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The New York City Employee IRA
Funding your NYCE IRA
Contributions
Traditional NYCE IRA Contribution Limits for 2025
The contribution limit to your Traditional NYCE IRA for 2025 will be the lesser of the following amounts:
- $7,000; or
- Your taxable compensation for the year.
If you will be age 50 or over in 2025, the most that you can contribute to your Traditional NYCE IRA will be the lesser of the following amounts:
- $8,000; or
- Your taxable compensation for the year.
If you have more than one traditional IRA, the limit applies to the total contributions made on your behalf to all of your IRAs for the year.
Taxable Compensation
Generally, taxable compensation is wages, salaries, tips, professional fees, bonuses, and other amounts you receive for providing personal services. You must have compensation to be eligible to make contributions to the Traditional NYCE IRA. Compensation does not include any of the following items:
- Earnings and profits from property, such as rental income, interest income, and dividend income
- Pension or annuity income (including distributions from 457 plans, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans and IRAs)
Contributing to Your Traditional NYCE IRA
Making a contribution to your Traditional NYCE IRA is easy. You can make contributions of earned income, and you can roll over assets. Contributions can made via automatic payroll deductions or by using a Deposit Form and sending a check or money order.
Below are instructions for employees who wish to set up contributions via payroll:
- log into your account (you will need your username and password to access you account),
- navigate to Contributions & Savings,
- select Manage Contributions and enter the dollar amount you wish to contribute each pay period (minimum amount is $25).
You can access your account online anytime to change the dollar amount of your contribution.
If you do not have a NYCE IRA account you can establish an account online or you can download the NYCE IRA Application from the Plan’s website.
To fund your NYCE IRA via check or money order, complete a NYCE IRA Deposit Form and send the payment to the address stated on the form. You can contribute as often as you like, but remember that you are responsible for making sure you do not contribute in excess of the IRA contribution limits.
Please note: Payroll deductions are applied to the calendar year in which they are contributed. You will still have up until the tax deadline in April to make contributions to the NYCE IRA. However, contributions for the prior year must be made by check or money order. The contribution limit for 2025 is $7,000, $8,000 if age 50 or older.
In addition, you can roll over assets from another retirement plan to your NYCE IRA account. See "Funding your IRA using a rollover" for more information.
A Traditional Spousal NYCE IRA can be funded through contributions (via check or money order) or rollovers.
- Contributions - Both the employee and the spouse can contribute to the Spousal NYCE IRA as long as the couple files a joint return, and has enough taxable compensation to cover the contribution.
- Rollovers - A spouse can roll over assets into their Spousal NYCE from previous employers retirement plans such as 401(k), 403(b) or 457 plans or IRAs. Only retirement plans or IRAs in the spouse's own name are eligible for rollover into the Spousal NYCE IRA.
Contributions can be made to your NYCE IRA at any time during the year or by the deadline for filing your federal income tax return for that year, without including extensions.
Contributions made to an IRA are after-tax. Generally, you can deduct the contributions to your traditional IRA on your federal income tax return.
Whether your contributions into the Traditional NYCE IRA will be deductible or non-deductible depends on your (or, if married, your and your spouse's) Modified Adjusted Gross Income (Modified AGI) and whether or not you are covered by another retirement plan at work. The deductibility of your Traditional NYCE IRA does not affect the IRA maximum contribution limit. Even when your contributions are not tax deductible, any earnings still grow tax-deferred.
Modified AGI is calculated from information on your tax return. The Form-W2 you receive from your employer has a box used to indicate whether you were covered by a retirement plan for this year.
Learn more about funding your Traditional NYCE IRA using a rollover