How to Find My IRA Account

To look for a forgotten IRA, start with old statements and the firm that held it. Tax records and state unclaimed-property searches can provide more clues. If the money came from a former job, use the workplace-plan route below, too. There is no single search that finds every retirement account, and a record of an old account does not prove that the money is still there.

First, choose your starting point

1. Ask the firm to trace the account

The custodian is the bank, brokerage or other institution holding the IRA. Use contact details from a statement or an independently verified official website. Ask how to search for an old account and which identity documents it requires; you may be able to start without an account number.

Gather earlier names and addresses, approximate dates, statements, tax forms and any transfer notices. Provide sensitive identity information only through the firm’s verified process.

If the firm changed its name or merged, look for its successor. FDIC BankFind can help trace current and former insured banks. For a brokerage, the SEC’s BrokerCheck guidance explains how to look up firms. A listing helps identify a firm; it does not confirm your account or balance.

2. Follow the document trail

Start with documents you already have. A form can point to the firm that reported an account or payment, but its date matters.

• Form 5498: IRA information such as contributions and reported year-end fair market value. The trustee or issuer is a useful lead; the value is historical.
• Form 1099-R: a reported retirement distribution, which may involve a rollover or conversion. It does not, by itself, prove that an account closed or that the full amount was taxable.
• Form 8606 and supporting records: your own tax history for matters such as nondeductible Traditional IRA contributions, Roth conversions and certain distributions. It is not a directory of accounts.

Form 5498 is generally retained with your records rather than attached to your return. A copy of your filed return therefore is not a substitute for every custodian form. See the IRS’s 1099-R/5498 instructions and Form 8606 instructions.

If your own records are missing

A free wage and income transcript can show information from Forms 5498 and 1099-R received by the IRS. Request it through the IRS transcript service or Form 4506-T.

• These transcripts are available for the current and nine prior tax years; they are not lifetime records.
• Only filed information returns appear, and recent information can be incomplete.
• Identifying details are partly masked, including business names and employer identification numbers. A transcript may give you only part of the clue.

Form 4506 is different: it requests a copy of a filed tax return, for a fee. Use the current form’s fee and processing instructions if you actually need that copy. Neither request tells you a live account balance. If the reporting firm is unclear, ask a tax professional to help interpret the records rather than relying on a guessed identification-number lookup.

3. Check state unclaimed-property offices

Some unclaimed assets are transferred to a state under its unclaimed-property rules. Do not assume every quiet IRA is transferred after the same number of years.

USA.gov’s unclaimed-money guide points to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators and state offices. Check states where you have lived, using former names and addresses where the search permits. Follow the state’s official claim instructions if you find a possible match.

A negative search is not proof that an account never existed. A matching name is not proof of ownership, either. Ask the state what the property is and which records establish your right to claim it. Do not assume that property held by a state is still an open IRA.

4. Use a separate route for money from an old job

Contact the former employer, union or plan administrator. Ask whether the benefit remains in the plan, was paid, or moved elsewhere — including to an automatic-rollover IRA. These resources do different jobs:

• Department of Labor: Retirement Savings Lost and Found searches reported private-sector employer and union retirement benefits. It does not locate individual IRAs. Access requires identity verification through Login.gov. Results can be historical; the administrator must confirm whether benefits remain owed.
• PBGC: its unclaimed-benefits search concerns benefits associated with ended retirement plans. Its separate Missing Participants Program can also receive benefits or account-location information from participating terminated defined-contribution plans. Do not assume an employer’s bankruptcy puts every old 401(k) at PBGC.
• National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits: a private service associated with PenChecks, not operated by PBGC. Its service description explains its free, employer-submitted retirement-benefit listings. It is an additional lead, not a complete inventory of everyone’s IRAs.

For help locating a workplace plan administrator, use the benefits-adviser contact route on the DOL page. Staff cannot search the Lost and Found database on your behalf. Its current search is tied to your own identity; for a deceased relative, start with their employer or plan and ask about the beneficiary process.

5. Confirm what you found before moving money

Finding a record and recovering money are separate steps. Ask for written confirmation of the current holder, account type, owner or beneficiary, balance and any prior payment or transfer. If a firm failed, follow its official receiver or trustee notices, including any claim deadline.

Protection depends on what was held and what happened. FDIC insurance covers eligible deposits at an insured bank, subject to coverage rules; it does not insure stocks or mutual funds. SIPC protection concerns missing customer assets at a financially troubled member brokerage, not investment performance. Consult FDIC’s coverage explanation or SIPC’s explanation for the applicable process. Neither is a guarantee that every forgotten account can be recovered.

Do not withdraw cash just to make an account easier to find. Transfers, distributions, conversions and inherited accounts follow different tax rules. Once the account is identified, use the rollover guide and, where relevant, the inherited Roth overview before choosing a transaction.

Keep a short search log: the firm or office contacted, date, reference number and next step. Once the records are reconciled, the family handoff checklist can help you keep the account from becoming hard to trace again.

Corrections and updates

Correction · October 15, 2026. Earlier wording wrongly attributed the private National Registry to PBGC, overstated IRS transcript coverage and identifying details, confused transcript and tax-return-copy requests, and quoted an incorrect copy fee. Corrected blanket recovery and insurance assurances and a uniform dormancy period; removed an unsupported identification-number lookup and assumptions about successor firms. The guide now separates personal IRAs, workplace benefits and state-held property. The original publication date remains April 26, 2026.