Is a Roth Conversion Worth It in 2026? What the New Law Really Changed.

Is a Roth conversion worth it in 2026? For some people, absolutely. For most, the urgency that drove the last eight years of conversion advice is simply gone. The reason everyone rushed, that the low tax brackets from 2018 were set to expire after 2025, no longer applies. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made those rates no longer temporary in July 2025. So the deadline disappeared, and whether a conversion makes sense now comes down to your own numbers, not a countdown clock.

The video below walks through who still benefits and who can quietly get hurt. The sections after it update every figure for 2026 and take apart the myths that a lot of online advice hasn't caught up to yet.

Watch: Patrick Shope on why the 2026 Roth conversion rush changed after the new tax law.

Myth: "You have to convert before rates go up in 2026"

This one was true, right up until it wasn't. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the brackets we've all lived under since 2018 were scheduled to expire after 2025. That meant rates were headed up in 2026, and the advice everywhere made sense: convert now, lock in the lower rate before it disappears.

Then on July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed, and it made those brackets no longer temporary. The 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35, and 37 percent rates are now just the regular price. Not a sale. If you want the fuller picture of what that law changed for retirees, I wrote about what the One Big Beautiful Bill means for people near retirement.

Here's the honest caveat: tax law changes. "No longer temporary" means there's no built-in sunset, not that a future Congress can't touch it. But the specific cliff everyone was racing toward is off the calendar. You can breathe. And you can make this decision on the merits instead of the deadline.

Myth: "Locking in today's low rate is always a win"

The steel-man version of this sounds airtight. Pay tax at 22 or 24 percent now, never pay it again, done. But a conversion only wins if you convert at a rate lower than the rate you'd otherwise pay later. For a lot of people, later is the cheaper year.

Think about a composite couple we'll call Grant and Elaine. Grant's still working and earning $180,000. Add a conversion on top of that salary and those dollars stack at 24 percent. But they plan to live on about $70,000 a year in retirement, which would put them down in the 12 percent bracket. Why pay 24 cents today for something you could potentially pay 12 cents on later?

Here's the thing the removal of the brackets' temporary status actually did: it strengthened the case for waiting, not converting. If your retirement bracket will be genuinely lower and those low rates are no longer temporary under current law, the reason to prepay evaporates. Converting while you're still at peak income is buying at full price when you already know the clearance rack is coming.

Myth: "A conversion is basically free growth for the kids"

Leaving a tax-free Roth to your children is one of the best reasons to convert, and I don't want to talk anyone out of it. But it only works in your favor if you convert at a rate lower than the rate your heirs would pay.

Under the SECURE Act, most non-spouse heirs have to empty an inherited IRA within ten years, at their own rates (Source: IRS, Retirement Topics: Beneficiary). So the question is whose bracket the account gets taxed in. If your kids are in their peak earning years when they inherit, a traditional IRA lands on top of their already high income, and a Roth inheritance avoids all of that. That's a strong argument for converting.

Flip it, though. If you're in the 32 percent bracket and your daughter is just starting out in the 12 percent bracket, prepaying her taxes at your higher rate is spending money to solve a problem she doesn't have. This is the same trade I lay out in more detail in the disadvantages of a Roth conversion that apply in any year. The rule isn't "convert for the kids." It's "convert if your rate today beats their rate later."

Myth: "It's just a matter of my tax bracket"

This is the one that catches people off guard, and 2026 has more moving parts than most articles mention. A conversion adds to your income for the year, and that extra income can set off costs that have nothing to do with your headline bracket.

Medicare premiums, two years out. Cross a line called IRMAA and your Medicare Part B and Part D premiums go up. In 2026 that line sits at $109,000 of modified adjusted gross income for a single filer and $218,000 for a married couple. Medicare uses a two-year lookback, so a conversion you do in 2026 raises the premiums you pay in 2028. For a single retiree combining Social Security, some investment income, and a conversion, $109,000 is not a high bar. (Source: CMS, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2026 Medicare Parts A & B premiums and IRMAA brackets; SSA, Medicare Premiums: Rules for Higher-Income Beneficiaries, on the two-year lookback.)

The senior deduction you can lose. For tax years 2025 through 2028, each person 65 or older gets an extra $6,000 deduction, or $12,000 for a couple where both are 65 and up. It phases out above $150,000 of income for a married couple and disappears entirely at $250,000. A big one-year conversion can wipe that deduction out in the year you convert. (Source: IRS, One Big Beautiful Bill Act: tax deductions for working Americans and seniors, including the phase-out rule.)

More of your Social Security taxed. How much of your benefit gets taxed depends on your provisional income (Source: Congressional Research Service, Taxation of Social Security Benefits, IF11397). Pile a large conversion on top and you can push more of the benefit into the taxable column, so the conversion could be quietly taxing your Social Security too.

Your charitable plans. After age 70½, a qualified charitable distribution lets you send up to $111,000 per person straight from an IRA to charity, tax-free, and it counts toward your RMD (Source: IRS, Important charitable giving reminders for taxpayers). If you convert those dollars to a Roth first, you could end up paying tax on money that could have left the account tax-free. For generous givers, converting can work against a tool you already have.

Reality: there's a real window where it does pay

Now the other side, because for a smaller group, converting in 2026 can be genuinely smart. The best window I see in our office is the gap between leaving work and turning on your income sources.

If you're recently retired but haven't started Social Security yet, and required minimum distributions haven't kicked in, you may be sitting in the lowest brackets of your whole retirement. That's the moment. You can deliberately fill up the 12 percent bracket, which for a married couple runs to $100,800 in 2026, or reach into the 22 percent bracket up to $211,400, and pay a fraction of what those same dollars would cost once RMDs force income onto your return. (Source: IRS, Rev. Proc. 2025-32, 2026 federal income tax brackets.)

The other case is a large traditional balance, say $1.5 million or more, with RMDs coming down the track. Once those forced withdrawals start, they can push you into higher brackets, trip IRMAA, and make more of your Social Security taxable all at once. Measured conversions in the quiet years can take pressure off that later spike. The key word is measured. Spread across several years, sized to your numbers, not dumped in one panic move. That sizing is exactly what the four questions we ask before any conversion is built to work out.

So who should actually convert in 2026?

A Roth conversion is a tool, not a strategy. Used well it builds something. Used carelessly it does damage. The people who get it right aren't following a blanket rule from the internet. They're looking at the whole picture: bracket now versus later, where the tax money comes from, their heirs' likely rates, Medicare thresholds, Social Security timing, and their charitable plans.

If you want to see the exact lines a 2026 conversion runs into, our 2026 numbers sheet lays out the brackets, the IRMAA thresholds, and the RMD ages on one page. Start there, then size the conversion to stop just short of the threshold that costs you the most.

The scariest money decisions aren't the ones where you have no information. They're the ones where you have just enough to feel confident, but not enough to see what you're about to miss.

Roth conversion disclosure: Conversion from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA first requires paying taxes on any pre-tax contributions as well as any gains. Additionally, the money used to pay these taxes cannot come from your traditional IRA without incurring a 10% penalty if you are under age 59½. Converted amounts can be distributed without penalty after five years, beginning January 1 of the year of conversion and ending on December 31 of the fifth year. Each conversion has a separate five-year holding period. If you are under age 59½ and take a distribution of converted amounts prior to the five-year holding period you may be subject to a 10% penalty. Distribution of earnings before completing a five-year holding period and attaining age 59½ may be subject to income tax and 10% penalty.

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