HSA Contribution Calculator 2026: What You Can Put In

The 2026 Numbers, in One Table

Rev. Proc. 2025-19 is the document that prints the 2026 HSA amounts, and it is two pages long. The same figures appear in the footnote to IRS Notice 2026-5, which is where the eligibility rules below come from.

What it governs	2025	2026
Contribution limit, self-only HDHP coverage	$4,300	$4,400
Contribution limit, family HDHP coverage	$8,550	$8,750
Additional contribution at age 55 or older	$1,000	$1,000 (not indexed)
Lowest deductible a plan can carry and still be an HDHP, self-only	$1,650	$1,700
Lowest deductible, family coverage	$3,300	$3,400
Highest out-of-pocket a plan can allow, self-only	$8,300	$8,500
Highest out-of-pocket, family coverage	$16,600	$17,000
Most a new plan year can make available in an excepted-benefit HRA	–	$2,200

Family coverage means the HDHP covers you plus at least one other person, and one detail surprises people every year: an individual with family coverage gets the whole $8,750, not a share of it. There is no per-person split of the limit the way a Flexible Spending Account splits a benefit.

Your Limit Is the Annual Number Times the Months You Were Eligible

This is the step most calculators skip, and for someone on contracts it is the step that decides the year. Publication 969 states the rule as arithmetic: a person who turned 65 in July 2025, enrolled in Medicare that month, and had self-only coverage plus the $1,000 additional contribution, gets a limit of $2,650, because the full-year $5,300 is multiplied by six twelfths. Same math, any month you start or stop.

The 55-or-older $1,000 rides along inside that multiplication. It is not a separate, un-prorated pot, and it is available if you reach 55 by 31 December of the tax year, not before it.

Two things reduce the limit before you spend it. Every contribution your employer makes to your HSA counts against it, including money pushed through a cafeteria plan, and so does anything put in by a family member. An Archer MSA contribution in the same year reduces it dollar for dollar.

The Rule That Changed in 2026: Bronze Plans Now Count

Before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a Bronze Marketplace plan usually failed to be an HDHP for one of two reasons: its out-of-pocket maximum sat above the statutory ceiling, or it paid for something other than preventive care before the deductible. A catastrophic plan could not be an HDHP either, because it has to cover three primary care visits before the deductible.

Notice 2026-5 changes the answer for months beginning after 31 December 2025:

• A Bronze or catastrophic plan available as individual coverage through a Marketplace is treated as an HDHP even if it does not satisfy the minimum deductible or the out-of-pocket ceiling.
• A Bronze or catastrophic plan bought off the Marketplace counts if the same plan is offered through a Marketplace, including one sold off-Marketplace without the cost-sharing reduction load.
• If you buy a Bronze or catastrophic plan that is not on a Marketplace and you had no reason to believe otherwise, the IRS will treat you as an eligible individual anyway.
• SHOP coverage generally does not qualify under the new rule, because small-group coverage is not individual coverage. It can still be an HDHP the ordinary way.
• A plan that provides telehealth and other remote care before the deductible no longer breaks HDHP status, and that safe harbor is permanent, retroactive to plan years beginning after 31 December 2024.

For a nurse who buys her own cover on the Marketplace between contracts, this is the difference between an HSA and no HSA. If you have been assuming a Bronze plan cannot fund one, 2026 is the year that stopped being true.

One more from the same notice: a direct primary care arrangement is no longer treated as a second health plan, so a membership does not disqualify you, provided the sole charge is a fixed periodic fee of no more than $150 a month for one person or $300 a month where the arrangement covers more than one. For 2026 that means $1,800 a year, $900 for six months or $450 for three. The fee does not count toward your HDHP deductible or out-of-pocket maximum, and your HDHP may not pay the membership before the deductible is satisfied. You can pay it from the HSA itself, which the same act made explicit.

The Last-Month Rule, and the 12 Months It Obligates You To

If you are an eligible individual on the first day of the last month of your tax year, which is 1 December for most people, the law treats you as eligible for the entire year and as having had the same coverage all year. That is what lets someone who switches plans mid-November still fund the full $8,750.

The obligation is the testing period: it starts with that last month and runs to the last day of the twelfth month after it, so 1 December 2026 through 31 December 2027. If you stop being eligible inside it, for any reason other than death or becoming disabled, you include in income the contributions the rule alone made possible, plus a 10 percent additional tax, both figured on Form 8889 Part III. Publication 969’s own example is a person who becomes eligible on 1 December and puts in $8,550 for 2025, then loses eligibility in June 2026: the total divided by twelve is $712.50, and the remaining $7,837.50 goes into 2026 income. The cents matter: the IRS keeps them rather than rounding the way this page’s calculator does.

So the last-month rule is not free room. It is a one-year bet that you will stay on an HDHP, and if you are about to take a staff job with a PPO or turn 65 and enroll in Medicare, it is a bet you are likely to lose.

Worked Example: Bronze Marketplace Plan, Family Coverage, Age 57

A nurse buys a Bronze plan on her state Marketplace for herself and her two kids, is 57 at the end of 2026, and her staffing agency puts $2,000 into her HSA as a benefit. She is in the 22 percent bracket and was eligible the whole year.

• Base limit on family coverage: $8,750.
• Additional contribution at 55 or older: $1,000, so the full-year limit is $9,750.
• Her employer already used $2,000 of it, leaving $7,750 for her to add by herself.
• Contributing to the limit shelters $9,750 of 2026 income, worth $2,145 of federal tax at her bracket, and the remaining $7,750 is worth $1,705 more.
• Under the pre-2026 rules, the same woman with the same plan had a limit of $0, because a Bronze plan was not an HDHP. The change is worth the entire $9,750 in shelter plus every dollar that grows and is withdrawn tax free for medical costs.

Move her start date to August and the picture halves: five months of eligibility gives $4,062 rather than $9,750, which is the whole reason the calculator asks for months before it asks for money.

What Happens If You Put In Too Much

An excess contribution is not deductible, and if your employer made it, it is income to you unless it already sits in Form W-2 box 1. Then it draws a 6 percent excise tax every year it stays in the account, on Form 5329. It is otherwise easy to fix: withdraw the excess, plus any income it earned, by the due date including extensions of your return, which is 15 April 2027 for a 2026 contribution. The earnings are taxed as income in the year you take them out and they do not escape the excise tax.

Enrolling in Medicare is the quiet version of this mistake. Your limit drops to zero from the first month of enrollment, and if Social Security back-dates it, contributions you made in good faith during the retroactive window are excess.

What Happens On the Way Out

Money used for qualified medical expenses leaves the account free of income tax at any age, and that is the part that makes an HSA better than a retirement account rather than another one: the contribution deducts, the growth is untaxed, and the withdrawal for care is untaxed. Unused balances carry forward year after year and there is no use-it-or-lose-it deadline.

Money taken out for anything else is added to income and, if you are under 65 and not disabled, carries a 20 percent additional tax on Form 8889. After 65, or if you become disabled, or at death, the 20 percent goes away and only the ordinary income tax is left, which is what lets people treat an HSA they did not spend as a late-life medical account.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the HSA limit per person or per account?

Per person, and on family coverage it belongs to the couple rather than to each spouse. Two HSAs do not double the limit. Publication 969 splits the family limit equally between two eligible spouses unless they agree on a different division, and each person’s 55-or-older $1,000 has to go into that person’s own account.

Can my spouse and I both max out on one family plan?

Together, yes, up to the same $8,750. If you are both 55 or older, the two additional contributions take the family ceiling to $10,750, and both accounts combined cannot take more than that.

Does the limit change if I join in the middle of the year?

Yes, and this is where people over-contribute. The limit is reduced by one twelfth for each month you were not an eligible individual, unless the last-month rule applies to you.

Is a Bronze plan on the Marketplace really HDHP-eligible now?

For months beginning after 31 December 2025, yes, under the change Notice 2026-5 explains. The plan has to be available as individual coverage through a Marketplace, and SHOP coverage is generally outside it.

What breaks eligibility besides another plan?

Medicare enrollment, being claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return, and any coverage that pays before your deductible. A dental-only, vision-only or preventive-care-only plan does not break it, and neither does a limited-purpose or post-deductible FSA.

Can I still contribute after I turn 65?

Not once you are enrolled in Medicare. If you are 65 and still on an HDHP without Medicare, you keep contributing, and the 20 percent penalty on non-medical withdrawals has already lifted.

Should I fund the whole limit if I am healthy?

The account is not a use-it-or-lose-it account, so the usual answer for a person with no current bills is to contribute what you can afford, keep receipts for the year you spend them, and let the rest invest. What you should not do is treat the tax deduction as free money: the withdrawal has to be for qualified medical expenses to stay untaxed.

When do the 2027 HSA numbers come out?

In the annual inflation-adjustment revenue procedure, which for 2026 is Rev. Proc. 2025-19. Until the next one publishes, any 2027 HSA figure on the internet is a projection.

How does this interact with a 401(k)?

Separate limits, separate accounts, and both come out of the same cash. The retirement deferral ceiling is set by a different notice, so the 401(k) contribution calculator is the page to run before you decide the order.

Sources

• IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-19, 2026 inflation adjusted amounts for Health Savings Accounts: The 2026 contribution limits ($4,400 self-only, $8,750 family), the 2026 HDHP definition (deductible not less than $1,700 or $3,400, out-of-pocket not more than $8,500 or $17,000) and the $2,200 excepted-benefit HRA amount.
• IRS Notice 2026-5, Expanded Availability of Health Savings Accounts under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act: That Bronze and catastrophic Marketplace plans are treated as HDHPs for months beginning after 31 December 2025, the off-Marketplace and no-reason-to-believe positions, SHOP being generally outside the rule, the permanent telehealth safe harbor, and the $150 and $300 monthly caps on a direct primary care arrangement. Its footnote repeats the 2026 HSA limits and the 2025 comparatives.
• IRS Publication 969, Health Savings Accounts and Other Tax-Favored Health Plans: The $1,000 additional contribution at 55 or older and that it is not indexed, the monthly proration of the limit, the last-month rule and the 12-month testing period with the 10 percent additional tax, employer contributions reducing the room, Medicare dropping the limit to zero, the 6 percent excise tax on excess contributions and the withdrawal-by-the-deadline fix, and the 20 percent additional tax on non-medical distributions with its age 65, disability and death exceptions.
• IRS Form 8889, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): Where contributions, excess contributions and the 20 percent additional tax are actually figured on the return, and Part III for the testing-period clawback.

Next step: Confirm with your insurer, in writing, that the plan is sold as individual coverage through your state Marketplace. That single fact is what makes a Bronze plan HDHP-eligible for 2026.