🗓️ November 2025
Keeping HR pros updated with important compliance, benefits, and human resources information.
Table of Contents
Employee Benefit Plan Limits for 2026
This Compliance Overview includes a chart of key employee benefits limits for 2026. It also includes 2025 limits for comparison purposes. Most of these limits increased for 2026.
Inflation-adjusted Limits
- HSA contributions
- HDHP cost-sharing limits
- Health FSA pre-tax contributions
- Health FSA carryovers
- Monthly limits for transportation fringe benefit plans
- Employees’ elective deferrals to 401(k) plans, both pre-tax and Roth
- Tax exclusion for adoption assistance benefits
Dependent Care FSA Limit
- Effective for taxable years beginning after 2025, the annual contribution limit for dependent care FSAs increases to $7,500 (or $3,750 for married individuals filing separate tax returns).
- This limit is not indexed for inflation so it will stay the same going forward, unless it is adjusted by future legislation.
Form 5500 Extension Filing
ERISA welfare plans with 100 or more plan participants as of the first day of the plan year were required to file IRS Form 5500 by the last day of the seventh month following the end of the plan year. Employers that needed more time were able to request an extension of up to 2.5 months by filing Form 5558 by the original due date. This moved the deadline to October 15 for a calendar-year plan.
Medicare Part D Credible Coverage Disclosure Notices
The annual coordinated election period for Medicare Part D begins on October 15 each year. It runs through December 7, with any coverage changes taking effect on January 1 of the following year.
During this period, also known as the Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) or Open Enrollment, beneficiaries can:
- Enroll in a Part D prescription drug plan for the first time.
- Switch from one Part D plan to another.
- Change from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage Plan.
- Switch from a Medicare Advantage plan back to Original Medicare.
Employer Considerations
Group health plans that provided prescription drug coverage to Medicare Part D eligible individuals were required to disclose whether that coverage was creditable or not creditable before the start of the annual coordinated election period for Medicare Part D. Model disclosure notices are available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) website.
Question of the Month
Q. Is there any precedent that would allow a member to enroll in a group medical plan due to the government shutdown?
The employee is enrolled in a spouse’s Tricare plan and was told by a Tricare physician that she may not be able to receive all of her maternity check-ups due to the government shutdown. Could this be considered a qualifying life event allowing enrollment in an employer’s health plan outside of open enrollment?
A. On its face, the government shutdown, and potential ramifications to Tricare, is not a qualifying life event. That said, there is a qualifying life event for a “significant curtailment of coverage” under a plan. For example, if a PPO includes two hospital systems in one town, and one hospital system leaves the plan, that could be a significant curtailment of coverage triggering a qualifying life event. Arguably, if the government shutdown impacts Tricare so much as to create a significant curtailment of coverage, then I could see an employer saying it is a qualifying life event. The risk with that argument is that no one knows how long the government shutdown will last. If the shutdown lasts six months, the argument that it constitutes a significant curtailment of coverage is pretty strong. But if the shutdown ends tomorrow, the IRS would likely disagree that a two-week shutdown constituted a significant curtailment. And of course, no one can predict the future and know for sure when the shutdown will end.
So conservatively, the government shutdown is not a qualifying life event. But the longer it goes on, a more aggressive argument would be that the shutdown is causing a significant curtailment of coverage under Tricare and therefore is a qualifying life event.
Answers to the Question of the Month are provided by Kutak Rock LLP. Kutak Rock provides general compliance guidance through the UBA Compliance Help Desk, which does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. Please consult your legal advisor for specific legal advice.
