If you repaid all or part of a qualified disaster distribution from your IRA or retirement plan, you'll generally report that repayment on IRS Form 8915-F, Qualified Disaster Retirement Plan Distributions and Repayments. Form 8915-F is the IRS form used to report qualified disaster distributions and any repayments related to those distributions.
Note: The deduction for most personal casualty and theft losses was suspended by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for tax years 2018 through 2025. This rule does not affect the reporting of qualified disaster distribution repayments.
Do I Have to Repay My Qualified Disaster Distribution?
No. Repayment is generally optional.
If your qualified disaster distribution is eligible to be treated as a tax-free rollover, you may choose to repay all or part of the amount to an eligible retirement plan or IRA. Repaying the distribution can reduce or eliminate the taxable income associated with the withdrawal.
You have three years from the day after you received the distribution to complete the repayment.
A repayment qualifies when:
- The repaid amount is treated similarly to a trustee-to-trustee transfer.
- The repayment is not included in income.
- A repayment to an IRA is not treated as a regular IRA rollover, so it does not count toward the IRA one-rollover-per-year limitation.
Use Form 8915-F to report any eligible repayments. For qualified disaster distributions from 2021 and later, Form 8915-F replaced earlier disaster-related forms, including Form 8915-E.
Disaster Distribution Repayments That Can't Be Repaid
According to IRS rules, the following distributions aren't eligible for repayment:
- Qualified disaster distributions received as a beneficiary (other than a surviving spouse).
- Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs).
- Certain periodic payments from non-IRA retirement plans that are paid:
- Over a period of 10 years or more,
- Based on your life expectancy,
- Based on the joint life expectancies of you and your beneficiary.
Program Entry
When entering your retirement income information:
- Enter your Form 1099-R as received (Federal>Income>1099-R, RRB, and SSA)
- Indicate that the distribution was related to a qualified disaster, if applicable.
- Report any eligible repayment amount you made within the allowable repayment period.
- Complete Form 8915-F as part of your tax return (Federal>Income>Form 8915-F)
Your repayment may reduce the taxable portion of the disaster distribution or allow you to recover taxes paid in prior years, depending on your situation.
What If I Used the Funds to Buy or Build a Home?
A special repayment rule applied to certain distributions related to the Alaska (FEMA 4585-DR-AK) disaster. Under that temporary provision, taxpayers who received a qualified distribution on January 1, 2021, to purchase or construct a main home in a qualified 2020 disaster area could choose to repay the distribution by June 25, 2021.
This was a limited, disaster-specific exception and does not apply to most current disaster distributions.
You may have qualified for that special treatment only if all of the following were true:
- The distribution was received on January 1, 2021.
- The distribution was not repaid before June 26, 2021.
- The distribution otherwise met the requirements for a qualified 2020 disaster distribution.
Need More Information?
For detailed repayment and reporting rules, see the current Instructions for Form 8915-F on the IRS website. Form 8915-F is the IRS's ongoing form for reporting qualified disaster retirement plan distributions and repayments.