Most savers treat April 15 as the last word on the prior year's IRA contribution. The IRS does not. Publication 590-A grants an automatic six-month grace period to pull a contribution back out — and it names the date outright: October 15, 2026.
That is 24 days away, and the only thing you had to do to qualify was file your 2025 return on time.
The Rule Almost Nobody Reads
Pub 590-A states that if you timely filed your 2025 return without withdrawing a contribution you made in 2025, "you can still have the contribution returned to you within 6 months of the due date of your 2025 tax return, excluding extensions." The same relief covers recharacterizations, where the publication is unusually blunt: "For returns due April 15, 2026, this period ends on October 15, 2026."
Read "excluding extensions" carefully. The six months run from April 15 regardless of when you actually filed. You did not need to file Form 4868 — timely filing alone is the qualification, under Treasury Regulations section 301.9100-2.
What's at Stake: 6%, Every Year
The IRS taxes excess contributions "at 6% per year for each year the excess amounts remain in the IRA." That is not a one-time penalty. It recurs annually, on a separate Form 5329 each year, until the excess is withdrawn or absorbed by a later year's unused limit. The only ceiling is that the tax "can't be more than 6% of the combined value of all your IRAs as of the end of the tax year."
The Counterintuitive Part: Which Year You Amend
Earnings on the excess — the net income attributable, or NIA — must come out alongside it. And here is where filers go wrong: those earnings are taxable in the year the contribution was made, not the year you withdraw them.
Pub 590-A's example is explicit. Maria made a $1,000 excess contribution in 2025 and withdrew it by April 15, 2026, along with $50 of earnings. She must include the $50 in gross income for 2025, and her Form 1099-R will show the earnings as taxable for 2025.
So a correction made this October runs backward, not forward. You file an amended 2025 return with "Filed pursuant to section 301.9100-2" written at the top, report the related earnings, include an explanation of the withdrawal, and attach an amended Form 5329 if you had already reported the contribution as an excess.
One piece of good news: under Section 333 of the SECURE 2.0 Act, for withdrawals on or after December 29, 2022, the 10% additional tax on early distributions does not apply to those earnings — provided they come out by the due date including extensions. The NIA is normally computed by your custodian under Regulations section 1.408-11, and it can be negative if the position lost money, in which case you withdraw less than you contributed.
Why 2025 Caught So Many Savers
For 2025, the Roth IRA contribution limit phased out between $150,000 and $165,000 for single and head-of-household filers, and between $236,000 and $246,000 for joint filers. Fund a Roth in January, collect a Q4 bonus or an unplanned capital gain, and a contribution that was perfectly legal when you made it becomes an excess by December 31.
Four Steps Before October 15
- Pull your 2025 Form 5498 and check the contribution against your final 2025 MAGI, not your estimate from January.
- Choose your fix. Withdraw the contribution plus NIA, or recharacterize it to a traditional IRA — which may be nondeductible, creating basis you track on Form 8606 and which triggers the pro-rata rule on any later conversion.
- Notify the custodian in writing now. Corrective action means notifying the trustee of your intent, providing all necessary information, and having the trustee complete the transfer — all before the deadline. Processing time is not your friend in October.
- Amend the 2025 return with the required language. Once the transfer happens, Pub 590-A warns, "you can't change your election to recharacterize."
Then set the 2026 numbers now to avoid a repeat: the IRA limit rises to $7,500 ($8,600 at age 50 or older), with Roth phase-outs at $153,000–$168,000 for single filers and $242,000–$252,000 for joint filers. As with September's estimated-tax deadline, the rule that costs money is rarely the one you've heard of — it's the one with a date attached.
Sources: IRS Publication 590-A (2025), Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs); IRS, Retirement topics: IRA contribution limits; Treasury Regulations §301.9100-2 and §1.408-11; SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, §333.