The Average IRA Balance by Age

Do you suffer from IRA balance envy? Or is your IRA nest egg something to brag about? The answer likely depends on how your Individual Retirement Account (IRA) stacks up versus other savers in your age group. And while there’s no perfect apples-to-apples comparison, as everyone’s financial situation is different, eyeballing average IRA account balances can give you an idea if you’re ahead in the savings game, keeping up, or falling behind.

With traditional pensions on the verge of extinction, the responsibility of saving for retirement increasingly falls on workers. And when you go beyond employer-sponsored retirement plans like a 401(k), an IRA is a key — often complementary — retirement savings tool that can help workers amass more money in their golden years. Assets in IRAs totaled $17 trillion at the end of December 2024, accounting for nearly 40% of the total retirement assets of $44.1 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The average IRA balance for all ages at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 was $127,534, up 8% from a year ago, according to Fidelity Investments’ analysis of 16.8 million IRA accounts. Those plump 12-month gains were driven by a 23.3% rise in the S&P 500 500 stock index.

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If your account balance is lower than the average, don’t despair. And if you’re ahead of the pack, don’t get complacent. Instead, use the average balance information as a starting point to figure out if you’re on track to meet your personal savings goals. And if not, what tweaks are needed to course-correct?

(Editor’s note: Your IRA balance likely declined again in the first quarter of 2025, as the benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbled 4.6% amid rising investor concerns about the economic ramifications of the Trump administration’s tariff policy. Still, there’s no need to panic or bail out of stock, notes Emelia Fredlick, a senior editor at fund-tracker Morningstar. After analyzing stock market crashes over the past 150 years, Fredlick concluded: “Though they varied in length and severity, the market always recovered and went on to new highs. If you don’t panic and sell your stock holdings when the market crashes, you will be rewarded in the long run.”)

“It’s an opportunity to rethink and reassess your retirement plan,” said Rita Assaf, VP of retirement products at Fidelity Investments. “IRAs can function as a ‘booster’ for your retirement savings.”

Average IRA Balance by Age

Let’s drill down to average IRA balances by age and generation to get a more precise picture as to how much other workers in your age band have set aside. These totals, Assaf notes, include contributions, appreciation, and rollovers.

Here are the average IRA balances by age for the first, second and third quarters of 2024, according to Fidelity Investments.

What jumps out is how IRA account balances for older folks, or those who’ve been saving for decades, balloons with the help of compounding, regular contributions, and the tendency of the stock market to rise in value over time. The takeaway (especially for younger savers)? It’s not impossible to accumulate a sizable nest egg.

The fact is, what looks like a puny account balance today can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Compounding, or earning returns on both your original investment and prior gains, is a powerful force in building retirement savings. In fact, IRA balances at the end of December were 38% higher than they were 10 years ago, Fidelity data show. “It’s never really too late to save,” said Assaf. “There are always things you can do to help your situation.” And when it comes to saving for your golden years, Fidelity recommends saving 15% of your income (including any company match).

If savers have a workplace retirement savings plan, they should consider investing in an IRA only after saving enough in their 401(k) to get the full company matching contribution. “If you need another place to save money, an IRA is a great tool to use to continue to get tax-deferred growth,” said Rob Leiphart, VP of financial planning at RB Capital Management. Both traditional and Roth IRAs allow your contributions and gains to grow tax-free. However, traditional IRAs are funded with pre-tax dollars, which give you an upfront tax deduction, but require you to pay taxes on withdrawals at your regular income rate. In contrast, Roth IRAs are funded with post-taxed dollars but come with tax-free withdrawals in retirement.

What you should have saved, by age

Let’s see how IRA balances by age, or savings during each decade of life, stacked up at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. To help savers get a better guesstimate of whether their savings are on track for a secure retirement, we’ve also included Fidelity’s guidelines as to how much of one’s salary should be saved by the start of each decade in a saver’s life. For example, Fidelity recommends that someone turning 40 should aim to have at least three times their salary saved by then. So, if you earn $75,000 at age 40, you should have at least $225,000 set aside by then, according to Fidelity guidelines.

Again, notice the power of compounding when building wealth. In each 10-year period starting with savers in their 20s, IRA account holders essentially doubled their money each decade. The key takeaway: the modest average IRA balance of $57,326 in the 40s’ age bracket mushrooms into a quarter-million-dollar nest egg two decades later.

The secret of “super savers,” personal finance experts say, is regularly contributing to a retirement account like an IRA and maxing out contributions up to IRS limits if possible. They also recommend investing for growth via stocks during peak earning years and implementing a buy-and-hold strategy to get the full benefits of compounding.

For a more comprehensive look at how your savings compare to peers, see our articles on The Average Net Worth by Age and The Average 401(k) Balance by Age. And to get a handle on projected medical expenses, see Average Cost of Health Care by Age.

Pros and cons of IRAs

The biggest perk of IRAs is the tax benefits they offer. IRAs, which are held in brokerage accounts, also offer a wider range of investment choices than a 401(k), which has a limited menu of options. “So, if you want to buy individual stocks, or if you want to do something that you can’t do within the confines of a 401(k) because it’s not one of those 20 or 25 investment options, then the IRA serves as a great diversification tool,” said Leiphart.

Roth IRAs also give you more flexibility in getting at your money without paying an IRS penalty. “You can take out your contributions at any time” since you’ve already paid taxes on the money used to fund your Roth IRA, adds Assaf. IRAs are also a great landing spot for assets from old 401(k)s. Rolling over old retirement accounts and balances into a single IRA is a good way to consolidate your accounts and avoid the mistake of taking a distribution from an old retirement account before age 59 ½ and paying a 10% IRS penalty.

On the negative side, the amount you can contribute to an IRA each year is much lower than the amount you can sock away in a 401(k). In 2025, for example, the IRS limit on IRA contributions is $7,000 (or $8,000 for those 50 or older). In contrast, participants in workplace 401(k) plans can contribute up to $23,500 and $31,000 for 50-and-older savers in 2025. Savers in 401(k) plans aged 60, 61, 62 and 63 will be able to make a super catch-up contribution of $11,250 in 2025.

How do IRA balances compare to UK pension savings?

According to Kiplinger's British sister site, Moneyweek, average UK pension wealth falls below that of similar age cohorts in the US. For example, a US saver in their 60s has an average of $233,781 in their IRAs, but UK savers in their 60s have average balances of under $200,000 in their pension savings.

Before you feel smug about being American, remember that the US has a higher cost of living than the UK. One of the most significant differences is the cost of healthcare, which is almost twice as expensive per capita in the US as in the UK. Despite the US's high spending on healthcare, the UK's more affordable healthcare system has better health outcomes.

That said, many Americans pair their IRAs with 401(k) accounts, resulting in significantly higher overall retirement savings.

Source: Pension wealth: wealth in Great Britain, 2020-2022, ONS, published January 2025. Only includes people with pension wealth; those who have zero pension savings are excluded from the figures. As reported in MoneyWeek.

An IRA can help your retirement savings catch up

Just because you’re saving in a 401(k), doesn’t mean you can’t save even more in an IRA, says Assaf.

One way to boost your retirement savings via an IRA is to automate the process by setting up automatic contributions that coincide with each pay period, just like your 401(k) at work, says Leiphart. “I have clients that get paid on the 15th and at the end of the month, so I set up ongoing contributions into their IRA from their checking accounts that align with those dates,” said Leiphart. And if you’re tight on cash now, you can plan on saving a little more in future years, say 1% more each year, when you get your annual raise, adds Leiphart.

Read More

• The Average 401(k) Balance by Age
• Average Net Worth by Age: How Do You Measure Up?
• IRA Conversion to Roth: Rules to Convert an IRA or 401(k) to a Roth IRA
• How to Open a Roth IRA in Five Simple Steps
• How to Convert a Traditional IRA to a Roth after 60