What are the deadlines for the ACA&039s open enrollment period?

Q. What is the deadline to enroll in ACA-compliant health insurance coverage for 2023 in the individual market?

a. open enrollment for 2023 health coverage begins in almost all states on november 1, 2022. (some exceptions: starts october 15 in idaho and november 16 in new york and california , open enrollment begins November 1 but existing members can begin renewing their coverage beginning October 1).

Reading: When is health insurance open enrollment 2019

In most states, open enrollment for 2023 coverage will end on January 15, 2023.

And in most states, December 15 is the deadline to get a plan that goes into effect January 1; registrations completed in the second half of December and the first half of January are effective on February 1.

Open enrollment used to end on December 15 in most states, but the Biden administration added a one-month extension that took effect for the 2022 plan year and will continue to be used going forward. this applies to all 33 states that use healthcare.gov. the other 17 states and dc are free to follow that same schedule, most do, or set their own schedule.

Whole state exchanges are the only ones that have the ability to extend open enrollment on their own (in all other states the decision must come from cms as the extension must be issued through healthcare.gov), and most of them have chosen to do it every year. But now that HHS has extended the healthcare.gov deadline to January 15 for 2022 and future years, many of the state exchanges are using that date instead of issuing additional extensions.

outside the open registration window here, registration is only available with a qualifying event

After open enrollment ends, people can typically only purchase coverage if they have a special enrollment period triggered by a qualifying event such as:

marriage (since 2017, this generally only applies if at least one of the spouses already had coverage before the wedding, although there are some exceptions),
become a US citizen,
birth or adoption,
involuntary loss of other health coverage.
a permanent move to an area where new health plans are available (as of July 2016, this only applies in most cases if you already had coverage before you moved).
here is a complete guide to qualifying events in the individual market and their associated special entry periods.

Regardless of whether you purchase insurance through the Exchange or outside of the Exchange, the annual open enrollment window applies and special enrollment periods are required to enroll at any other time of the year.

open enrollment hours have varied over time

Although open enrollment is now set from November 1 to January 15 in most states, it has varied quite a bit over the years. In federally run markets, the following enrollment windows have been used (with some last-minute extensions and with slightly different hours used by state-run markets):

2014 coverage: October 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014
2015 coverage: November 15, 2014 to February 15, 2015
2016 coverage: from November 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016
2017 coverage: from November 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017
2018 coverage: November 1, 2017 to December 15, 2017
2019 coverage: November 1, 2018 to December 15, 2018
2020 coverage: November 1, 2019 to December 15, 2019
2021 coverage: November 1, 2020 to December 15, 2020
2022 coverage: November 1, 2021 to January 15, 2022
2023 coverage: November 1, 2022 to January 15, 2023

Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006. She has written dozens of opinion pieces and educational articles on the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org. Ella’s updates from the state health insurance market are regularly cited by the media covering health reform and by other health insurance experts.