IRS officials have created a new correction system for certain individual retirement account errors and updated the federal process employers use to fix mistakes in retirement plans.
The changes were announced October 22, 2026, through two Treasury Department and IRS revenue procedures.
The employee retirement-plan changes are effective immediately, while the new IRA Compliance Resolution System will take effect May 1, 2027.
The changes could matter to IRA owners, retirement-plan participants, financial institutions, IRA custodians, plan administrators and employers that discover errors affecting tax-favored retirement accounts.
Table of Contents
What the IRS announced
Revenue Procedure 2026-34 updates and restructures the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System, commonly called EPCRS.
EPCRS is the IRS framework that allows eligible retirement-plan sponsors to correct certain failures while preserving the plan’s tax-favored status.
The revised system replaces and supersedes the prior consolidated procedures issued under Revenue Procedure 2021-30.
Revenue Procedure 2026-33 separately establishes the IRA Compliance Resolution System, or ICRS.
ICRS is designed for certain eligible inadvertent failures involving IRAs when the problem was caused by an error or oversight by a service provider.
The IRS said the IRA system was created under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.
The two procedures are separate, so the new IRA system should not be confused with the updated employer-plan correction framework.
When the new rules take effect
| Program | Effective date | Main users |
|---|---|---|
| Updated EPCRS | October 22, 2026 | Employers and retirement-plan sponsors |
| IRA Compliance Resolution System | May 1, 2027 | IRA custodians and IRA owners |
| 60-day rollover transition | 2027 and 2028 | Plan participants and IRA owners |
The updated EPCRS procedure became effective on October 22, 2026, the date of the IRS announcement.
The ICRS procedure will not become effective until May 1, 2027.
That means IRA owners cannot assume the new program is available immediately in October 2026.
Until the IRA system becomes effective, existing IRS procedures continue to govern eligible correction requests.
How the IRA correction system can help
The new system permits IRA custodians and IRA owners to request correction of specified eligible inadvertent failures.
The procedure addresses problems that can occur when a financial institution or other service provider fails to follow established practices or makes an operational mistake.
Examples identified in the IRS procedure include an incorrect required minimum distribution, an IRA being established as the wrong account type and certain errors involving inherited IRAs.
The system also covers certain failed rollovers when the 60-day requirement was not met.
Eligibility is not automatic merely because an IRA owner experienced a tax problem.
The error generally must fall within an eligible category and satisfy the procedure’s requirements for documentation, correction and service-provider practices.
In some cases, the IRA custodian or service provider may be responsible for submitting the correction request.
For a 60-day rollover waiver request, the IRA owner is the applicant under the new procedure.
New path for some late 60-day rollovers
One of the most significant changes involves requests to waive the requirement that a retirement-plan or IRA distribution be rolled over within 60 days.
Under current procedures, taxpayers who do not qualify for an automatic waiver or self-certification may request relief through a private letter ruling.
The IRS’s current rollover guidance says private letter ruling requests carry a $10,000 user fee.
Under ICRS, eligible taxpayers will gain a separate process for requesting a waiver of the 60-day rule.
The new procedure says waiver requests will transition from private letter rulings to ICRS requests over 2027 and 2028.
For 2027, taxpayers may be able to use either ICRS or the applicable private-letter-ruling process.
Beginning in 2028, the IRS anticipates that requests for these waivers will generally be submitted through ICRS instead.
The transition does not eliminate the automatic waiver and self-certification options for taxpayers who meet their requirements.
Those existing options remain available at no cost.
What remains available now
The new announcement does not create a blanket extension for every missed rollover or retirement-account mistake.
Taxpayers may still use the existing automatic waiver process when their circumstances qualify.
Self-certification also remains available under the applicable IRS revenue procedures for taxpayers who meet the required conditions.
Self-certification allows a taxpayer to proceed with a late rollover by providing a written explanation to the receiving financial institution.
It does not guarantee that the IRS will ultimately accept the waiver if the taxpayer’s return is examined.
The IRS also continues to apply other rollover restrictions that are not waived by the 60-day relief process.
For example, the new procedure does not remove the one-rollover-per-year limitation for certain IRA-to-IRA rollovers.
How the employer retirement-plan rules changed
The revised EPCRS procedure continues to include three major correction channels.
- Self-Correction Program, which allows eligible failures to be corrected without an IRS approval fee or sanction when the requirements are met.
- Voluntary Correction Program, which allows a plan sponsor to request IRS approval for a correction before an examination.
- Audit Closing Agreement Program, which applies when a failure is identified during an IRS examination and the sponsor resolves it through an agreement.
The updated procedure incorporates several retirement-plan changes associated with the SECURE 2.0 Act.
Those changes include broader self-correction opportunities for eligible inadvertent failures.
The procedure also addresses certain plan-loan failures, automatic-enrollment and automatic-escalation errors, and retirement-plan overpayments.
For some failures, the updated rules provide more flexibility for sponsors to correct an issue without making the same type of payment previously required.
The detailed requirements vary by failure type and can include correction deadlines, documentation, participant notices and limits on self-correction.
Employers should not treat the expanded program as permission to ignore a plan error or delay correction indefinitely.
What IRA owners should do
IRA owners who believe a custodian or financial institution made an error should preserve account statements, transaction records and written communications.
They should identify the date of the transaction, the type of account involved and the tax consequence created by the mistake.
Anyone facing a missed rollover deadline should also document why the rollover was not completed within 60 days.
Relevant circumstances can include a financial-institution error, hospitalization, disability, death, incarceration, postal problems, a foreign-country restriction or another event outside the taxpayer’s reasonable control.
Taxpayers should ask the financial institution whether it has a correction process and whether the facts may qualify under the new ICRS after May 1, 2027.
They should not wait for the new program if an existing automatic waiver or self-certification option is currently available and appropriate.
Because a correction can affect Forms 1099-R, income reporting and additional taxes, taxpayers may need help from a qualified tax professional.
What the announcement does not change
The IRS announcement does not change the basic 60-day rollover rule itself.
It also does not make every service-provider mistake eligible for correction.
Eligibility depends on the specific failure, the facts surrounding it and the requirements in the applicable revenue procedure.
The IRS has also not announced that taxpayers can automatically avoid income tax or the 10% additional tax whenever an IRA transaction is corrected.
Tax reporting may still need to be adjusted after the IRS issues a compliance statement and the correction is completed.
Bottom line for taxpayers and plan sponsors
The October 22, 2026, announcement gives employer retirement-plan sponsors an updated correction framework that is effective now.
It also creates a future process intended to make certain IRA corrections and late-rollover waiver requests more accessible.
The most important date for IRA owners is May 1, 2027, when ICRS is scheduled to take effect.
Until then, taxpayers should continue using the existing IRS procedures and should keep complete records of any account error or missed rollover.
The IRS and Treasury are accepting comments on both correction programs, and the revenue procedures identify the topics and submission instructions for those comments.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the IRS IRA Compliance Resolution System begin?
The IRA Compliance Resolution System is scheduled to take effect on May 1, 2027.
What types of problems may qualify under the new IRA correction program?
The program covers certain eligible inadvertent failures, including specified service-provider errors involving required distributions, IRA establishment, inherited IRA transactions and some late rollovers.
Does the new program eliminate the 60-day rollover rule?
No. It creates a process for requesting a waiver in eligible cases but does not remove the underlying 60-day rollover requirement.
Are automatic waivers and self-certification still available?
Yes. The IRS says existing automatic-waiver and self-certification procedures remain available at no cost for taxpayers who meet their requirements.
When did the updated employer retirement-plan correction rules take effect?
The revised Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System became effective October 22, 2026.
Fact-Checked: Key dates and program details were verified against the IRS announcement, Revenue Procedures 2026-33 and 2026-34, and current IRS rollover-waiver guidance. ([irs.gov](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/treasury-irs-update-retirement-plan-correction-program-and-establish-correction-program-for-individual-retirement-accounts))
Disclaimer: This article is for general information and is not a substitute for individualized tax or retirement-plan advice.
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