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Can You Move Amounts Into a Roth IRA?: IRA Contributions and Transfers (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Can You Move Amounts Into a Roth IRA?” within ira contributions and transfers. The following material presents the IRS treatment of this topic, including the qualifications, exceptions, and examples in the source section. Read the rules alongside the facts of your own situation before deciding what to report, deduct, or document.

Adapted from Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), published by the Internal Revenue Service. This guide retains the source edition’s years, amounts, deadlines, and examples. It is guidance for that edition, not a statement that the same figures apply to every tax year.

Can You Move Amounts Into a Roth IRA?

You may be able to convert amounts from either a traditional or traditional SIMPLE IRA into a Roth IRA or Roth SIMPLE IRA. You may be able to roll over amounts from a qualified retirement plan to a Roth IRA. You may be able to recharacterize contributions made to one IRA as having been made directly to a different IRA. You can roll amounts over from a designated Roth account or from one Roth IRA to another Roth IRA.

Conversions

You can convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. The conversion is treated as a rollover, regardless of the conversion method used. Most of the rules for rollovers, described in chapter 1 under Rollover From One IRA Into Another, apply to these rollovers. However, the 1-year waiting period doesn’t apply.

Conversion methods.

You can convert amounts from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in any of the following three ways.

  • Rollover. You can receive a distribution from a traditional IRA and roll it over (contribute it) to a Roth IRA within 60 days after the distribution.

  • Trustee-to-trustee transfer. You can direct the trustee of the traditional IRA to transfer an amount from the traditional IRA to the trustee of the Roth IRA.

  • Same trustee transfer. If the trustee of the traditional IRA also maintains the Roth IRA, you can direct the trustee to transfer an amount from the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA.

Same trustee.

Conversions made with the same trustee can be made by redesignating the traditional IRA as a Roth IRA, rather than opening a new account or issuing a new contract.

Qualified tuition program rollover to a Roth IRA.

Beginning with distributions made after December 31, 2023, a beneficiary of a section 529 qualified tuition program is permitted to roll over a distribution from the section 529 account to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary if certain requirements are met.

  • The rollover must be paid through a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer to a Roth IRA maintained for the benefit of the beneficiary.

  • The rollover amount for a year cannot be more than the Roth IRA annual contributions limit, and all such rollovers for the individual’s lifetime cannot exceed $35,000.

  • The rollover must be from a section 529 account that has been open for more than 15 years.

  • The distribution cannot exceed the aggregate amount contributed to the program (and earnings attributed to the contributed amount) before the 5-year period ending on the date of the distribution.

A distribution made after December 31, 2025, and before April 15, 2026, that is rolled over to a Roth IRA by April 15, 2026, and designated for 2025 would be reported as a Roth IRA contribution for 2025.

Income.

You must include in your gross income distributions from a traditional IRA that you would have had to include in income if you hadn’t converted them into a Roth IRA. These amounts are normally included in income on your return for the year that you converted them from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.

.If you must include any amount in your gross income, you may have to increase your withholding or make estimated tax payments. See Pub. 505..

More information.

For more information on conversions, see Converting From Any Traditional IRA Into a Roth IRA in chapter 1.

Rollover From Employer's Plan Into a Roth IRA

You can roll over into a Roth IRA all or part of an eligible rollover distribution you receive from your (or your deceased spouse's):

  • Employer's qualified pension, profit-sharing, or stock bonus plan (including a 401(k) plan);

  • Annuity plan;

  • Tax-sheltered annuity plan (section 403(b) plan); or

  • Governmental deferred compensation plan (section 457 plan).

Any amount rolled over is subject to the same rules for converting a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. See Converting From Any Traditional IRA Into a Roth IRA in chapter 1. Also, the rollover contribution must meet the rollover requirements that apply to the specific type of retirement plan.

Rollover methods.

You can roll over amounts from a qualified retirement plan to a Roth IRA in one of the following ways.

  • Rollover. You can receive a distribution from a qualified retirement plan and roll it over (contribute it) to a Roth IRA within 60 days after the distribution. Because the distribution is paid directly to you, the payer must generally withhold 20% of it. For rules about making a rollover of a plan loan offset, including a qualified plan loan offset, see Time Limit for Making a Rollover Contribution in chapter 1.

  • Direct rollover option. Your employer's qualified plan must give you the option to have any part of an eligible rollover distribution paid directly to a Roth IRA. Generally, no tax is withheld from any part of the designated distribution that is directly paid to the trustee of the Roth IRA.

Rollover by nonspouse beneficiary.

If you are a designated beneficiary (other than a surviving spouse) of a deceased employee, you can roll over all or part of an eligible rollover distribution from one of the types of plans listed earlier into a Roth IRA. You must make the rollover by a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer into an inherited Roth IRA.

You will determine your RMDs in years after you make the rollover based on whether the employee died before their required beginning date for taking distributions from the plan. For more information, see Distributions after the employee’s death under Tax on Excess Accumulation in Pub. 575.

Income.

You must include in your gross income distributions from a qualified retirement plan that you would have had to include in income if you hadn’t rolled them over into a Roth IRA. You don’t include in gross income any part of a distribution from a qualified retirement plan that is a return of basis (after-tax contributions) to the plan that were taxable to you when paid. These amounts are normally included in income on your return for the year of the rollover from the qualified employer plan to a Roth IRA.

.If you must include any amount in your gross income, you may have to increase your withholding or make estimated tax payments. See Pub. 505..

For more information on eligible rollover distributions from qualified retirement plans and withholding, see Rollover From Employer's Plan Into an IRA in chapter 1.

Military Death Gratuities and Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) Payments

If you received a military death gratuity or SGLI payment with respect to a death from injury that occurred after October 6, 2001, you can contribute (roll over) all or part of the amount received to your Roth IRA. The contribution is treated as a qualified rollover contribution.

The amount you can roll over to your Roth IRA can’t exceed the total amount that you received reduced by any part of that amount that was contributed to a Coverdell ESA or another Roth IRA. Any military death gratuity or SGLI payment contributed to a Roth IRA is disregarded for purposes of the 1-year waiting period between rollovers.

The rollover must be completed before the end of the 1-year period beginning on the date you received the payment.

The amount contributed to your Roth IRA is treated as part of your cost basis (investment in the contract) in the Roth IRA that isn’t taxable when distributed.

Rollover From a Roth IRA

You can withdraw, tax free, all or part of the assets from one Roth IRA if you contribute them within 60 days to another Roth IRA. Most of the rules for rollovers, described in chapter 1 under Rollover From One IRA Into Another, apply to these rollovers. However, rollovers from retirement plans other than Roth IRAs are disregarded for purposes of the 1-year waiting period between rollovers.

A rollover from a Roth IRA to an employer retirement plan isn’t allowed.

A rollover from a designated Roth account can only be made to another designated Roth account or to a Roth IRA.

If you roll over an amount from one Roth IRA to another Roth IRA, the 5-year period used to determine qualified distributions doesn’t change. The 5-year period begins with the first tax year for which the contribution was made to the initial Roth IRA. See What Are Qualified Distributions? in chapter 2 of Pub. 590-B.

Using the guidance

Keep the documents that establish the dates, amounts, and circumstances described above. References to other chapters, forms, worksheets, or earlier and later sections refer to the linked IRS publication. Check the full publication and its updates before relying on a rule for a different tax year or a situation not addressed here.

Sources and further reading

The cited U.S. government text is in the public domain. Source accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has organized this material for educational use and is independent of, and not endorsed by, the IRS.

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