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Rollover From One IRA Into Another: IRA Contributions and Transfers (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Rollover From One IRA Into Another” 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.

Context for these rules

Generally, a rollover is a tax-free distribution to you of cash or other assets from one retirement plan that you contribute to another retirement plan within 60 days you received the payment or distribution. The contribution to the second retirement plan is called a rollover contribution.

Rollover From One IRA Into Another

You can withdraw, tax free, all or part of the assets from one traditional IRA if you reinvest them within 60 days in the same or another traditional IRA. Because this is a rollover, you can’t deduct the amount that you reinvest in an IRA.

.You may be able to treat a contribution made to one type of IRA as having been made to a different type of IRA. This is called recharacterizing the contribution. See Recharacterizations in this chapter for more information. .

Waiting period between rollovers.

Generally, if you make a tax-free rollover of any part of a distribution from a traditional IRA, you can’t, within a 1-year period, make a tax-free rollover of any later distribution from that same IRA. You also can’t make a tax-free rollover of any amount distributed, within the same 1-year period, from the IRA into which you made the tax-free rollover.

The 1-year period begins on the date you receive the IRA distribution, not on the date you roll it over into an IRA. Rules apply to the number of rollovers you can have with your traditional IRAs. See Application of one-rollover-per-year limitation, later.

Example.

You have two traditional IRAs, IRA-1 and IRA-2. In 2025, you made a tax-free rollover of a distribution from IRA-1 into a new traditional IRA (IRA-3). You can’t, within 1 year of the distribution from IRA-1, make a tax-free rollover of any distribution from either IRA-1 or IRA-3 into another traditional IRA.

For 2025, the rollover from IRA-1 into IRA-3 prevents you from making a tax-free rollover from IRA-2 into any other traditional IRA. This is because in 2025 you are only allowed to make one rollover within a 1-year period. So, when you make a rollover from IRA-1 to IRA-3, you can’t make a rollover from IRA-2 to any other traditional IRA.

Exception.

An IRA distribution made from a failed financial institution by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver is not treated as a rollover for purposes of the one-rollover-per-year limitation, provided:

  1. Neither the failed financial institution nor the depositor initiated the distribution, and

  2. No financial institution has assumed the IRAs of the failed financial institution.

Application of one-rollover-per-year limitation.

You can make only one rollover from an IRA to another (or the same) IRA in any 1-year period regardless of the number of IRAs you own. The limit will apply by aggregating all of an individual's IRAs (whether traditional, Roth, or SIMPLE), effectively treating them as one IRA for purposes of the limit. However, trustee-to-trustee transfers between IRAs aren’t limited and rollovers from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs (conversions) aren’t limited.

Example.

You have three traditional IRAs: IRA-1, IRA-2, and IRA-3. You didn’t take any distributions from your IRAs in 2025. On January 1, 2026, you took a distribution from IRA-1 and rolled it over into IRA-2 on the same day. For 2026, you can’t roll over any other 2026 IRA distribution, including a rollover distribution involving IRA-3. This wouldn’t apply to a conversion.

The same property must be rolled over.

If property is distributed to you from an IRA and you complete the rollover by contributing property to an IRA, your rollover is tax free only if the property you contribute is the same property that was distributed to you.

Partial rollovers.

If you withdraw assets from a traditional IRA, you can roll over part of the withdrawal tax free and keep the rest of it. The amount you keep will generally be taxable (except for the part that is a return of nondeductible contributions). The amount you keep may be subject to the 10% additional tax on early distributions discussed later under What Acts Result in Penalties or Additional Taxes.

Required distributions.

Amounts that must be distributed during a particular year under the required distribution rules (discussed in Pub. 590-B) aren’t eligible for rollover treatment.

Inherited IRAs.

If you inherit a traditional IRA from your spouse, you can generally roll it over, or you can choose to make the inherited IRA your own as discussed earlier under What if You Inherit an IRA.

Reporting rollovers from IRAs.

Report any rollover from one traditional IRA to the same or another traditional IRA on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, lines 4a and 4b.

Enter the total amount of the distribution on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 4a. If the total amount on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 4a, was rolled over, enter zero on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 4b. If the total distribution wasn't rolled over, enter the taxable portion of the part that wasn't rolled over on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 4b. Check the box on line 4c for rollovers. See your tax return instructions.

If you rolled over the distribution into a qualified plan (other than an IRA) or you make the rollover in 2026, attach a statement explaining what you did.

For information on how to figure the taxable portion, see Are Distributions Taxable? in 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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