IRA Compliance Resolution System: Rev. Proc. 2026-33 Explained
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Quick Answer
As of October 31, 2026, the IRS has created a correction program for IRAs, the IRA Compliance Resolution System (ICRS), that starts on May 1, 2027, costs $3,500 for an ordinary filing made before January 1, 2028, and covers only four failures: a missed required minimum distribution, the wrong type of IRA opened, a nonspouse beneficiary pushed into a taxable distribution, and a missed 60-day rollover. Rev. Proc. 2026-33, announced in IRS news release IR-2026-126 on October 22, 2026, says that “ICRS currently consists of the IRA Voluntary Correction Program (IVCP)” and that “Self-correction of IRA failures is not available under ICRS at this time.” Three of the four failures need a mistake by a “Service Provider”, a term that covers a custodian but also a certified public accountant or a licensed attorney; the 60-day rollover failure does not. For 60-day waivers the IRS says that in 2027 you may use ICRS or a private letter ruling and that “Starting in 2028, it is anticipated that requests for such waivers will only be permitted under ICRS.” The free routes (automatic waiver and self-certification) stay. Comments are due January 20, 2027. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.
Key Takeaways
- ICRS starts on May 1, 2027 (Rev. Proc. 2026-33, section 10) and, today, is one program: IVCP, the IRA Voluntary Correction Program. You file on Pay.gov with Form 15443; paper submissions are not permitted. The IRS issues a compliance statement that, if you do what it says, means the IRA is not treated as failing the rules and the owner is not subject to income or excise taxes on the listed failures.
- The fee is $3,500 for a regular submission filed before January 1, 2028. A custodian group submission costs $10,000 for the first 10 IRA owners plus $250 for each owner above 10, capped at $50,000. From 2028 the fees move to Appendix A of Rev. Proc. 2028-4, which does not exist yet.
- Only four failures qualify: an RMD Failure, an IRA Establishment Failure, a Nonspouse Beneficiary Distribution or Rollover Failure and a 60-Day Rollover Failure. The first three need an error by a Service Provider. The fourth does not: the revenue procedure says a 60-Day Rollover Failure “does not need to have occurred due to an error by a Service Provider”.
- The headline you may have read, that ICRS is for custodian errors, is only half right. Service Provider includes “a certified public accountant, or a licensed attorney” as well as a custodian (section 2.09), and the IRS news release calls the errors “service-provider errors”. A missed 60-day deadline caused by nobody but life can still be filed.
- The 60-day waiver is not new money: a private letter ruling for a waiver already costs $3,500 under Rev. Proc. 2026-4, Appendix A, item .01(3), the same figure as ICRS. The $18,500 fee is for “all other letter rulings”. A page of ours that said $18,500 for a waiver has been wrong, and we list it below.
- If your return is under examination, IVCP is “generally not available”, you must be current on your tax filings, anonymous filings are not allowed and the program is shut to egregious failures, diversion or misuse of IRA assets and abusive transactions. A different custodian does not have to accept a corrective transfer.
- Fixing is not the same as free of tax. A missed RMD is corrected by distributing it with Earnings and the custodian reports it on a Form 1099-R as taxable in the year of correction. A refund is only possible for open years under section 6511(a), and filing under IVCP does not extend that clock.
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IRA Compliance Resolution System, Rev. Proc. 2026-33: failures, fees, clocks and exclusions, October 2026
87 rows: the four eligible failures and how each is corrected, the $3,500 and $10,000 to $50,000 user fees, the 21, 45, 90 and 150 day clocks, who is excluded, the 60-day waiver routes, the Rev. Proc. 2026-4 private letter ruling fee, and worked examples (our arithmetic), each with its source.
What ICRS is, and what it is not
Section 305(c) of SECURE 2.0 told the Treasury to expand the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) so that custodians of IRAs could fix inadvertent failures. The IRS did that on October 22, 2026 with two revenue procedures: 2026-34, which rewrites the plan program and took effect that day, and 2026-33, which is the IRA program. For issues ICRS leaves out, the revenue procedure points to the Voluntary Closing Agreement Program run by Employee Plans Rulings and Agreements (section 1.05).
| Question | Answer in Rev. Proc. 2026-33 | Where |
|---|---|---|
| When does it start? | May 1, 2027 | Section 10 |
| What does it contain? | One program, IVCP. Self-correction is not available at this time | Sections 1.03 and 1.04 |
| Who can apply? | An IRA custodian, or an IRA owner (including beneficiaries). For a 60-day rollover the applicant must be the owner | Sections 2.01 and 2.08; Appendix A section 2.04(3) |
| How is it filed? | On Pay.gov with Form 15443; one combined PDF up to 15 MB; paper is not processed | Sections 6.01 and 6.03 |
| What does the IRS issue? | A compliance statement setting the corrections and the time to make them | Sections 5.07 and 5.08 |
| Is it confidential? | Yes, return information under section 6103, and not a section 6110 written determination | Section 3.05 |
| Can I stay anonymous? | No. Identifying information for the custodian and the owner must be disclosed | Section 5.10 |
The program is built for people who did the right thing and were let down by a process. It is not an amnesty: the revenue procedure excludes any failure that “is egregious, relates to the diversion or misuse of IRA assets, or is directly or indirectly related to an abusive tax avoidance transaction” (section 2.10).
The four failures and how each is fixed
| Failure | What triggers it | Needs a Service Provider mistake? | Permitted correction | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RMD Failure | The amount distributed in the year is less than the required minimum distribution | Yes, and the provider must have had practices reasonably designed for compliance and routinely followed them | Custodian distributes the missed RMDs with Earnings for every year of failure; the custodian issues a Form 1099-R for the year of correction showing the distribution as taxable | Section 2.15; Appendix A section 2.01 |
| IRA Establishment Failure | The provider opens a different type of IRA than requested, or a non-IRA account | Yes, same practices test | Open the requested IRA and move the balance with Earnings; it is treated as opened on the original date. File by December 31 of the year after the wrong account was opened | Section 2.16; Appendix A section 2.02 |
| Nonspouse Beneficiary Distribution or Rollover Failure | A provider error leads a nonspouse beneficiary to take a distribution, or move money to a non-inherited IRA, instead of a trustee-to-trustee transfer | Yes, and the applicant must describe the specific errors or advice | Beneficiary contributes the amount, adjusted for Earnings and less RMDs that would have been required, to a new Inherited IRA in the same name; treated as a transfer when the distribution happened | Section 2.17; Appendix A section 2.03 |
| 60-Day Rollover Failure | An eligible rollover distribution is not rolled over within 60 days and refusing to waive would be against equity or good conscience | No | Deposit the amount, up to the original distribution less RMDs that would have been required, into an eligible retirement plan; it counts as a rollover | Section 2.18; Appendix A section 2.04 |
Two details are easy to miss. First, the Establishment Failure has a hard cut-off: the revenue procedure's own example says that if the failure occurs on August 15, 2026, “an IVCP submission to correct the failure cannot be made after December 31, 2027.” Second, the IRS's RMD example is small and concrete: an RMD of $10,000 where the custodian pays only $8,000, which leaves a $2,000 shortfall on which the section 4974 excise tax would otherwise apply (our arithmetic on the revenue procedure's example). The penalty rate itself, and the waiver on Form 5329, are on our illiquid IRA RMD page, and the annual divisors are in the 2026 RMD table.
For inherited accounts, the Nonspouse failure only helps someone who was steered wrong. It does not change the timing rules of the inherited IRA 10-year rule.
What it costs, and how long it takes
| Item | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Regular submission, filed before January 1, 2028 | $3,500 | Section 7.01(1) |
| Group submission, first 10 IRA owners | $10,000 | Section 7.01(2) |
| Group submission, each owner above 10 | $250 | Section 7.01(2) note |
| Group submission maximum | $50,000 | Section 7.01(2) note |
| Filed after December 31, 2027 | Set in Appendix A of Rev. Proc. 2028-4 and annual successors | Section 7.02 |
| Who can file a group submission | A custodian with a systemic failure affecting at least 10 IRA owners and at least 10 IRAs corrected | Section 5.12(3)(b) |
| Notice to owners before a group filing | At least 45 days before the submission | Section 5.12(3)(d) |
| Time to answer an IRS request for information | Up to 21 calendar days | Section 5.07(4) |
| Time to sign and return an unsigned compliance statement | 21 calendar days | Section 5.07(8)(a) |
| Time to carry out the correction | 90 days; 150 days for a group submission | Section 5.07(9) |
| Custodian notice to owners after correction | No later than 30 days after the close of the correction period | Section 5.12(1)(d) |
Our arithmetic on the group fee: 25 IRA owners cost $10,000 plus 15 owners at $250, which is $13,750, or $550 each; the $50,000 cap is reached at 170 owners ($10,000 plus 160 at $250), about $294 each; ten owners filing alone would pay $35,000 against the $10,000 group start. If a compliance statement were dated September 1, 2027, the 90-day correction period would end on November 30, 2027 and the 150-day group period on January 29, 2028 (our arithmetic; dates are hypothetical). If the IRS decides it cannot issue a statement, the “user fee will not be returned” unless no substantive processing has occurred (section 5.07).
The IRS's own burden estimate shows what it expects: 150 respondents a year, 16,409 hours of reporting burden and 22,500 hours of third-party disclosure, with an average of 8 hours and 5 minutes of work per respondent (Paperwork Reduction Act section). That is a program built for custodians fixing batches and for owners with a lot at stake, not for a quick form.
The 60-day rollover waiver: four routes, three of them free
This is where most readers will arrive. A rollover that misses its 60 days is taxable, and the 10% additional tax under section 72(t) applies unless an exception does (Appendix A section 2.04(1)). Rev. Proc. 2026-33 does not remove the free routes; section 9 says it modifies Rev. Procs. 2020-46, 2016-47 and 2003-16, and Appendix A says the automatic waivers and the waiver relief in the other two “remain available and are not affected”. The IRS news release says they remain available “at no cost”.
| Route | Cost | Who decides | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic waiver (Rev. Proc. 2003-16) | No cost | Automatic if the conditions are met | Remains available (Appendix A section 2.04(2); IR-2026-126) |
| Self-certification (Rev. Proc. 2020-46 and 2016-47) | No cost | You certify to the plan or IRA trustee; the IRS can still examine | Remains available (Appendix A section 2.04(2); IR-2026-126) |
| Private letter ruling (Rev. Proc. 2026-4) | $3,500 (Appendix A item .01(3)) | The IRS, after a ruling request | Current route; for 2027 either this or ICRS; from 2028 expected to end |
| ICRS / IVCP (Rev. Proc. 2026-33) | $3,500 if filed before January 1, 2028 | An IRS specialist, who weighs the facts | Effective May 1, 2027; from 2028 expected to be the only waiver route |
When it decides a 60-day case, the IRS says it will consider “errors committed by a financial institution”, “inability to complete a rollover due to death, disability, hospitalization, incarceration, restrictions imposed by a foreign country, or postal error”, what happened to the money (for a check, whether it was cashed) and the time that has passed (Appendix A section 2.04(2)). Its example is a 60-year-old who asks for a full distribution by check from one custodian, intends to roll it into another IRA, and is prevented by events beyond his or her control.
Limits that do not go away: the deposit cannot exceed the original distribution less any RMDs that would have been required; with an example of a $30,000 distribution, the most that can go back is $30,000; the same property must be rolled back from an IRA (shares cannot be replaced with sale proceeds); and an IRA-to-IRA waiver is not available if another IRA-to-IRA rollover was made in the prior one-year period (Appendix A section 2.04(2)). The ten items an application must carry include the distribution amount and date, any tax withheld, the Form 1099-R if available, why the money was withdrawn, what was actually done with it and a statement of no other IRA rollover in the past 12 months. For the mechanics of the 60 days and of self-certification, see our 401(k) rollover guide.
The practical reading, which is ours: because the fee is the same $3,500, nothing in the money changes for a waiver; what changes is the office that reads the file and the 2028 end of the ruling route. A free route that fits your facts is still cheaper than either.
Who is shut out, and what a statement does not do
| Situation | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Your Form 1040 series return or Form 1041 is under examination | IVCP is generally not available. For a 60-day failure, relief under section 4 of Rev. Proc. 2020-46 may still be possible | Section 4.02; Appendix A section 2.04(2) |
| You are not current on tax filings | You cannot be included in a submission | Section 4.03 |
| The failure is egregious, a diversion or misuse of IRA assets, or tied to an abusive transaction | Not an Eligible Inadvertent Failure; the IRS may refer an abusive-transaction case for examination | Sections 2.10 and 5.06 |
| The failure is not one of the four | Not eligible at this time | Section 4.01(1) |
| An SEP arrangement or SIMPLE IRA plan failure (as opposed to an IRA) | Go to EPCRS, Rev. Proc. 2026-34; an SEP IRA or SIMPLE IRA account as an IRA can use IVCP | Section 4.01(4) and (5) |
| A correction needs a different custodian to take funds | That custodian is not required to accept them and the IRS cannot compel it; talk to it before filing | Section 4.01(6) |
| You want a refund for a closed year | Not available. A submission does not extend the refund statute | Section 4.01(2) |
| A statement is issued | It covers only the failures and years listed and gives no reliance for any other | Section 5.08(1) |
| You owe tax after correction and do not report it | The compliance statement is not valid | Appendix A section 1.04(4) |
On refunds, section 6511(a) allows a claim within three years of filing the return or two years of paying the tax, “whichever of the periods expires later”. For a 2026 return filed on April 15, 2027, a refund claim would stay open to April 15, 2030 (our arithmetic). The revenue procedure warns that if the period expires while your submission is processed you cannot get the refund “unless the IRA Owner has filed a protective claim for refund”.
ICRS can also relieve three taxes tied directly to the failure: the section 4973 excise tax on excess contributions, the section 4974 excise tax on a missed RMD and the 10% additional tax under section 72(t) (section 3.04). You must ask for the relief in the submission, and for 72(t) the owner must return the improperly distributed amount, adjusted for Earnings, to the IRA. The section 4974 waiver you can already request on Form 5329 under Treas. Reg. 54.4974-1(g) stays free; section 3.03 allows IVCP even where that route exists. For the other excise tax see our excess IRA contribution page.
What a reader can do with this
- Missed RMD after a custodian error: nothing can be filed before May 1, 2027 (our reading of the effective date). Meanwhile ask for the written record of what happened and keep it; the Form 5329 waiver of the excise tax is available now at no user fee.
- Wrong account type opened: note the deadline now. A wrong IRA opened in 2026 can be fixed only through December 31, 2027; one opened in 2027 only through December 31, 2028.
- Missed the 60 days: check the free routes first (automatic waiver, self-certification). If your facts fit none, a private letter ruling is open in 2027 and ICRS from May 1, 2027, both at $3,500; ask whether the amount at stake justifies the fee.
- Inherited IRA taken as a distribution on bad advice: collect the written advice, because the program asks for it, and call the original custodian about taking a corrective contribution.
- Under examination or behind on filings: this program is closed to you for now; that is a question for a tax professional.
- Send a comment if you are affected: the IRS asks which failures should be added; the docket is IRS-2026-1387 on regulations.gov.
FAQ
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An email when the ira correction program and 60-day rollover waiver rules numbers change
When a rate, rule or filing behind this page changes: what changed, the one number that matters, and the source to check it yourself.
Sources, read and saved on October 31, 2026: IRS Revenue Procedure 2026-33 (IRA Compliance Resolution System, 59 pages); IRS news release IR-2026-126 of October 22, 2026; IRS Revenue Procedure 2026-4, Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-1, Appendix A schedule of user fees. Worked examples and date arithmetic are ours on the figures and hypothetical dates given. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.
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