Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: the Roth rollover is one of five doors for leftover 529 money, and it is often not the best one. The full menu: (1) change the beneficiary — free, instant, keeps compounding for a sibling, grandchild or even yourself; (2) the Roth rollover — $35k lifetime, slow, but converts education money into retirement money; (3) hold it — there is no deadline, and a future grandchild’s account opened by beneficiary change may be the highest-value use of all; (4) qualified uses you forgot — up to $10k of student loan repayment per borrower, K-12 tuition, apprenticeships; (5) nonqualified withdrawal — ordinary tax + 10% penalty on the earnings portion only, and the penalty (not the tax) is waived up to the amount of any scholarship received.
Five doors, no deadline – which is exactly why people choose badly.
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Choosing between the top two
Beneficiary change wins when family education is plausible anywhere on the horizon — it preserves every dollar and every option. The rollover wins when the education chapter is genuinely closed and the beneficiary is young enough for decades of Roth compounding. They also stack: change the beneficiary strategically, then roll from the account that best passes the 15-year test — mindful of the unresolved clock question covered there. The comparison in detail: rollover vs beneficiary change · this year’s rollover math: the calculator.
The 2026 gift figures, from the source: $19,000 per recipient per year with no return to file ($38,000 from a couple), against a lifetime exclusion of $15 million per person. Tuition and medical bills paid directly to the institution are unlimited and are not gifts at all.
For a child, the gate is earned income: a Roth IRA for kids is capped at the smaller of their earnings or the annual limit — an allowance does not count — and if you own the business paying them, the payroll exception applies only to a sole proprietorship or a parents-only partnership, never a corporation.