Average IRA Balance by Age in 2026: How Do You Compare?

The average IRA balance varies widely by age and account type, and the numbers come from the IRS Statistics of Income Division, which publishes data on every IRA account reported on US tax returns each year. The most recent complete dataset, released in June, covers tax year 2023. It comes from matched filings of Form 1040, Form 5498, and Form 1099-R, and it covers more than 71 million IRA account holders.

Unlike survey estimates, these figures come from actual tax records. What they don’t include: medians. Every balance figure below is a mean, an average. That distinction matters, and this piece addresses it head-on before drawing any comparisons.

The headline numbers: the average traditional IRA balance across all ages is $225,413. The average Roth IRA balance is $57,450. Both carry context that shapes what they’re worth as a benchmark.

What Is the Average IRA Balance?

The average IRA balance depends on the type of account. Traditional and Roth IRAs accumulate assets in different ways, so a single combined figure obscures more than it reveals.

Account type	Accounts	Average balance
Traditional IRA	53.7 million	$225,413
Roth IRA	29.3 million	$57,450
SEP IRA	3.2 million	$189,573
SIMPLE IRA	3.5 million	$54,151

Source: IRS Statistics of Income Division, Table 8, tax year 2023.

The traditional average sits nearly four times higher than Roth. Rollovers explain most of it: large 401(k) and pension balances that move into traditional IRAs when people change jobs or retire. The age-by-age table below shows how that plays out over a career.

How Does the Average IRA Balance Change With Age?

The average traditional IRA balance rises from $9,315 at ages 20 to 24 to $357,902 at ages 65 to 69. Roth balances climb more gradually, from $7,242 to $90,028 over the same span.

Age	Avg. traditional IRA	Avg. Roth IRA
20–24	$9,315	$7,242
25–29	$9,992	$12,586
30–34	$19,079	$20,964
35–39	$38,689	$29,871
40–44	$65,410	$40,594
45–49	$106,831	$46,131
50–54	$149,406	$54,572
55–59	$214,117	$65,379
60–64	$289,052	$72,027
65–69	$357,902	$90,028
70+	$334,461	$134,039

Source: IRS Statistics of Income Division, Table 8, tax year 2023. Figures are mean balances per account holder.

At ages 30 to 34, the two accounts are close: $19,079 traditional, $20,964 Roth. Roth edges ahead. By 45 to 49, traditional has moved well ahead: $106,831 against $46,131. By 60 to 64, the spread reaches $289,052 versus $72,027.

The Roth curve builds year by year. The traditional curve accelerates. The cause is specific, and it’s covered in the next section.

One note on the 70+ traditional figure: it runs slightly lower than the 65 to 69 figure. Required minimum distributions begin at age 73, which starts drawing balances down for the oldest taxpayers in that bracket.

Why Traditional IRA Balances Surge After 55

The traditional IRA’s acceleration starting in the late 50s has a specific source: rollover inflows from employer-sponsored retirement plans.

In 2023, 5.86 million taxpayers moved money into IRAs from employer plans. Those transfers totaled $682 billion. New contributions to all IRA types combined totaled $89 billion in the same year. Rollovers were 7.7 times the size of contributions. The average single rollover: $116,500.

Roth IRAs receive a fraction of that volume. Roth rollover inflows were $24 billion in 2023, against $653 billion for traditional. Most employer plan balances roll into traditional accounts by default. That concentrates the surge in those accounts during the decades when job changes and retirements peak.

Consider the scale. A 58-year-old rolling a $300,000 401(k) into a traditional IRA adds more to the account in one transaction than 20 years of Roth contributions would. The Roth account builds year by year. The traditional account can step up sharply.

The Boldin Planner lets you model your IRA alongside Social Security, spending, and tax projections to see how the pieces fit together.

What Percentage of People Contribute to an IRA?

Fewer than 1 in 10 US tax filers contributed to any IRA in 2023. The participation rate across the full filing population was 8.2%.

Age	Participation rate
Under 25	6.0%
25–29	9.3%
30–34	9.6%
35–39	10.0%
40–44	9.8%
45–49	10.1%
50–54	10.2%
55–59	10.6%
60–64	9.8%
65–69	7.0%
70+	2.2%

Source: IRS Statistics of Income Division, Table 4, tax year 2023.

Participation holds around 10% across a 30-year stretch of prime earning years and doesn’t break above it. Among people who do contribute, the commitment is high: roughly 45% to 49% of traditional IRA contributors aged 30 to 64 put in the full annual maximum. The same holds for Roth. People who start tend to stay. The issue is that most people don’t start.

For 2026, the contribution limit is $7,500. Savers 50 and older can add a $1,100 catch-up, bringing their total to $8,600. Those limits matter to the roughly 10% already contributing. For the other 90%, the ceiling isn’t the obstacle.

Roth Has More Contributors Than Traditional at Every Age Under 55

At every age group under 55, more taxpayers contributed to Roth IRAs than traditional IRAs in 2023.

Among taxpayers aged 20 to 24, Roth contributors outnumbered traditional 12 to 1: 939,021 Roth against 77,843 traditional. In the 25 to 29 bracket, the ratio was 5.4 to 1. It narrows through the 40s, reaches near-parity in the late 50s, and flips toward traditional at 65 and older.

The shift at 65 and older reflects account structure. Older savers more often hold rollover-funded traditional IRAs and some still contribute to them in retirement. Roth participation drops in older brackets partly because income limits phase it out at higher earnings levels, which older workers in peak salary years hit more often.

The broader picture: younger savers have chosen Roth by a wide margin. The traditional IRA’s lead in total assets comes from the scale of rollover balances. Among people writing a check to their IRA each year, Roth wins until the late 50s.

How These IRA Averages Can Mislead You

These figures skew higher than what most IRA holders carry, because a small number of very large accounts pull the mean up.

The IRS doesn’t publish median IRA balances, so two other sources help fill in the picture. The Investment Company Institute (ICI) surveyed 3,214 IRA-owning households in mid-2025 and found a combined median of $100,000. A Congressional Research Service analysis of Federal Reserve data found a median IRA balance of $87,000 among IRA-owning households, compared with an average of $309,130. 

Because survey data and tax records measure different populations, neither figure is directly comparable to the IRS mean. What they do show is the same pattern: median balances are far below the average, which means a small number of large accounts are pulling the mean upward.

What creates it: someone with a $2 million rollover-funded traditional IRA sits in the same dataset as someone with $15,000 in accumulated contributions. The average reflects both. The person at $15,000 is far more common.

What the IRA benchmark can and can’t tell you

None of that makes the benchmark useless. It shows where the distribution sits across the filing population, and whether your balance puts your retirement on solid ground depends on what you plan to spend, when you stop working, when you claim Social Security, and how taxes play out over your withdrawal years.

A balance in the right range for your age is worth knowing. On its own, it doesn’t tell you much about what retirement looks like.

If your IRA balance is below where you’d like it to be, focus on what your retirement income picture requires rather than the distance to the average. The Boldin Planner models your IRA alongside Social Security, spending, and tax projections so you can see your retirement with your own numbers, not someone else’s benchmark.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Average IRA Balances by Age