All articles 7 min read

Time Limit for Making a Rollover Contribution: IRA Contributions and Transfers (2025 IRS Guide)

This guide covers “Time Limit for Making a Rollover Contribution” 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.

Time Limit for Making a Rollover Contribution

You must generally make the rollover contribution by the 60th day after the day you receive the distribution from your traditional IRA or your employer's plan.

Example.

You received an eligible rollover distribution from your traditional IRA on June 30, 2025, that you intend to roll over to your 403(b) plan. To postpone including the distribution in your income, you must complete the rollover by August 29, 2025, the 60th day following June 30.

The IRS may waive the 60-day requirement where the failure to do so would be against equity or good conscience, such as in the event of a casualty, a disaster, or another event beyond your reasonable control. For exceptions to the 60-day period, see Ways to get a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement, later.

Plan loan offset.

A plan loan offset is the amount your employer plan account balance is reduced, or offset, to repay a loan from the plan. How long you have to complete the rollover of a plan loan offset depends on what kind of plan loan offset you have. For tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, if you have a qualified plan loan offset, you will have until the due date (including extensions) for your tax return for the tax year in which the offset occurs to complete your rollover. A qualified plan loan offset occurs when a plan loan in good standing is offset because your employer plan terminates, or because you sever from employment. If your plan loan offset occurs for any other reason, then you have 60 days from the date the offset occurs to complete your rollover.

Rollovers completed after the 60-day period.

In the absence of a waiver, amounts not rolled over within the 60-day period don’t qualify for tax-free rollover treatment. You must treat them as a taxable distribution from either your IRA or your employer's plan. These amounts are taxable in the year distributed, even if the 60-day period expires in the next year. You may also have to pay a 10% additional tax on early distributions as discussed under Early Distributions in Pub. 590-B.

Unless there is a waiver or an extension of the 60-day rollover period, any contribution you make to your IRA more than 60 days after the distribution is a regular contribution, not a rollover contribution.

Example.

You received a distribution in late December 2025 from a traditional IRA that you don’t roll over into another traditional IRA within the 60-day limit. You don’t qualify for a waiver. This distribution is taxable in 2025 even though the 60-day limit wasn’t up until 2026.

Ways to get a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement.

There are three ways to obtain a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement.

  • You qualify for an automatic waiver.

  • You self-certify that you met the requirements of a waiver.

  • You request and receive a private letter ruling granting a waiver.

How do you qualify for an automatic waiver?

You qualify for an automatic waiver if all of the following apply.

  • The financial institution receives the funds on your behalf before the end of the 60-day rollover period.

  • You followed all of the procedures set by the financial institution for depositing the funds into an IRA or other eligible retirement plan within the 60-day rollover period (including giving instructions to deposit the funds into a plan or IRA).

  • The funds aren’t deposited into a plan or IRA within the 60-day rollover period solely because of an error on the part of the financial institution.

  • The funds are deposited into a plan or IRA within 1 year from the beginning of the 60-day rollover period.

  • It would have been a valid rollover if the financial institution had deposited the funds as instructed.

If you don’t qualify for an automatic waiver, you can use the self-certification procedure to make a late rollover contribution or you can apply to the IRS for a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement.

How do you self-certify that you qualify for a waiver?

Pursuant to Revenue Procedure 2020-46 in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2020-45, available at IRB 2020-45, you may make a written certification to a plan administrator or an IRA trustee that you missed the 60-day rollover contribution deadline because of one or more of the reasons listed in Revenue Procedure 2020-46. A plan administrator or an IRA trustee may rely on the certification in accepting and reporting receipt of the rollover contribution. You may make the certification by using the model letter in the appendix to the revenue procedure or by using a letter that is substantially similar. There is no IRS fee for self-certification. A copy of the certification should be kept in your files and be available if requested on audit.

Note:

A self-certification is not a waiver by the IRS of the 60-day rollover requirement. If the IRS subsequently audits your income tax return, it may determine that you do not qualify for a waiver, in which case you may owe additional taxes and penalties.

How do you apply for a waiver and what is the fee?

You can request a ruling according to the procedures outlined in Revenue Procedure 2003-16 and Revenue Procedure 2026-4. The appropriate user fee of $18,500 must accompany every request for a waiver of the 60-day rollover requirement (see the user fee chart in Appendix A of Revenue Procedure 2026-4).

How does the IRS determine whether to grant a waiver in a private letter ruling?

In determining whether to issue a favorable letter ruling granting a waiver, the IRS will consider all of the relevant facts and circumstances, including:

  • Whether errors were made by the financial institution, that is, the plan administrator, or IRA trustee, issuer, or custodian;

  • Whether you were unable to complete the rollover within the 60-day period due to 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 date of the distribution.

Note:

The IRS can waive only the 60-day rollover requirement and not the other requirements for a valid rollover contribution. For example, the IRS can’t waive the IRA one-rollover-per-year rule.

For more information on waivers of the 60-day rollover requirement, go to RetirementPlans-FAQs.

Amount.

The rules regarding the amount that can be rolled over within the 60-day time period also apply to the amount that can be deposited due to a waiver. For example, if you received $6,000 from your IRA, the most that you can deposit into an eligible retirement plan due to a waiver is $6,000.

Extension of rollover period.

If an amount distributed to you from a traditional IRA or a qualified employer retirement plan is a frozen deposit at any time during the 60-day period allowed for a rollover, two special rules extend the rollover period.

  • The period during which the amount is a frozen deposit isn’t counted in the 60-day period.

  • The 60-day period can’t end earlier than 10 days after the deposit is no longer frozen.

Frozen deposit.

This is any deposit that can’t be withdrawn from a financial institution because of either of the following reasons.

  • The financial institution is bankrupt or insolvent.

  • The state where the institution is located restricts withdrawals because one or more financial institutions in the state are (or are about to be) bankrupt or insolvent.

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.

Back to all articles