FSA Contribution Limits for 2027

$3,500 for the health FSA salary-reduction limit, up $100 from $3,400 in 2026. The IRS announced it on November 5, 2026, in §3.16 of Rev. Proc. 2026-35. The dependent care side works differently: that cap is $7,500 for 2027 as a matter of law, with no annual adjustment at all.

Section 125(i)(2) takes a $2,500 base amount and adds the § 1(f)(3) cost-of-living adjustment with 2012 as the base year, rounding the increase DOWN to the next lowest $50. The inputs are chained CPI-U (C-CPI-U) values from BLS for the twelve months to August. Running that on the published index values gives $3,500 for 2027 and $3,400 for 2026, matching both IRS figures, whichever way the October 2025 month that BLS never published is treated.

$700, up from $680. The IRS prints the carryover maximum beside the limit each year, and it is always 20% of the salary-reduction limit, a ratio that holds exactly across every published pair including 2027's. Your employer chooses whether to offer a carryover at all, a grace period instead, or neither; IRS guidance (Notice 2013-71, as modified by Notice 2020-33), not the statute, caps the carryover it may offer.

No. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21, § 70404) raised the IRC § 129 exclusion to $7,500 ($3,750 if you are married filing separately) beginning in 2026, the first permanent change since 1986 (a one-year, pandemic-era increase for 2021 under IRS Notice 2021-26 / ARPA §9632 aside). Section 129 contains no inflation-indexing provision whatsoever, so the amount simply stays put until Congress moves it again. Anyone quoting a higher 2027 dependent care figure is guessing.

Yes — they are separate accounts under separate Code sections with separate ceilings, so a single employee could shelter up to $11,000 across both in 2027. They cover different costs: the health FSA reimburses medical, dental and vision expenses for you and your dependents, while the dependent care FSA reimburses daycare, preschool and after-school care that lets you work. Money cannot move between them.

Different publication schedules for different statutes. HSA and high-deductible-plan figures come out roughly eighteen months early in their own spring revenue procedure — the 2027 numbers landed in Rev. Proc. 2026-24 in May 2026. The § 125(i) health FSA limit rides the general autumn inflation procedure instead, which for 2027 arrived on November 5, 2026. Employers whose open enrollment ran before that date may have set plan limits first and raised them afterwards.