Can you contribute to an IRA with no income?

The short answer and the rule behind it

The starting point in Publication 590-A (2025) is a single sentence: you can open and make contributions to a traditional IRA if you, or your spouse when you file a joint return, received taxable compensation during the year. The publication then defines compensation as what you earn from working. If you spent a year with no job, no business and no other qualifying item, the contribution cannot be made for that year, no matter how much you have saved or how much investment income you earned. The publication puts it plainly in its section on when contributions can be made: for any year in which you do not work, contributions cannot be made unless you receive taxable alimony, nontaxable combat pay or military differential pay, or file a joint return with a spouse who has compensation.

What counts as compensation

Compensation includes wages, salaries, tips, professional fees, bonuses and other amounts received for personal services, commissions, net self-employment earnings (after the deductions for retirement-plan contributions and half of self-employment tax), nontaxable combat pay, and, for divorce or separation instruments executed on or before December 31, 2018 that have not been modified to exclude it, taxable alimony. Since 2020 certain taxable non-tuition fellowship and stipend payments to graduate or postdoctoral students also count. Table 1-1 in the publication lists what does not count: earnings and profits from property such as rent, interest and dividends, pension or annuity income, deferred compensation received, income from a partnership in which you provide no material services, Conservation Reserve Program payments reported on Schedule SE, and amounts you exclude from income, other than combat pay. So a retiree living on interest, a landlord with only rent, and a person living on a trust distribution all have an income and still cannot contribute.

The big exception: a working spouse

If you file a joint return, only one of you needs compensation. The publication calls this the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA limit. When your own taxable compensation is lower than your spouse’s, the most that can go into your IRA is the smaller of the annual cap and the combined compensation of both spouses, reduced by your spouse’s traditional IRA contribution and any Roth IRA contribution made for your spouse. Each spouse still needs their own IRA; you cannot share one. Filing separately removes the exception entirely, and then your limit is your own compensation.

Worked example from the publication

A full-time student with no taxable compensation marries during 2025. Neither spouse is 50 by the end of the year. The spouse earned $30,000 and plans to contribute $7,000 to a traditional IRA. On a joint return the student can add the spouse’s compensation less that contribution ($30,000 minus $7,000 = $23,000) to their own compensation of zero. The result, $23,000, is more than the $7,000 cap, so the student can contribute $7,000. The calculator above reproduces this: enter 0 for your compensation, tick the joint-return box, enter $30,000 for the spouse and $7,000 for the spouse’s own contributions, and it returns $7,000 for 2025. Change the year to 2026 and the cap becomes $7,500 ($8,600 if you are 50 or older).

Limits to keep in mind

The general limit for 2025 is the smaller of $7,000 ($8,000 at 50 or older) and your taxable compensation, and for 2026 it rises to $7,500 ($8,600 at 50 or older), per the publication’s What’s New for 2026 note. The limit covers all your traditional IRAs together, and contributions to a Roth IRA also count against it. Contributions for a year can be made at any time during the year or by the filing due date, not counting extensions, which for 2025 is April 15, 2026. There is no longer an age ceiling for traditional IRA contributions for tax years after 2019. Being able to contribute is separate from being able to deduct: if you or your spouse is covered by a retirement plan at work, the deduction may be reduced or removed, which the traditional IRA deduction phase-out calculator covers.

Alimony and combat pay as a bridge

Two kinds of payments can make a non-working year eligible. Taxable alimony received under a pre-2019 instrument counts as compensation, and so does nontaxable combat pay, which appears in box 12 of Form W-2 with code Q. Alimony under an agreement executed after 2018, or one modified to exclude it, does not. If you have none of these and are not on a joint return with someone who has compensation, an IRA contribution would be an excess contribution, and the publication says excess contributions left in place past the return due date are hit by a 6% tax for each year they remain. The cure is to withdraw the excess and any earnings by the due date, including extensions.

Roth IRAs follow the same compensation test

The compensation requirement is not unique to traditional IRAs. Chapter 2 of the publication applies the same definition to Roth IRAs and allows a Roth IRA for a non-working spouse under the same spousal limit, provided you file jointly and your modified AGI is below the Roth threshold. Use the Roth IRA contribution calculator and the Roth income limit page to check the income side.

Sources

• IRS Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) (2025): Who Can Open a Traditional IRA?; General Limit; Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA Limit; When Can Contributions Be Made?. 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.