Retirement plan amendments for recent laws due by December 31 

September 25, 2026

Sponsors of tax-favored retirement plans have until December 31, 2026, to adopt required and discretionary amendments related to several recent major laws. These amendments may be extensive for some sponsors, depending on the degree to which their plans are affected. The December 31 deadline also applies to any other discretionary amendments implemented during 2026 by sponsors with calendar-year plans. All amendment deadlines discussed in this article apply to both individually designed and preapproved plans.

This article replaces one originally published on July 21, 2026. This updated version reflects an IRS announcement on September 18, 2026, clarifying the plan amendment deadlines for the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (SECURE 1.0) and the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. 

The Required Amendments List (RA List) is an annual list of tax law changes affecting qualified and 403(b) plans. When a change appears on the RA List, sponsors of affected plans generally have until the end of the second calendar year following publication of the list to adopt a conforming amendment. Amendments for items appearing on the 2024 RA List are generally due by December 31, 2026, except governmental sponsors may have a later deadline tied to their legislative calendars.

Amendments for recent laws and related guidance. The 2024 RA List in Notice 2024-82 includes SECURE 2.0’s required changes to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 415 limits for employees of rural electric cooperatives and the IRC Section 414 family attribution rules. IRS included these provisions on Part B of the RA List, which means the agency expects few plans will need to be amended for the provisions.

Part C of the 2024 RA List includes guidance on a number of optional provisions under SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 as well as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 (Miners Act). As discussed below, amendments for the statutory provisions to which this guidance relates are also due by December 31, 2026. For more information about the guidance included in Part C, see IRS’s 2024 Required Amendments List is chock-full of changes (December 18, 2024).

Periodic updates not specifically mentioned on RA List. Each RA List automatically includes certain periodic updates, even though these items aren’t specifically referenced on that RA List. Examples of these updates include changes in cost-of-living adjustments, spot segment rates used to determine the IRC Section 417(e)(3) applicable interest rate, and Section 417(e)(3) applicable mortality tables for the year in which such changes are effective. Most plans incorporate these items by reference, eliminating the need for amendments. But plans that don’t incorporate these items by reference must be amended by December 31, 2026, for updates that took effect in 2024.

IRS Notice 2024-2 also set December 31, 2026, as the amendment deadline for the optional provisions under SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 and all provisions of the Miners and CARES acts and the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (Disaster Relief Act).

IRS’s recent announcement gives much needed clarity to sponsors trying to understand when they need to amend their plans for SECURE 1.0 and 2.0’s required and optional changes.

Optional changes. Sponsors that have implemented any of SECURE 1.0 and 2.0’s optional provisions must amend their plans for those provisions by December 31. SECURE 1.0 allowed several optional changes, including offering penalty-free qualified birth or adoption distributions from defined contribution plans and increasing the auto-escalation cap to 15% under a qualified automatic contribution arrangement (QACA). SECURE 2.0 allowed sponsors to match employees’ student loan repayments, offer several new penalty-free distribution options, and increase the small benefit cashout threshold to $7,000. SECURE 2.0’s new “super catch-up” contribution limit at ages 60-63 is also optional, but employers that are part of a controlled group should be aware that all plans in their controlled group must offer the higher limit if any plan in the controlled group does.

Required changes  The IRS announcement clarified that all required changes under SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 will eventually appear on the RA List. The announcement says that if a required change is not included on the RA List for the year the change first applies, “it is reasonable for stakeholders to assume that [the change] will be listed on a future RA List.”

The two SECURE 2.0 items on the 2024 RA List discussed above are the only required changes under SECURE 1.0 or 2.0 to appear on any RA List to date. This means amendments for all other required changes under both laws will be due after 2026. IRS has so far announced future amendment deadlines for only a handful of the other required changes under SECURE 1.0 and 2.0:

• Certain changes to required minimum distribution (RMD) rules. The 2025 RA List in Notice 2025-60 includes SECURE 1.0’s increase in the RMD triggering age to 72 for participants born after July 1, 1949, and the elimination of lifetime “stretch” payments from defined contribution plans for most nonspouse beneficiaries. The 2025 RA List also includes IRS’s 2024 final regulations on these changes and certain SECURE 2.0 RMD changes. (These final regulations became applicable in 2025.) By including these items on the 2025 RA List, IRS has set December 31, 2027, as the amendment deadline. IRS plans to include the remaining SECURE 2.0 RMD provisions on a future RA List after the agency issues final regulations for those changes.[1]
• Roth catch-up contribution mandate. IRS intends to include SECURE 2.0’s Roth catch-up contribution mandate for certain high-earning employees on the 2027 RA List. (2027 is the first year IRS’s final regulations on the mandate apply.) If so, sponsors will need to amend their plans for this change by December 31, 2029.

IRS will announce amendment deadlines for the laws’ other required changes at a future time. These other required changes include, for example, the new automatic enrollment requirements and long-term, part-time employee eligibility rules for 401(k) and 403(b) plans, and the RMD changes not included on the 2025 RA List. IRS won’t include these other required changes on the RA List until after the agency’s final regulations on the changes become applicable (which IRS expects to be no earlier than the first plan year beginning more than six months after the final regulations are issued).

More guidance in the works. IRS’s announcement says the agency intends to include additional guidance on the SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 plan amendment deadlines in the 2026 RA List. IRS says the future guidance will be consistent with the announcement.

The Miners Act included one provision that may require a plan amendment: the reduction to the permissible age for in-service distributions from qualified defined benefit and eligible governmental 457(b) plans to 59-1/2. This is an optional provision, so sponsors need to amend for it by December 31 only if they have implemented the change since the law’s enactment.

The CARES Act included one required amendment for defined contribution plans: the waiver of 2020 RMDs, which includes RMDs that would have been due on April 1, 2020, December 31, 2020, and April 1, 2021. The RMD waiver didn’t apply to defined benefit plans. The CARES Act also included optional provisions that allowed defined contribution plans to offer participants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic penalty-free distribution options, an increased plan loan cap, and a suspension of loan repayments. 

Sponsors adopting any of the amendments discussed above should be aware of the following:

• Plan year has no impact on deadline. The December 31, 2026, amendment deadline applies regardless of whether a plan has a calendar year or noncalendar year plan year.
• Collectively bargained and governmental plans. Notice 2024-2 gives sponsors of collectively bargained plans an additional two years (until December 31, 2028) and governmental sponsors an additional three years (until December 31, 2029) to amend their plans for the optional changes under SECURE 1.0 and 2.0 and all provisions of the Miners, CARES, and Disaster Relief acts. However, it’s unclear if these deadlines also apply to the guidance on these laws included in Part C of the 2024 RA List (which was issued after Notice 2024-2 but doesn’t say the later deadlines apply to the items in Part C), or if instead, the usual amendment timing rules under Revenue Procedures 2022-40 (for individually designed plans) and 2023-37 (for preapproved plans) apply. Under the usual timing rules, sponsors of collectively bargained qualified and 403(b) plans must amend for items on the RA List by the end of the second calendar year following issuance of the list (these sponsors do not receive an extended deadline), while sponsors of governmental plans may have deadlines tied to their legislative calendars. Sponsors of these plans may want to consult with legal counsel.
• IRAs. Notice 2026-9 extends the deadline to amend IRAs for the SECURE, CARES, and Disaster Relief acts until December 31, 2027. The extension applies to IRAs under IRC Section 408(a), (b), and (h) as well as Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) arrangements and Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) IRAs.
• Anticutback relief. Sponsors receive anticutback relief if they timely amend their plans for the laws, provided sponsors operate their plans in accordance with the new provision from the effective date of the change.
• Sample plan language. Sponsors can find sample plan language in IRS’s Listing of Required Modifications (LRMs). The LRMs are meant to assist preapproved plan document providers in updating their plan documents for law changes, but sponsors of individually designed plans can also look to the LRMs for plan language that IRS has deemed compliant. In addition, IRS Notice 2020-51 includes sample plan language for the required CARES Act amendment waiving 2020 RMDs from defined contribution plans and IRAs.

Most discretionary amendments to reflect optional plan design changes must be adopted by the end of the plan year in which the change takes effect. Sponsors of calendar-year plans that made discretionary design changes unrelated to the above laws in 2026 generally must adopt conforming amendments by December 31. 

Some sponsors may have only a few (if any) required amendments due by the end of this year. However, for sponsors that have adopted any of the laws’ optional changes, the list of amendments due by year-end could be lengthy. Sponsors that haven’t already done so may want to consult with legal counsel to get started on the amendment process soon to allow adequate time for the necessary amendments to be identified, drafted, and reviewed. Sponsors using preapproved plan documents may want to reach out to their document providers to confirm they are drafting interim amendments to comply with the law changes.

• Clarifying deadlines for SECURE and SECURE 2.0 Required and Discretionary Amendments (IRS, September 18, 2026)
• Notice 2026-9, Extension of SECURE 2.0 Act Amendment Deadline for IRAs (IRS, January 26, 2026)
• Notice 2025-60, 2025 Required Amendments List for Qualified and Section 403(b) Plans (IRS, December 4, 2025)
• Notice 2024-82, 2024 Required Amendments List for Qualified and Section 403(b) Plans (IRS, December 5, 2024)
• Notice 2024-2, Miscellaneous Changes Under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (IRS, December 20, 2023)
• Notice 2020-51, Guidance on Waiver of 2020 Required Minimum Distributions (IRS, June 23, 2020)
• Required amendments list (IRS)
• Listing of required modifications (LRMs) (IRS)
• Amend or update a plan (IRS)

• IRS again delays applicability date for final RMD regulations (March 2, 2026)
• IRS extends IRA amendment deadline for SECURE acts and more (January 30, 2026)
• 2025 Required Amendments List includes SECURE acts’ RMD changes (December 8, 2025)
• IRS finalizes rules on Roth catch-up mandate for high earners (September 23, 2025)
• IRS’s 2024 Required Amendments List is chock-full of changes (December 18, 2024)
• IRS finalizes SECURE 1.0 RMD rule changes, proposes 2.0 changes (August 16, 2024)
• IRS proposes long-term, part-time work 401(k) eligibility rules (January 29, 2024)
• After empty RA list, IRS delays amendment deadlines for new laws (December 21, 2023)
• User’s guide to SECURE 2.0 (updated periodically)