What are the deadlines for the ACA’s open enrollment period?

What is the deadline to enroll in 2026 ACA-compliant health insurance coverage in the individual market?

Open enrollment for individual/family health coverage for 2026 will begin November 1, 2025. In most states, it will continue through January 15, 2026, although some states that run their own health insurance exchanges will have different deadlines.

(See below for open enrollment schedules that were used by state-run exchanges for 2025 coverage; these could change for 2026 coverage and this page will be updated as open enrollment gets closer.)

Open enrollment dates are changing in the fall of 2026

The federal government had proposed a new open enrollment schedule, running from November 1 through December 15, starting in the fall of 2025. But the final rule, which was published in June 2025, delayed that provision by a year. Starting in the fall of 2026, open enrollment will be shorter and will end on December 15 in many states.¹

What was the deadline to enroll in 2025 ACA-compliant health insurance coverage in the individual market?

Open enrollment for 2025 coverage began in nearly every state on November 1 (it began on October 15 in Idaho²). In most states, open enrollment ended on January 15, but there were some exceptions:

• Open enrollment ended in December in Idaho.
• In Virginia, open enrollment ended on January 22 after a last-minute extension. The deadline was previously set at Jan. 15.
• In Massachusetts, open enrollment ended on January 23.
• In California, New Jersey, and New York, open enrollment ended on January 31.
• In Washington DC, open enrollment ended February 7, after a last-minute extension³ (it normally ends January 31 in DC)
• In Rhode Island, open enrollment ended on February 28 (a one-time extension due to a security breach;⁴ HealthSource RI continued to offer enrollment flexibility after February 28 to people affected by the security breach)
  

What was the deadline to get a January 1, 2025 effective date for individual health insurance?

In most states – including Minnesota,⁵ Maine,⁶ and the District of Columbia,⁷ and the 31 states that use HealthCare.gov – December 18, 2024 was the deadline to get a plan that took effect January 1, 2025.⁸ Enrollments completed on or after December 19 took effect February 1 instead. (Note that this was an extension; the normal deadline in most states is December 15.) But there were some later deadlines for a January 1 effective date:

• In California,⁹ Maryland,¹⁰ Nevada,¹¹ New Jersey,¹² New Mexico,¹³ Rhode Island,¹⁴ and Virginia,¹⁵ coverage took effect on January 1 as long as the application was completed by December 31.
• In Idaho,¹⁶ the deadline for a January 1 effective date was publicized as December 16. But there were questions about why Idaho's enrollment window was not extended to comply with rules that CMS finalized in 2024. We followed up with Your Health Idaho (the state-run Marketplace) and they clarified by email that anyone who missed the December 16 deadline "can contact our support center to enroll." The phone number for the Your Health Idaho call center is 855-944-3246. To comply with the federal rules that require open enrollment to last at least 11 weeks, Your Health Idaho had to keep this option open until December 31.
• In Massachusetts, the deadline for a January 1 effective date was December 23.¹⁷
• In Georgia, the deadline for a January 1 effective date was December 20.¹⁸

The rest of the state-run exchanges – Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington – switched to enrolling people in coverage with a February 1 effective date starting on December 16 (Colorado and Kentucky had last-minute extensions to their normal December 15 deadline for a January 1 effective date, if applicants called the exchange for assistance; those extensions ended within a few days).

These deadlines can change from one year to the next, so never assume that your state will allow a January 1 effective date if you enroll after December 15; always double-check, even if that option was available in previous years. Also note that starting with 2027 coverage, January 1 will be the only allowable effective date for all plans selected during open enrollment.¹⁹

What states had a January 15 open enrollment deadline for 2025 health insurance?

In 43 states, the deadline to enroll in individual/family health coverage for 2025 was January 15. Most of these states use HealthCare.gov and thus do not have the discretion to set their enrollment dates. But 13 of the 20 state-run exchange platforms used the same enrollment schedule:²⁰

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Colorado (state-run exchange)
• Connecticut (state-run exchange)
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia (state-run exchange as of 2025 plan year)
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky (state-run exchange)
• Louisiana
• Maine (state-run exchange)
• Maryland (state-run exchange)
• Michigan
• Minnesota (state-run exchange)
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nebraska
• Nevada (state-run exchange)
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico (state-run exchange)
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania (state-run exchange)
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Vermont (state-run exchange)
• Washington (state-run exchange)
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming
  

What states did not have a January 15 deadline to enroll in 2025 health insurance?

Fully state-run exchanges (there are 20 of them for the 2025 plan year) have some flexibility in terms of the enrollment deadlines they set. The majority of these state-run exchanges have been using a November 1 - January 15 schedule (as noted above, this will change starting in the fall of 2026). However, some state-run exchanges have different enrollment windows. Here are the enrollment deadlines used by the rest of the state-run exchanges for 2025 coverage:²⁰

• California: January 31
• District of Columbia: February 7 (last-minute extension; normal end date is January 31)²¹
• Idaho: December 16 (enrollments via the call center were accepted until December 31)
• Massachusetts: January 23
• New Jersey: January 31
• New York: January 31 (enrollments completed after January 15 took effect March 1)
• Rhode Island: February 28 (normal end date was January 31, but enrollment for 2025 was extended due to a security breach)
• Virginia: January 22 (last-minute extension)
  

Who can enroll in ACA-compliant health plans year-round?

Year-round enrollment is available for some populations and for some types of health coverage, without a need for a specific qualifying life event. This includes:

• • American Indians and Alaska Natives
  • Coverage under the Basic Health Programs in New York, Minnesota, and Oregon
  • Coverage under the ConnectorCare program in Massachusetts, for people who are newly eligible or who haven't enrolled before
  • Coverage under Connecticut's Covered Connecticut program
  • People who are eligible for the low-income special enrollment period (available in most states, but this special enrollment period will become unavailable, nationwide, from August 25, 2025 through the end of 2026)²²
  • Applicants who are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP can enroll year-round.