Can the IRS waive the 60-day rollover deadline?

The standard and the three routes

The 60-day deadline is strict, but Publication 590-A (2025) allows relief. The IRS may waive the requirement where the failure to do so would be against equity or good conscience, such as casualty, disaster or another event beyond your reasonable control. The publication lists exactly three ways to obtain a waiver: you qualify for an automatic waiver; you self-certify that you met the waiver requirements; or you request and receive a private letter ruling. The first two cost nothing at the IRS. The third is a formal ruling request.

Route one: the automatic waiver

You qualify automatically if all of these apply: the financial institution receives the funds on your behalf before the 60 days end; you followed all of the institution’s procedures for depositing the funds into an IRA or other eligible plan within the period, including giving instructions to deposit; the funds are not deposited in time solely because of an error by the financial institution; the funds are deposited within 1 year from the beginning of the 60-day period; and it would have been a valid rollover had the institution deposited the funds as instructed. The calculator on this page returns both the normal 60th day and the last day of that one-year window for a given distribution date.

Route two: self-certification

If you do not qualify for the automatic waiver, you may make a written certification to the plan administrator or IRA trustee that you missed the deadline for one or more of the reasons listed in Revenue Procedure 2020-46. You can use the model letter in the revenue procedure’s appendix or a substantially similar letter. There is no IRS fee, and the trustee may rely on your certification in accepting and reporting the late rollover. Keep a copy: it should be available if requested on audit. The publication stresses the limit: a self-certification is not a waiver by the IRS. If the IRS later audits your return it can decide that you did not qualify, and you may then owe additional tax and penalties. The reasons in the revenue procedure are specific, so read it before certifying.

Route three: a private letter ruling

You can request a ruling under Revenue Procedure 2003-16 and Revenue Procedure 2026-4, and the publication states that the appropriate user fee of $18,500 must accompany every request for a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement, as set out in the user fee chart in Appendix A of Revenue Procedure 2026-4. In deciding whether to grant a ruling the IRS considers all relevant facts and circumstances, including whether the financial institution made errors; whether you were unable to complete the rollover in time because of death, disability, hospitalization, incarceration, serious illness, restrictions imposed by a foreign country or postal error; whether you used the amount distributed; and how much time has passed since the distribution. The fee is large relative to many rollovers, so for smaller amounts the first two routes matter most.

What a waiver cannot do

The publication adds two limits. The IRS can waive only the 60-day requirement, not the other requirements of a valid rollover; for instance it cannot waive the one-rollover-per-year rule. And the amount you can deposit due to a waiver is capped the same way as a normal rollover: if you received $6,000, the most you can deposit under a waiver is $6,000. A waiver also does not undo timing for required minimum distributions, which are never eligible for rollover.

Worked example

You receive a $12,000 distribution on April 10, 2026. Day 60 is June 9, 2026. You gave the new custodian deposit instructions on May 1, but the old custodian’s mailroom error delayed the funds, and they arrived on July 2. All five automatic-waiver conditions appear satisfied: the funds were received on your behalf before day 60, you followed procedures, the delay was solely the institution’s error, and July 2 is within one year of April 10. Next steps include keeping the correspondence. If instead you simply forgot, the automatic route does not fit, and you would consider self-certification only if one of the Revenue Procedure’s listed reasons truly applies. See the 60-day rule explainer for how the days are counted, and talk to a tax professional before relying on a self-certification.

Sources

• IRS Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) (2025): Ways to get a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement; Rev. Proc. 2020-46; Rev. Proc. 2026-4. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: Publication 590-A (2025), for use in preparing 2025 returns, including its What’s New for 2026 note. Dollar limits and dates are for the year stated; check the current publication and form instructions for your tax year. This page summarizes the publication and does not replace it.