Workers who turn 60, 61, 62 or 63 at any point in 2026 can set aside far more of their pay in a 401(k) or similar workplace plan than any other age group saving through payroll deductions this year. The Internal Revenue Service confirmed the exact 2026 numbers in Notice 2025-67: employees in that four-year band can direct up to $11,250 in catch-up contributions, on top of the plan’s regular $24,500 elective-deferral ceiling. The extra amount comes from a “super” catch-up provision Congress created under the SECURE 2.0 Act specifically for savers nearing retirement with the least time left to close a savings gap. None of it happens automatically, and the higher figure disappears the year a saver turns 64.
A four-year window built into the tax code
The regular catch-up for anyone 50 or older stays at $8,000 in 2026, up from $7,500 the year before. Savers who turn 60 through 63 at any point during the year get a separate, larger figure instead: $11,250, unchanged from when the provision first took effect in 2025. The rule sits in the tax code as its own limitation, layered by SECURE 2.0 onto the existing 50-and-over catch-up specifically for that narrow age band, and it applies to 401(k) plans other than SIMPLE 401(k)s, 403(b) plans, governmental 457(b) plans, and the federal Thrift Savings Plan. Congress drew the line at exactly those four birth years because they sit just before the age range when most workers start claiming Social Security or drawing down retirement accounts, making them the last stretch where extra payroll savings can still compound before withdrawals typically begin.
The Internal Revenue Service confirmed both figures, along with the underlying $24,500 elective-deferral limit for 2026, in its annual limit announcement issued in November 2025. The $11,250 super catch-up is the same number the agency published for 2025, the provision’s first year — it held flat for 2026 rather than rising with the cost-of-living formula that pushed the standard catch-up up by $500. A separate, smaller version of the same age-based boost applies to SIMPLE retirement plans, where the age-60-to-63 catch-up is $5,250 in 2026 instead of the standard $4,000, but the bulk of workers with a workplace retirement account are covered by the larger 401(k)-style figures.
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The extra room still needs the plan’s sign-off
Nothing about the age-60-to-63 catch-up is automatic. Federal law lets a plan sponsor offer catch-up contributions; it does not force one to. The Internal Revenue Service’s own guidance on catch-up contributions states that annual catch-up amounts “may be permitted” by 401(k), 403(b), SARSEP and governmental 457(b) plans, not that they must be. An employer that never added catch-up language to its plan document leaves every participant, regardless of age, capped at the $24,500 base limit. Someone who wants to know whether the extra $11,250 is actually available has to check the plan’s own terms, typically through the summary plan description or the plan administrator, rather than assume the IRS ceiling is automatically a personal ceiling.
In practice, a participant does not file a separate catch-up election. Contributions above the $24,500 base — up to whichever catch-up limit the plan allows — are automatically treated as catch-up dollars once the base limit is reached, provided the plan permits catch-up contributions in the first place. A plan can also choose to allow the standard $8,000 catch-up for its older workforce while declining to adopt the larger age-60-to-63 figure, since the two are separate plan-design decisions under the same section of the law.
What two catch-ups add up to in 2026
Combined with the elective-deferral limit, the numbers translate into two different ceilings depending on age. A worker who is 50 to 59, or who has already turned 64, can defer up to $32,500 in 2026: the $24,500 base plus the $8,000 standard catch-up. A worker who turns 60, 61, 62 or 63 sometime during the year can defer up to $35,750 instead — the same $24,500 base plus the $11,250 super catch-up, a $3,250 gap between the two groups. Spread evenly across 26 biweekly paychecks, that gap works out to about $125 more set aside per pay period than a saver just outside the age band could contribute through elective deferrals alone. Notice 2025-67 spells out the statutory language behind both numbers: the standard catch-up limit under Internal Revenue Code section 414(v)(2)(B)(i) “is increased from $7,500 to $8,000,” while the age-60-to-63 limit under section 414(v)(2)(E)(i) “remains $11,250.”
A five-year comparison the agency publishes online shows the standard catch-up sitting at $7,500 for three straight years before finally rising to $8,000 for 2026, while the age-60-to-63 catch-up arrived already well above that number in 2025 and has not moved since.
The after-tax catch for higher earners
One wrinkle applies to anyone using either catch-up option who earned more than $150,000 in Federal Insurance Contributions Act wages from the same employer the prior year: their catch-up contributions must go in as Roth money, meaning after-tax, rather than the pre-tax dollars that make up most of a traditional 401(k) deferral. The $150,000 threshold itself moved up for 2026, from $145,000 the year before, and it only applies where the plan offers a Roth catch-up option in the first place. For someone in the 60-to-63 age band who clears that wage threshold, the practical effect is that the extra $11,250 stops reducing this year’s taxable income; the tax benefit shifts entirely to withdrawals in retirement instead.
The window closes at 64
The extra $11,250 is not a lifetime benefit. It applies only in a calendar year during which a person actually turns 60, 61, 62 or 63. A saver who turns 63 in 2026 and keeps working past 64 loses access to the higher figure the following January, dropping back to whatever the standard 50-and-over catch-up is set at for that year. The Internal Revenue Service’s guidance does not treat the higher figure as permanent for an individual, only as a feature of the calendar year in which someone falls into that four-year band, per the same limitation table the agency updates each fall alongside the base deferral limit.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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