I’m not sure about IRAs, but for 401(k) you can exceed $24.5k of personal contributions by making After Tax contributions.

Then, if your 401k account supports it (Fidelity does, but I’m not sure if it depends on your company), you can have the After Tax contributions automatically converted to Roth.

The problem with After Tax is you’ve already paid taxes on it, but also have to pay taxes later on earnings (so might as well put it in a normal investment account at that point). By converting it to Roth you don’t have to pay taxes on earnings.

This applies to personal contributions. Company contributions and personal contributions combined have a higher limit ($72,000).

This is usually called “mega backdoor roth”, and from time to time there is talk about closing the loophole.