Wash Sale Calculator & Tracker

Wash sale questions

When can I buy a stock back after selling it at a loss?

On the 31st calendar day after the trade date of your loss sale. The wash sale rule (IRC §1091) looks at the 30 days before the sale, the sale day itself and the 30 days after it. A purchase of the same or a substantially identical security anywhere in that span disallows the loss for now. When day 31 lands on a weekend or an NYSE holiday, the first day you can actually trade is the next market day. The calculator shows both dates.

Do purchases made before the sale count?

Yes. The window reaches back 30 days before the loss sale, so a buy made a few weeks earlier can wash the loss you take today. The exception is selling those same recently bought shares in full: nothing is left over to act as the replacement. Add your buys to the trade and the calculator checks the look-back for you.

Does dividend reinvestment trigger a wash sale?

It can. An automatic dividend reinvestment is a purchase. If the stock pays a dividend inside your window, the reinvested shares wash part of the loss, matched share for share. Weekly and monthly payers almost always pay inside a 61-day window. Turning off DRIP for that stock before you sell, until the window closes, avoids it.

What happens if I buy the stock back in an IRA?

The loss is gone for good. Under IRS Revenue Ruling 2008-5, a repurchase in your IRA or Roth IRA, or your spouse's, disallows the loss and does not add it to the IRA's basis, so it never comes back. An ordinary wash sale only defers the loss into the cost basis of the new shares.

Can I use this for tax-loss harvesting?

Yes — that is the main job. In a tax harvest you sell at a loss to capture the deduction, and the wash sale rule is what can cancel it. Run every tax-loss harvest sale through this page: enter the sale, get the first safe buy-back day, and save the trade so any later buy on that ticker is checked against your tax loss harvesting plan automatically.

Which date counts: the trade date or the settlement date?

The trade date: the day your order executed, as printed on your broker confirmation. Pre-market and after-hours fills keep that calendar day. Trades in overnight sessions (8 PM to 4 AM Eastern) are usually booked to the next trading day, so check the confirmation.