The 2023 Contribution Limits for Retirement Plans and Benefits

Your comprehensive one-stop-shop for all your 2023 contribution limits in a concise table. So you can get your ‘need to knows’ as you plan your tax hacks and savings goals for benefits elections and enrollments for the coming year.

The Most Comprehensive Contribution Limits List on the Web

Here is the most comprehensive list on the entire world wide web of 2023 contribution limits for your favorite IRS tax-advantaged accounts. This list includes retirement, medical, savings, tax-exempt and tax differed accounts, as well as commonly used tax deduction program limits.

I have combed through multiple IRS publications released on Tuesday to make this your one-stop shop for all to 2023 contribution limits.  I have your ‘need to knows’ here for 2023 as you plan your tax hacks and savings goals for the coming year.

Contribution Limits Take a Big Jump Thanks to Inflation

“Contribution limits are taking a big jump for 2023. The I.R.S. announced one of its largest increases in decades to caps on retirement contributions, allowing workers with access to the plans to save more.”

– New York Times

Sounds all warm and fuzzy for us FIRE Walkers, right? Unfortunately, as you can see from the ‘percent change’ column in the table below, these limits fail to keep up with the real inflation rates. In other words, while we can save more tax-free money this year in absolute terms, what we save represents a smaller portion of our purchasing power this year than last year. That’s inflation for you, doing exactly what it was designed to do, steal from the poor and transfer wealth to the rich.

I could rant all day about the horrors of inflation and the crooks that cause it (and I did when the CPI inflation index was only 2%, a far cry better than today) but this is not the article for that topic. Come back next week if you would like to understand inflation better and what is really causing it.

Back to Contribution Limits

Now it is time for contribution limits. Rather than belabor these changes in a long wordy post, I have created a couple of tables so you can quickly reference your ‘need-to-knows’ and get back to your busy day.

Note: These values are for reference only. I did my best to transpose accurately but please double-check with the IRS tax code directly for reliable figures if you are going to bet your financial future on it.

Keep the FIRE burning my friends.

Sources:

1. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/cola-increases-for-dollar-limitations-on-benefits-and-contributions
2. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-401k-and-profit-sharing-plan-contribution-limits
3. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-contributions
4. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-22500-for-2023-ira-limit-rises-to-6500
5. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-22-38.pdf