 that an adult manages. That is a provider example, not a nationwide account-opening or handoff rule. The basic distinction is:

• The child owns the IRA. The provider records the child as the IRA participant. Keep the child’s contribution and withdrawal records.
• The adult manages the account. Investment decisions, forms, and distributions must follow the agreement and applicable law. Confirm who may serve as custodian and when that authority ends.
• The limit belongs to the child. Eligible compensation, other regular IRA contributions, and the child’s Roth income eligibility determine the available amount.
• A parent may supply the cash. The child need not deposit the same dollars they earned. A parental gift can fund an otherwise eligible regular contribution, but does not itself create compensation or extra contribution room. Regular IRA contributions must be in cash, not shares transferred from another account.

For a complete walkthrough of opening a custodial Roth IRA, the earned-income test, custodian options, and the long-term math, see our companion FAQ: Can I Open a Roth IRA for My Child?

The Age-of-Majority Transition

There is no single federal handoff age for every custodial Roth IRA. The provider’s custodial IRA agreement and applicable state law control when and how the child takes over. Some accounts use a state UTMA structure; others rely on different custodial account mechanics. Confirm the governing agreement instead of assuming that a state’s UTMA maximum automatically applies.

• Common handoff ages: 18 or 21, depending on the agreement and governing law.
• Virginia’s age-25 designation is conditional: for property actually transferred to an individual under 21 under Virginia UTMA through §64.2-1903 or §64.2-1904 on or after July 1, 2019, the transferor may expressly designate age 25 under §64.2-1908(E). The original designation, account documents, and provider mechanics all must support it.
• Age 21 remains a request boundary for certain Virginia gifts: for an irrevocable-gift transfer covered by §64.2-1919(B), the beneficiary may request the property in writing during the statutory window beginning 30 days before turning 21 and ending 30 days after the later of turning 21 or receiving the custodian’s notice. An age-25 designation does not erase that request right.

When the controlling agreement and law require the handoff, the custodian loses authority and the child takes control of the Roth IRA. The provider may require its own paperwork rather than an automatic “conversion” on a birthday, so families should confirm the process in advance.

Talk through withdrawals before the handoff. Once the young owner has control, they can request a distribution under the provider’s procedures; tax rules do not require that the money be spent on retirement. But the whole balance is not automatically tax-free to withdraw. Remaining regular contribution basis generally comes out first across the owner’s Roth IRAs, without federal income tax or the 10% additional tax. Conversions and earnings have different rules. Nonqualified earnings can be taxable and may also face the 10% additional tax; an exception to that additional tax does not necessarily make earnings income-tax-free. See Publication 590-B, chapter 2.

A handoff of custodial control is not a Traditional-to-Roth tax conversion. More years invested can provide more time for compounding, but a Roth IRA does not promise growth or protect an investment from loss. Choose investments around the account’s purpose, risks, and expected withdrawals, not a prescribed allocation based only on the child’s age.

Adults — When You Can Open Your Own

To open an account independently, confirm that applicable law and the provider’s rules allow it. Ask what identification, residency, tax identification number, and funding information the provider requires. Do not assume every provider offers the same account, accepts the same applicant, or finishes an application in a fixed number of minutes.

Account location does not determine a guaranteed return. A brokerage IRA’s investments and a bank IRA’s deposit products have different risks and features. Compare what you would actually hold, together with fees and access rules.

For example, a 19-year-old with $3,000 in eligible summer-job wages can contribute up to $3,000 for 2026, assuming Roth income eligibility and no other regular IRA contribution. A single 22-year-old with no eligible compensation cannot use family support alone to make a regular contribution. A married joint filer may qualify using a spouse’s compensation under the spousal IRA rules. These regular-contribution tests are not a blanket prohibition on eligible rollovers or conversions.

No Maximum Age

Roth IRA contributions have no federal upper age limit. Traditional IRA contributions also have no upper age limit for 2020 and later: SECURE Act §107 removed their former age-70½ restriction. See the age comparison in Publication 590-A. For either account, regular-contribution eligibility still depends on compensation and the applicable limits.

For older savers, the same checks still apply:

• An 80-year-old with $40,000 of eligible compensation from consulting can contribute up to $8,600 for 2026, assuming full Roth income eligibility and no other regular IRA contributions. If self-employed, $40,000 means compensation after the required adjustments, not simply fees collected. Taking a Traditional IRA RMD does not itself prevent a Roth contribution; the RMD is not compensation and can affect Roth income eligibility.
• A working 70-year-old may contribute while participating in a workplace retirement plan, subject to the same Roth limits. Having a plan at work does not by itself bar a Roth IRA contribution.
• A 90-year-old paid for speaking services may have eligible compensation. Apply the annual cap, compensation calculation, and Roth income limits; do not treat every payment called an honorarium as automatically eligible.

There are no required minimum distributions (RMDs) from your own Roth IRA during your lifetime under IRC §408A(c)(4). Traditional IRAs have RMDs under the applicable birth-year rules. Beneficiaries have separate rules: many nonspouse individual beneficiaries of an owner who dies in 2020 or later must empty an inherited Roth IRA by December 31 of the tenth year after death, with no annual RMDs in years 1–9 under that ten-year rule. Eligible designated beneficiaries and estates or some trusts can have different schedules; do not assume the ten-year rule covers everyone. T.D. 10001 and Publication 590-B explain those distinctions.

For earnings withdrawn in retirement to be a qualified, federal-income-tax-free distribution, the usual route requires age 59½ and completion of the Roth IRA five-tax-year period. Death, qualifying disability, and a qualifying first-home distribution provide other routes after that period. Death does not waive the five-tax-year test: inherited Roth earnings distributed before it is satisfied can be taxable, although beneficiary distributions are exempt from the 10% early-distribution tax. Inheritance timing and taxability are separate questions.