When your FSA money runs out of time
An FSA has a deadline, and the deadline is not the same for everyone: plan years end on different dates, some plans add a grace period, some let an amount carry over, and all of that lives in plan documents most people read once. This page holds your own dates in one place and counts the days to them.
How it works
- 1Enter what is in the account and the date your plan year ends
- 2Add a grace period or a carryover amount only if your own plan documents say you have one
- 3Take the dates with you, on a printed sheet or as two entries in your calendar
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us or stored.
Most plan years end on 31 December, but not all of them do. Your plan documents or your benefits portal will say.
Some plans add a grace period, and some allow an amount to carry over. Neither is automatic, and the rules are not the same from one employer to the next. Take both of these from your own plan documents rather than from anywhere else.
Both marks are behind you, so there is nothing ahead to add.
Prints on one page. Nothing is sent anywhere to make it.
What happens to what is left
Funds your plan does not carry over are returned to your employer after the deadline. How much that tends to be, across a lot of accounts:
EBRI looked at more than 3.2 million flexible spending accounts and found that roughly half of FSA accountholders forfeited funds to their employer in 2022. The average forfeiture was $441.
References to these organizations do not imply endorsement of or affiliation with LifQ.
The dates above came out of a plan document. LifQ keeps those documents together for the whole household, so next year you are not hunting for the same PDF.
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