Editorial policy

What we accept as a source

Federal rules come from the statute itself: section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code as published on govinfo.gov, and Public Law 119-21 of July 4, 2025 read on congress.gov for the 2026 changes, with IRS Publication 970 and the IRS questions and answers on 529 plans for how the IRS applies them. State rules come from the state: the revenue department's return instructions, schedules and FAQs, the statute, or the disclosure document of the plan the state sponsors. Rankings sites, broker articles and forums tell us what parents ask; they never supply a number.

One row per state, with its date

Each state's rule is one record: the kind of benefit, the cap and what it is counted per, the parity rule, the income limit, the carryforward, and how the state treats K-12 withdrawals, Roth rollovers, student loan payments and money leaving for another plan. Each record lists the pages it was read on and the date. When a state's own text leaves a point open, the record says "not stated" rather than guessing.

How a figure reaches a page

Nothing is typed into the prose: every cap, rate and result is computed from the data files when the site is built. The bracket tables of each state and the federal 2026 thresholds are covered by automated tests, so a mistyped number stops the build instead of reaching a reader.

Assumptions are labeled

Investment returns and the yearly rise of college costs are not rules. They are inputs you can change, labeled as assumptions next to each result.

Independence

Radif Partners takes no money from plan managers, brokers, advisers or rankings services and links to none of them. There is no advertising today; if some arrives it will be labeled, limited to three slots a page, and never come from a firm that sells 529 plans or advice.

Review and corrections

The site is reviewed at least every 12 months, after each state legislative session (most end between March and June), when the IRS publishes the next year's inflation figures in the fall, and in January when states post their new forms. A reported error is checked against the state's text; once fixed, the state's date moves. Write through the contact page; formulas are on the method page.