Can I Use My Hsa For My Girlfriend

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Can I utilize my HSA for my spouse?

Carla Fried
November 13, 2019
four min read

There are some technicalities that continue with getting married - and adding your spouse to your wellness care plan may be ane of them. Merely can you use money that you saved upwardly before you got married on your spouse?

Among the many benefits (emotional, fiscal and otherwise) to getting married, favorable handling when information technology comes to health insurance is one of them. Even if you or your spouse'southward employer doesn't fleck in for dependent premiums, the monthly cost of a family plan is almost always lower than it would be to embrace each individual separately.

In addition to the ability to share a family program, getting married affords y'all another financial do good: the power to apply your spouse'south HSA for your health costs. You don't even have to share a health plan in club to access those funds, nor are you restricted to using deposits that accrued subsequently y'all were married.

Here are the basic HSA rules as they apply to spouses and dependents.

Rule 1: Your annual contributions limit is based on who is covered under your high deductible health plan (HDHP)

The IRS sets annual contribution limits for HSAs based on whether you have an individual or a family account and health plan. If you accept an individual HDHP as your health insurance, and your spouse has their own wellness insurance plan through another source, you can only contribute up to the individual contribution limits to your HSA. Fifty-fifty if your spouse is using your HSA for their qualified medical expenses.

Another matter to note: y'all can simply contribute to your HSA as long as your HDHP is your only wellness insurance. If you have supplemental health insurance through your spouse'due south plan, you are ineligible to contribute to your business relationship while that coverage is still active. But even if you are ineligible to contribute, you have full access to utilize the contributions yous've already fabricated.

If you and your spouse have a family unit HDHP, then you tin can contribute up to the family contribution limit.

Rule 2: Yous tin can only use your HSA to pay for current qualified medical expenses

While you lot tin use any savings you lot clustered prior to getting married to pay for your spouse'southward current or future qualified medical expenses, yous can't use it to pay for annihilation in the by.

So, for example, if your spouse had knee surgery the twelvemonth before you got married and if subsequently you lot're married, he or she is still paying off the medical bills associated with that surgery, you can't use your HSA to pay for them. Whatever expenses for which y'all take a disbursement from your HSA must have been incurred after you got married.

Rule iii: All withdrawals for your spouse's medical expenses are tax-free

Every bit long as you utilize your HSA to pay for your spouse's qualified medical expenses, those withdrawals remain tax-free. Just as they would exist if you had withdrawn the money to pay for your own. If you lot're under the age of 65 and use your HSA to pay for something that isn't a qualified medical expense, you volition take to pay income taxes on the withdrawn amount besides equally an additional xx% tax penalty.

Dominion four: Once you turn 65, you tin can utilise your HSA on whatever you desire

Once you turn 65, your HSA operates similar a normal retirement business relationship. That means you can use your money on any y'all desire for y'all and your spouse. You just have to pay income taxes on the disbursed corporeality unless you use your money to pay for qualified medical expenses, which are always tax-free.

If your spouse is 65 but yous're anile 64 or under, and yous are the owner of the HSA, you tin can withal simply utilise your savings to pay for qualified medical expenses. If you use your money for anything else, you'll be subject to the 20% additional tax penalisation.

How to increase your HSA balance faster

If you've just gotten married and all of a sudden there's a whole other person or persons at present utilizing your HSA, you might experience as though your annual contribution doesn't become as far every bit it used to. Hither are a couple ways to make sure you accept the money yous need for the expenses you lot have:

Increase your almanac contribution. If you're non currently contributing up to the almanac limit, consider maxing out your contributions if it's inside your budget.
Add your spouse to your wellness plan. If yous're maxing out your annual individual contributions and feel like y'all need to save more money, consider adding your spouse to your HDHP. Fifty-fifty if they use the medical organisation frequently, the added revenue enhancement-free money you could save might get-go any additional cost.
Invest your contributions. If you take an HSA like Lively that enables you to invest your contributions in the market, you lot should have full advantage of this offer. The stock market has an boilerplate annual growth of around x% (the bodily number varies from year to year), and the current boilerplate interest charge per unit for savings accounts is effectually 0.06% (every bit of Nov 2021). By investing even half of your HSA contributions and leaving the rest for medical expenses, you can grow your money much faster than by having information technology sit in a savings account.

Whether yous've just gotten married or yous've been married for years, your HSA can exist a not bad mode to assist pay for your spouse's medical costs. If y'all want to open an HSA or find out more than, go far impact with us at Lively.