Every number on this page is set by the IRS and reset once a year for inflation, which is why so much of what circulates online is quietly out of date or, worse, a consultant’s projection dressed up as law. The figures below were pulled on September 5, 2026 from the revenue procedures and publications that actually set them.
Two vintages matter right now. The 2026 amounts have been final since May 2025, and the 2027 HSA amounts have been final since May 2026. The 2027 health FSA amounts have not been published at all yet. This is a summary of published rules, not tax advice for your return.
The Year-Over-Year Table
| Amount (dollars) | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSA contribution limit, self-only | $4,300 | $4,400 | $4,500 |
| HSA contribution limit, family | $8,550 | $8,750 | $9,000 |
| Catch-up contribution, age 55 or older | $1,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| HDHP minimum annual deductible, self-only | $1,650 | $1,700 | $1,750 |
| HDHP minimum annual deductible, family | $3,300 | $3,400 | $3,500 |
| HDHP out-of-pocket maximum, self-only | $8,300 | $8,500 | $8,700 |
| HDHP out-of-pocket maximum, family | $16,600 | $17,000 | $17,400 |
| Health FSA salary reduction limit | $3,300 | $3,400 | Not yet published |
| Health FSA carryover, if the plan allows one | $660 | $680 | Not yet published |
The 2025 column comes from Publication 969. The 2026 HSA and HDHP figures come from Revenue Procedure 2025-19 and the 2027 figures from Revenue Procedure 2026-24. The health FSA rows come from Revenue Procedure 2025-32, corroborated by the IRS newsroom release on 2026 inflation adjustments and by the enrollment figures FSAFEDS publishes for federal employees.
Two amounts that do not fit the table: the maximum newly available for an excepted benefit HRA is $2,200 for plan years beginning in 2026 and $2,250 for 2027, both set in the same two revenue procedures. And under section 223(c)(1)(E), added by Public Law 119-21, a direct primary care arrangement costing no more than $150 a month ($300 if it covers more than one person) is not disqualifying coverage, a threshold Revenue Procedure 2026-24 leaves unchanged for 2027.
What Makes a Plan HSA-Qualified
You can only contribute for a month if you were covered by a qualifying high deductible health plan on the first day of that month, had no other disqualifying coverage, were not enrolled in Medicare, and could not be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return. Publication 969 sets out all four tests.
The plan itself has to clear two thresholds at once. Its annual deductible must be at least the minimum in the table above, and its out-of-pocket maximum must not exceed the ceiling. Out-of-pocket expenses count deductibles, copayments and other cost sharing, but never premiums. Where a plan uses a network, the ceiling is measured on in-network spending.
A family plan with an embedded individual deductible fails if either the family deductible or the individual deductible falls below the family minimum. That catches more plans than people expect.
The “no other coverage” test has real exceptions. Publication 969 permits coverage for accidents, disability, dental care, vision care, long-term care, and telehealth and other remote care, along with insurance for a specific disease, fixed-dollar hospitalization benefits, and workers’ compensation or liability coverage. A general purpose health FSA is not on that list and will end your contributions, which is exactly why the limited purpose FSA exists. If you have no qualifying plan at all, see can you have an HSA without insurance.
Catch-Up Contributions at 55
If you are 55 or older at the end of the tax year, your limit rises by $1,000. That figure is written into the statute rather than indexed, so it has not moved and will not move without legislation.
Married couples trip on this one. If either spouse has family HDHP coverage, both are treated as having family coverage, and the family limit is shared, not doubled. If both spouses are 55 or older and neither is on Medicare, each gets a $1,000 catch-up, but each must make that catch-up to their own HSA. There is no such thing as a joint HSA.
The Last-Month Rule and the Testing Period
Normally your contribution room is earned month by month. The last-month rule is a shortcut: if you are an eligible individual on the first day of the last month of your tax year, which is December 1 for almost everyone, Publication 969 treats you as eligible for the entire year and you can contribute the full annual amount.
The catch is the testing period. You have to stay an eligible individual from that December 1 through December 31 of the following year. Fail it, for any reason other than death or disability, and you must include in income the contributions you would not have been allowed without the rule, plus a 10% additional tax on that amount. Publication 969 works an example where a taxpayer who became eligible on December 1 and contributed the full family amount, then lost eligibility the following June, had to report roughly seven eighths of the contribution as income.
The rule is worth using if you start a qualifying plan late in the year and expect to stay on it. It is a bad idea if you are about to enroll in Medicare, change jobs, or move onto a spouse’s low-deductible plan.
If You Were Not Eligible All Twelve Months
Without the last-month rule, your limit is prorated. The Line 3 Limitation Chart in the Form 8889 instructions walks it monthly: for each month, enter zero if you were enrolled in Medicare or were not eligible on the first of the month, otherwise enter one twelfth of the annual limit for the coverage type you had that day. Add the twelve figures and divide by twelve.
Medicare is the most common cause. Publication 969 gives the clean example: someone who turned 65 and enrolled in Medicare in July, with self-only coverage and a catch-up available, had a limit of $2,650, which is $5,300 times six twelfths. Retroactive Medicare enrollment counts too, so contributions made during a backdated period become excess contributions after the fact.
Two other timing details are worth knowing. You have until the tax filing deadline, April 15 of the following year, to make contributions for a given year, even if you stopped being eligible partway through. And rollovers between HSAs do not count against the annual limit at all, which is covered in HSA rollover rules.
Health FSA Limits, and Why 2027 Is Blank
For tax years beginning in 2026, the section 125(i) limit on voluntary employee salary reductions to a health FSA is $3,400, and the maximum carryover into the following plan year is $680. Revenue Procedure 2025-32 sets both, and the IRS news release on 2026 adjustments repeats them.
A plan may offer a carryover or a grace period of up to two and a half months, but not both. Unused money beyond whatever relief the plan provides is forfeited, which is the fundamental difference between an FSA and an HSA and the reason HSA vs FSA usually resolves in the HSA’s favor for anyone with a choice. Note also that a carryover in a general purpose FSA blocks HSA contributions for the whole following plan year.
Now the part to be careful about. The IRS publishes the health FSA figure in its annual across-the-board inflation-adjustment revenue procedure, which normally lands in October. No such document exists for tax year 2027 as of September 5, 2026, and the IRS’s own inflation-adjusted items page carries nothing for 2027. Benefits consultancies release projected caps every summer, and a projected $3,500 limit with a $700 carryover is circulating now. Treat those as forecasts. Publish, budget and enroll against the 2026 figures until the IRS issues the real ones, and expect a possible revision if the projection misses.
What Happens If You Overcontribute
You have an excess contribution any time total contributions for the year, from you, your employer and anyone else, exceed your limit. Publication 969 is blunt about the consequences: excess contributions are not deductible, employer excess amounts are included in gross income, and you generally owe a 6% excise tax for each tax year the excess remains in the account. You compute it on Form 5329 under Code section 4973. The 6% is not a one-time penalty; it repeats every year the money sits there.
There is a clean escape hatch. Withdraw the excess by the due date of your return including extensions, withdraw any income earned on it, and report those earnings as other income for the year you take them out. Do that and no excise tax applies to the amount withdrawn.
If you miss the deadline, the fallback is to absorb the excess in a later year: you can apply it against a future year’s unused contribution room, up to the lesser of that year’s remaining room or the excess still sitting in the account. Anything left at the end of a tax year keeps getting hit with the 6%.
A separate 20% additional tax applies to distributions not used for qualified medical expenses, on top of ordinary income tax. That one stops at 65, on disability, or at death, though income tax on non-qualified withdrawals continues.
The Bottom Line
For 2026, contribute up to $4,400 self-only or $8,750 family, plus $1,000 if you are 55 or older, against a plan with at least a $1,700 or $3,400 deductible and an out-of-pocket maximum no higher than $8,500 or $17,000. For 2027 every one of those numbers moves up, and Revenue Procedure 2026-24 already fixes them.
The parts that cost people money are the edges, not the headline: proration when you are eligible for only part of the year, the testing period attached to the last-month rule, and the 6% excise tax that repeats annually on an uncorrected excess. If you are self-employed and sorting out how the contribution interacts with your return, see HSA for the self-employed; if your benefit is employer-funded instead, HRA vs HSA explains why the limits above do not apply. And if the balance is the thing paying your bills, the fair price checker will tell you whether the cash price you were quoted is reasonable before you spend it. Any real filing decision belongs with a tax professional.