US 401(k) Calculator

An employer match is your employer adding its own money to your 401(k) based on how much you personally contribute, on top of your salary, at no cost to you beyond your own contribution. A common formula is "50% match up to 6% of salary": contribute 6% of your salary and your employer adds another 3% (half of 6%), for 9% total going into your account. If you only contribute 3% when your plan matches up to 6%, you're walking away from employer money you already qualified for simply by contributing less, often described as leaving free money on the table. There's no equivalent free-money mechanism anywhere else in typical compensation, which is why most financial guidance treats capturing the full match as a higher priority than almost any other savings goal.

For 2026, the employee elective-deferral limit is $24,500, the most you personally can contribute from your paycheck in a year. If you're 50 or older at any point in 2026, you can add a catch-up contribution of an extra $8,000, for a combined limit of $32,500. If you're age 60, 61, 62, or 63 at any point in 2026, SECURE 2.0's "super catch-up" provision raises that extra amount to $11,250 instead, for a combined limit of $35,750. At 64 and older, the super catch-up no longer applies and the limit drops back to the standard 50+ catch-up total. None of these limits include your employer's match, which is governed by a separate, much higher combined employee-plus-employer cap.

A traditional 401(k) contribution comes out of your paycheck before federal income tax is calculated, lowering your taxable income this year, but you pay ordinary income tax on both your contributions and their growth when you withdraw in retirement. A Roth 401(k) contribution comes out after tax, so it doesn't reduce your taxable income now, but qualified withdrawals in retirement, including all the growth, are entirely tax-free. Which is better depends mainly on whether you expect your tax rate to be higher or lower in retirement than it is now. This calculator models a traditional (pre-tax) 401(k) only; a Roth contribution wouldn't generate the current-year tax saving shown here, though it would grow tax-free instead.

A traditional 401(k) contribution is deducted from your gross pay before your federal taxable income is calculated, the same mechanic as the standard deduction, just applied dollar-for-dollar to whatever you contribute. That means your federal tax bill this year is calculated on a smaller number, salary minus your contribution, so you owe less federal tax than you would without contributing. It does not reduce the wages Social Security and Medicare tax are calculated on, those apply to your full gross pay regardless of 401(k) contributions. The actual dollars saved depend on your marginal tax bracket, the rate on the last dollars of your income, since that's the rate the deducted contribution is effectively taxed at avoiding.

Your own contributions are always fully yours, but employer match dollars are frequently subject to a vesting schedule, a required length of service before you fully own them. Common schedules include immediate vesting, a cliff schedule (0% ownership until a set date, then 100%), or a graded schedule (an increasing percentage each year of service, often over 3-6 years). Leave before you're fully vested and you generally forfeit the unvested portion of the employer match, though your own contributions and their growth stay yours regardless. Vesting schedules vary by employer and plan, so check your plan documents or HR before assuming any employer match balance is fully portable.

The projection uses a standard compound-interest formula: it assumes your contribution amount and your assumed annual return both stay exactly constant for every year you enter, with growth compounding smoothly year after year. Real investment returns vary significantly year to year, some years are negative, and real contributions typically change too, as your salary rises, as you change jobs, or as you adjust your contribution rate. Nobody can guarantee any future market return, including the default 7% this calculator assumes as a long-term diversified-equity planning figure. Treat the projected balance as a directional planning estimate you can adjust as your actual numbers change, not a promise of what you'll actually have at retirement.

Most common guidance prioritizes contributing at least enough to capture your full employer match first, since that's an immediate, guaranteed return that you'd otherwise forfeit outright. Beyond the match, whether to prioritize maxing out the 401(k) versus other goals (an emergency fund, high-interest debt, an IRA, a taxable brokerage account) depends on your own tax situation, investment options and fees inside your plan, and other financial priorities, considerations this calculator doesn't evaluate. It's worth discussing with a financial advisor if you're deciding between competing priorities beyond simply capturing the match.

No. The employee elective-deferral limits shown above apply only to what you personally contribute from your paycheck. Employer contributions, including matches, are governed by a separate, much higher combined limit on total annual additions (employee plus employer contributions together) under a different section of the tax code, one this calculator does not model. In practice, almost nobody with a typical salary and a typical match formula comes anywhere close to that combined ceiling; it mainly matters for very high earners or very generous employer contribution structures.

Yes, that's exactly what this calculator's two input modes are for. If you enter a percentage that, applied to your salary, would exceed your IRS deferral limit for your age, the calculator automatically caps your actual contribution at the limit and flags that it was capped, rather than letting the raw percentage overstate what you could legally contribute. The same capping applies if you enter a flat dollar amount directly. Either way, your employer match is calculated on your actual (capped) contribution percentage, not on the larger amount you may have requested.