How to open a Roth IRA, step by step

How do you open a Roth IRA?

The process is the same at nearly every provider and usually takes under 15 minutes online, though funding and investing can happen over several days.

1. Choose a provider. A Roth IRA can be opened at a brokerage, a robo-advisor, or a bank. Compare account fees, investment options, and account minimums rather than picking on brand alone; see "How do you choose where to open a Roth IRA?" below.
2. Open the account. Apply online with your Social Security number, date of birth, address, employment information, and a linked bank account or routing/account number for funding. Most providers approve a Roth IRA application instantly or within one business day.
3. Fund the account. Transfer money from a linked bank account (electronic bank transfer is the most common method), or roll over or transfer funds from an existing IRA. Contributions are capped at the annual limit, $7,500 for 2026 ($8,600 if you are 50 or older), across all your IRAs combined.
4. Choose your investments. A newly funded Roth IRA sits in cash or a money market fund until you actively select investments, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or a target-date fund. The account itself is just a tax wrapper; nothing grows until you invest the cash inside it.

After that, the account runs itself: you can set up automatic monthly contributions, and most providers let you change investments at any time with no tax consequence, since trades inside a Roth IRA are not taxable events.

Who is eligible to open a Roth IRA?

Two conditions govern eligibility: you need taxable compensation, and your income cannot be too high.

Earned income requirement. You (or your spouse, if filing jointly) must have taxable compensation for the year, wages, salary, tips, self-employment income, or similar. Investment income, Social Security, and pension income do not count. You cannot contribute more than your taxable compensation for the year, even if that is less than the annual limit.

Income (MAGI) limit. Eligibility also depends on modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), a version of your income with certain deductions added back. Below a threshold you can contribute the full amount; inside a phase-out range your allowed contribution shrinks; above the top of the range you cannot contribute to a Roth IRA directly at all (though a workaround exists for high earners, covered below).

How much can you contribute to a Roth IRA in 2026, and who qualifies?

Source: IRS, "401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500," and IRS Notice 2025-67.

The base 2026 contribution limit is $7,500 if you are under 50, or $8,600 ($7,500 plus a $1,100 catch-up) if you are 50 or older at any point in the year. That limit is shared across all IRAs you own, traditional and Roth combined, so it is one combined cap, not $7,500 into each account.

If your MAGI falls inside your phase-out range, the IRS reduces your limit rather than cutting it off entirely. As a worked example: a single filer under 50 with $160,000 in MAGI is $7,000 into the $15,000-wide range ($153,000 to $168,000), or about 46.7% of the way through. Applying that 46.7% reduction to the $7,500 limit cuts it by roughly $3,500, leaving a maximum allowed 2026 contribution of about $4,000. The married-filing-separately range is fixed by law at $0 to $10,000 and does not adjust for inflation, which is why it is so much narrower than the other two.

What do you need to open a Roth IRA?

Providers generally ask for the same handful of items during the application:

• Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN).
• Government-issued photo ID (driver's license or passport, usually verified electronically).
• Date of birth and current address.
• Employment information (employer name, occupation).
• A linked bank account (routing and account number) to fund the account.
• A beneficiary designation, who inherits the account if you die. This can be added at opening or shortly after.

How do you choose where to open a Roth IRA?

A Roth IRA is a tax wrapper, not an investment itself, so the "best" provider is the one whose costs and options fit how you plan to invest, not any single named brand. Compare providers on:

• Fees. Look for no account maintenance fee and no minimum balance requirement. Also check trading commissions if you plan to buy individual stocks, and the expense ratio (the annual fee, as a percent of assets) on any mutual fund or ETF you plan to hold.
• Investment menu. Full-service brokerages typically offer individual stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. Robo-advisors instead build and rebalance a portfolio for you based on a questionnaire, for a small advisory fee. Some banks and credit unions offer Roth IRAs limited to certificates of deposit (CDs) and savings-style products.
• Account minimums. Many providers now have no minimum to open, but some mutual funds carry their own minimum initial investment, which matters if you plan to fund the account gradually.
• Tools and support. Automatic contribution scheduling, retirement calculators, and customer support matter more the less experience you have investing.

Compare a small number of providers against this list rather than a single ranked "best" pick, since fee schedules and fund lineups change and your own investing style determines which combination actually suits you.

How do you fund a Roth IRA?

Most people fund a Roth IRA one of three ways: a one-time or recurring electronic transfer from a linked checking or savings account, a rollover from an employer plan such as a 401(k) (only allowed under specific rules and usually taxable if the source plan was pre-tax), or a transfer from an existing IRA at another provider. A simple bank transfer is the most common route for a new contribution and typically clears in one to three business days. You can also split a single year's contribution across several transfers, as long as the total across all your IRAs does not exceed that year's limit.

What should you invest in inside a Roth IRA?

Opening and funding the account does not by itself invest the money; a new contribution sits as uninvested cash until you select something to buy. What is available depends on the provider: brokerages typically offer stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, and target-date funds (a single fund that automatically shifts from stock-heavy to bond-heavy as you approach a target retirement year). This site does not recommend specific investments or tell you what to hold; the right mix depends on your time horizon and risk tolerance, questions a licensed financial advisor is better positioned to help you answer than a general reference page.

What is the deadline to contribute to a Roth IRA?

The contribution deadline for a given tax year is your federal tax filing deadline the following spring, not including extensions, typically in mid-April. That means you can open and fund a Roth IRA for 2026 as late as the 2026 tax filing deadline in April 2027, and you can also make a prior-year contribution during that same window (January through the filing deadline) if you have not yet maxed out the previous year. When you contribute in that window, tell the provider which tax year the contribution should count toward, since it will otherwise default to the current calendar year.

What if you earn too much to contribute directly?

If your MAGI is at or above the top of your phase-out range, you cannot make a direct Roth IRA contribution for that year. The common workaround is the "backdoor Roth": contribute to a traditional IRA, which has no income limit on the contribution itself, then convert that traditional IRA balance to a Roth IRA. The conversion is generally not taxed on amounts that had no deduction, but the math gets more complicated if you hold other pre-tax IRA money, because the IRS applies a pro-rata rule across all your traditional IRA balances. The mechanics of that rule are covered in our companion piece, Roth conversions explained.

The flat truth

Opening a Roth IRA is one of the simpler financial moves available: pick a provider, fill out an online form, link a bank account, and choose investments. The parts that actually require care are the two eligibility checks, do you have enough taxable compensation, and is your MAGI under the 2026 phase-out ceiling for your filing status, and the contribution deadline, which runs to the following spring's tax filing date, not December 31. Get those three things right and the account-opening step itself is mechanical. For what the account is and how it taxes you, see What is a Roth IRA?; for whether to fund it before or alongside a workplace 401(k), see Roth IRA vs 401(k); and for every 2026 retirement account limit in one place, see 2026 contribution limits.