The key numbers behind the average IRA balance by age
Average IRA balance data comes from four sources that disagree by 3.75x for the same age band. Here’s what each one actually measures.
In This Article
You probably arrived here after seeing a number: $131,380. That is the average IRA balance Fidelity reported for the first quarter of 2026, drawn from 19.6 million accounts as of March 31, 2026.
Before you measure yourself against it, one thing is worth knowing. That figure has no age attached to it at all. It is a single average across every account holder from 22 to 92, and Fidelity’s own quarterly release publishes no breakdown by age or generation alongside it.
If you are in your 20s or 30s, the decade table further down will matter more to you than the headline, and the contribution section will matter most. If you are in your 40s or 50s, skip to the decade table and then the benchmark section. If you want to know why three reputable sites give you three different answers for your own age band, start with the next section — the gap between them is larger than most readers would guess.
ℹ️ Financial Disclaimer: This article is educational and is not personalized investment, tax, or retirement advice. Figures are accurate as of the dates stated and change over time. Retirement account rules carry tax consequences that depend on your income, filing status, and other accounts. Consult a fiduciary financial advisor, a CPA, or a qualified tax attorney before acting on anything here.
Why every site gives a different average
Four organizations publish IRA balance data, and they measure four different things. None of them is wrong. They simply are not answering the same question, and almost nobody reprints them with that label attached.
What each dataset actually counts
Fidelity counts individual accounts held at Fidelity, and only accounts belonging to active participants with a balance. Empower counts users of its Personal Dashboard — people who chose to link their accounts to a wealth-management tool. The Internal Revenue Service publishes IRA data by age of taxpayer through its Statistics of Income division, drawn from matched samples of Form 1040, Form 5498 and Form 1099-R, with tax year 2023 the most recent available.
The Federal Reserve counts families, not accounts, and its category covers all retirement accounts rather than IRAs alone.
🔍 How It Works: The unit of observation is what separates these numbers. If you hold three IRAs, you appear three times in an account-based average and once in a taxpayer-based one. If you hold none, you are absent from the first and present in the third. Averages built on different units cannot be compared, even when both are labelled “average IRA balance.”
The same age band, four different answers
For savers in their 40s, the published average is $57,326 (Fidelity, fourth quarter of 2024), $60,490 (Fidelity, fourth quarter of 2025), or $215,206 (Empower, March 2026). That is a 3.75x spread on a single age band.
Balances also inflate for a reason unrelated to saving: money rolled over from an old 401(k) lands in an IRA as a lump sum. The same measurement problem applies to the average 401(k) balance by age.
⚠️ Costly Mistake: Comparing your balance to a figure whose vintage you cannot see. In June 2026, syndicated coverage paired Fidelity’s first-quarter 2026 headline with generational averages from the fourth quarter of 2024 — five quarters apart, presented as one dataset.
The average is not the typical saver
Ask whether the median IRA balance is the same as the average and the answer is no — not close, and the gap is measurable.
Mean, median, and which one describes you
An average adds every balance and divides by the number of accounts, so a small number of very large balances pulls it upward. A median is the midpoint: half hold more, half hold less. The Federal Reserve’s own guidance on reading its data notes that estimates of the median are less sensitive to outliers than estimates of the mean.
📊 Data Point: In the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, 54.3% of US families held any retirement account. Among those that did, the median balance was $86,900 and the mean was $334,000 — the mean is 3.84 times the midpoint. Source: Federal Reserve Board, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022, October 2023.
The same report shows how much income drives that spread. Among families aged 35 to 64 holding an IRA or a workplace account, the mean balance was $331,400 — but $54,700 for families in the bottom half of the income distribution and $913,300 for those in the top decile. A 16.7x difference sits inside one national average.
The gap is widest for the youngest savers
Empower publishes an average and a median side by side, which makes the skew calculable. Dividing one by the other for each decade produces a pattern the published tables do not comment on.
In the 20s the average is 5.84 times the median ($46,107 against $7,893). By the 30s it is 5.71 times, the 40s 5.07, the 50s 3.44, and by the 80s just 2.55. The average distorts most severely for the youngest savers — the readers most likely to conclude they are hopelessly behind. (Ratios calculated by FinanceAuthorityHub from Empower’s published March 2026 figures.)
Average IRA balance by age, decade by decade
These figures describe people who already hold an IRA. They are not population averages, and the median column is the one to read first.
| Age | Average (Empower) | Median (Empower) | Average (Fidelity) | Key detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20s | $46,107 | $7,893 | $8,888 | Widest mean-median gap |
| 30s | $88,291 | $15,451 | $22,970 | Contributions still dominate |
| 40s | $215,206 | $42,427 | $60,490 | Rollovers begin to distort |
| 50s | $483,451 | $140,597 | $136,012 | Catch-up years begin |
| 60s | $716,661 | $262,614 | $259,683 | Peak balances |
| 70s+ | $712,572 | $271,107 | $332,784 | Withdrawals begin |
Sources: Empower Personal Dashboard, March 2026 (average and median). Fidelity, fourth quarter 2025, as reported December 31, 2025. The two providers measure different populations — see the section above. Note: the published Fidelity 40s figure appears as $60,490 in one table and $60,940 in the accompanying text of the same source.
In your 20s and 30s
Balances here are built almost entirely from annual contributions, because there has been little time for compounding and few job changes to generate rollovers. The median 30-something IRA holds $15,451.
In your 40s and 50s
This is where the two providers diverge most sharply, and where rollovers do most of the work. Empower’s 40s average is more than triple Fidelity’s, reflecting a wealthier linked-account population rather than a different reality.
In your 60s and beyond
Balances peak and then flatten as withdrawals begin. Roth balances follow a different curve — Empower’s all-ages Roth average is $106,073 against a $32,723 median, because Roth accounts are typically built from contributions rather than large transfers. That distinction is covered in traditional and Roth IRAs compared.
A better benchmark than other people
A peer average cannot tell you whether you are on track, because it knows nothing about your income, your age at first contribution, or when you plan to stop working. Two benchmarks do better, and both are yours alone.
The first is your own income. Retirement targets are conventionally expressed as a multiple of salary rather than a flat sum, and the salary-multiple benchmarks explain how those multiples are built and where they fall short.
The second is your own trajectory. A balance is a snapshot; a contribution rate is a decision. Model what your current rate produces over your remaining working years with the SEC’s free compound interest calculator or our retirement target calculator, then change one input and watch what moves. If the gap is uncomfortable, closing it is a separate exercise.
✅ Action Step: Before changing your contribution, ask a fee-only fiduciary advisor: “Given my age, income and current balances, what annual contribution keeps me on track — and what return and retirement age are you assuming to get there?” The assumptions matter more than the number they produce.
What you can add to an IRA in 2026
The 2026 IRA contribution limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you are 50 or older, according to the IRS.
The 2026 limits
The catch-up amount rose to $1,100 for 2026, up from $1,000. These limits apply across all your traditional and Roth IRAs combined, and cannot exceed your taxable compensation for the year.
| Provision | 2026 amount | Key detail |
|---|---|---|
| IRA contribution limit | $7,500 | Combined across all IRAs |
| Catch-up, age 50+ | $1,100 | Total of $8,600 |
| Roth phase-out, single or head of household | $153,000–$168,000 | Full contribution below $153,000 |
| Roth phase-out, married filing jointly | $242,000–$252,000 | No contribution above $252,000 |
| Roth phase-out, married filing separately | $0–$10,000 | Not adjusted for inflation |
Source: IRS, 2026 retirement plan limits (Notice 2025-67).
The income limits that may apply
Above those thresholds your direct Roth contribution shrinks and then disappears, a mechanism explained in Roth IRA income limits. Traditional IRA deductibility follows separate rules, and the full contribution limits cover both.
⚠️ Costly Mistake: Working from last year’s thresholds. At least one widely read retirement page currently states the 2026 Roth phase-out as beginning at $146,000 for single filers — a figure two years out of date. Check the IRS numbers above before you assume you are ineligible.
You also have longer than you think: contributions for a tax year run to the filing deadline the following April.
✅ Action Step: If your income lands anywhere near a phase-out band, ask a CPA: “Does my modified adjusted gross income put me inside the Roth phase-out this year, and what is my allowable contribution after the reduction?”
Five ways this comparison misleads people
Knowing the failure modes lets you audit the next balance statistic you meet, including the ones on this page.
Comparing an account to a person
Account-based averages count accounts, not people. Someone holding a traditional IRA, a Roth and a rollover appears three times; someone with no IRA at all does not appear. The Federal Reserve found that 54.3% of families held any retirement account in 2022 — meaning the other 46% are simply absent from every provider average ever published.
Comparing across vintages
Balances move with markets. Fidelity’s average fell 4% in a single quarter between December 2025 and March 2026. A table from a different quarter is a different world, and most published tables carry no date inside them.
The remaining three: rollovers inflate older-age balances without anyone saving more; the mean sits far above the median at every age; and each provider’s population is self-selected, describing its own customers rather than the country.
⚠️ Costly Mistake: Reducing contributions because your balance looks respectable against an average. That average may describe a wealthier population, an earlier quarter, and a different unit of measurement.
Common questions about average IRA balances
1. What is a good IRA balance at 40?
There is no single good figure, because targets scale with income rather than age. Published averages for savers in their 40s range from $60,490 to $215,206 depending on the provider, and the median is $42,427. Use a salary multiple instead of a peer average. A fiduciary advisor can set a target against your income and retirement date.
2. Is the average or the median more useful?
The median, in almost every case. The average IRA balance is pulled upward by a small number of very large accounts, while the median shows the midpoint. Federal Reserve data puts the median retirement account at $86,900 against a $334,000 mean — the average sits 3.84 times higher than the typical household.
3. Why do published IRA averages disagree with each other?
They measure different populations and different units. Fidelity reports per account among its own customers, Empower reports per dashboard user, the IRS reports per taxpayer, and the Federal Reserve reports per family across all retirement accounts. For savers in their 40s this produces a 3.75x spread between the highest and lowest published figure.
4. What is the average IRA balance for someone in their 30s?
Empower puts the average at $88,291 for savers in their 30s, with a median of $15,451. Fidelity’s figure for the same decade was $22,970 at the end of 2025. The gap reflects different customer populations, not different realities. The median is the more representative number here.
5. Am I behind if my IRA is below average?
Not necessarily, and the average is a poor test. In the 20s the average IRA balance runs 5.84 times the median, so most savers sit well below it by definition. Compare against your own income and contribution rate instead. A fiduciary advisor can assess whether your trajectory meets your retirement date.
6. How much should I have saved by 50?
Targets are conventionally set as a multiple of salary rather than a fixed amount, so the answer depends on your income and planned retirement age. For context, the median IRA balance for savers in their 50s is $140,597. Treat that as a landscape, not a goal. A fiduciary advisor can set a figure for your circumstances.
7. Why are traditional IRA balances higher than Roth balances?
Traditional IRAs receive rollovers from workplace plans, which arrive as lump sums. Roth IRAs are built mainly from annual contributions capped at $7,500 in 2026. Empower’s all-ages Roth average is $106,073 against an overall IRA average of $281,280. Tax treatment differs between them, so consult a CPA before choosing.
8. How much can I contribute to an IRA in 2026?
The IRS limit is $7,500 for 2026, rising to $8,600 if you are 50 or older, thanks to a $1,100 catch-up. That total applies across all your traditional and Roth IRAs combined and cannot exceed your taxable compensation. Roth eligibility phases out above $153,000 for single filers. A CPA can confirm your allowable amount.
9. Does the average include people who have no IRA?
No. Provider averages count only open accounts with a balance, so anyone without an IRA is excluded entirely. The Federal Reserve found 54.3% of US families held any retirement account in 2022, which means roughly 46% of families never appear in these figures at all.
10. What is the average retirement savings by age, as opposed to IRA balance?
They are different measures. Federal Reserve data covers all retirement accounts together — IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s and similar — reporting a median of $86,900 and a mean of $334,000 across families that hold any. IRA-only figures from providers are narrower and are not directly comparable.
11. Where does the IRS publish IRA data by age?
The IRS Statistics of Income division publishes Table 4, covering taxpayers with IRA plans by age of taxpayer, with tax year 2023 the most recent release. It is built from matched samples of Form 1040, Form 5498 and Form 1099-R, making it the only population-wide source rather than a single provider’s customer base.
Where that leaves you
The $131,380 headline describes a population you are almost certainly not in: every account at one brokerage, averaged together, at one moment in March 2026. It cannot tell you whether you are behind, because it does not know your income, your age, or when you started.
What you control is the next twelve months. The limit is $7,500, or $8,600 from age 50, and the deadline runs into April of the following year. Whether the money is working once it arrives is a separate question, answered in what to actually hold inside your IRA.
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Informational disclaimer
The content on Finance Authority Hub is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, legal, or professional advice. Financial decisions depend on your individual goals, income, risk tolerance, location, and regulatory situation. Before acting on any information, strategy, estimate, or calculator result, consult a qualified licensed professional who can evaluate your specific circumstances.