The Flexible Spending Account (FSA) helps save on your federal income and Social Security taxes by setting aside pretax money from your paycheck to use for eligible health care and/or dependent care expenses.
Your Choices:
You can choose to enroll in one or both accounts.*
Health care flexible spending account (FSA)
Dependent care flexible spending account (FSA)
Important: If you want to take advantage of the pretax savings of an FSA for health or dependent care expenses, you need to sign up every year during open enrollment (re-enrollment is not automatic!)
Enrolling in an FSA? Check out the information below to decide your 2027 contribution level.
*If you enroll in the High Deductible Health Plan, a health care savings account (HSA) is built into the plan, so you are ineligible to enroll in an additional health care FSA. However, you can choose to enroll in a dependent care FSA.
Questions?
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Plan Details:
2027 Contribution Levels
Health care FSA*: $3,400
The annual limit for FSA health care per employee is $3,400. This does not include any rollover dollars from the previous year.
If you and your spouse each have a health care FSA, you can each contribute up to $3,400.
*The IRS has not confirmed an increase to the 2027 maximum contribution before this open enrollment.
Dependent care FSA: $7,500
If you and your spouse each have a dependent care FSA, you are limited to $7,500 between the two of you. If you're married and filing taxes separately, your contribution limit is $3,750.
Health Savings Account (HSA): $3,500
(only for members of the Aetna High Deductible Health Plan)
If you're enrolled in the High Deductible Health Plan, Cornell contributes $1,000 each year into your HSA.
If you're covered as an individual, you can contribute up to $3,500; the maximum contribution including Cornell's contribution is $4,500. Families can contribute up to $8,000 -- the maximum contribution including Cornell's contribution is $9,000.
If you're age 55 or older, you can contribute an additional $1,000.
Visit these convenient resource pages on the Inspira website to learn more about how spending accounts work and what expenses are eligible or ineligible:
You should assess your needs carefully for both the health care and dependent care flexible spending accounts and take advantage of all the tax savings you can reasonably estimate.
For the plan year 2027, up to $680 of unused money in your 2026 health care FSA account will be rolled over into your 2027 account to be used for eligible health care expenses.
The $680 rollover does not offset the 2027 election amount available. The rollover does not apply to the FSA dependent care account.
The IRS allows Cornell to extend the time that dependent care flexible spending account participants can incur and submit claims for reimbursement. For example, if your 2027 dependent care annual amount is $7,500, you have until March 15, 2028 to incur additional expenses that can be used for reimbursement against your 2027 annual amount.
You need to submit 2026 account claims for reimbursement by April 30, 2027, otherwise the “use-it-or-lose-it” rule comes into effect and you will lose the unused funds. It is important that you submit 2026 claims prior to submitting 2027 claims so that your remaining 2026 monies will be exhausted prior to your 2027 monies being used.
