Why the gap exists
The gap is an accident of issuance history, not policy. The Treasury sold 20-year TIPS from 2004 through 2009 and then discontinued the term; it reintroduced 30-year TIPS in February 2010. That leaves a hole: the last 20-year issues matured by the end of the 2020s' horizon, the first of the reintroduced 30-year bonds doesn't mature until 2040, and 10-year issuance only reaches ten years out. As of 2026, outstanding TIPS cover every maturity year through 2036 and every year from 2040 out to the mid-2050s — with nothing in between.
The gap is closing on a fixed schedule
Because a new 10-year TIPS is auctioned every year (new issues each January and July, with reopenings between), the gap fills itself one year at a time: the 10-year bonds auctioned in 2027 will mature in 2037, the 2028 auctions cover 2038, and the 2029 auctions cover 2039. By 2029 the gap will be gone for new buyers. The problem only bites if you need those income years funded now.
Workaround one: plan the future purchases
If your ladder's gap years are more than a year or two away — which is true for almost everyone building a ladder in 2026, since 2037 is over a decade out — the cleanest answer is to fund every other rung today and budget cash for the 2027, 2028, and 2029 ten-year auctions. You give up locking today's real yield on those three rungs, which is a genuine cost if yields fall, but you take no interest-rate risk and no complexity. Write the three auction dates down and treat them as scheduled purchases.
Workaround two: double up the shoulders
Buy extra principal in 2036 and 2040 and spread the maturing money across the gap years. This funds the gap at today's known yields, but the 2036 proceeds intended for 2037–2039 spending sit in nominal instruments (T-bills, a CD) for one to three years — which strips the inflation protection off exactly the dollars you were trying to protect. Over one year the exposure is modest; over three it is not nothing. This is the pragmatic choice for ladders that must be fully funded today.
Workaround three: buy long and plan to sell
Hold 2040-or-later maturities earmarked for the gap years and sell them as each gap year arrives. This keeps every dollar in TIPS, but an early sale happens at whatever the market price is that day — reintroducing the interest-rate risk a hold-to-maturity ladder exists to eliminate. If real yields have risen when you sell, you realize a loss on that rung. Treat this as the workaround of last resort, or as a deliberate bet you understand.
Our ladder calculator flags the gap years directly in its output table and prices them at interpolated yields as planning placeholders for workaround one — so the total cost you see already reflects a plan for the gap, not a pretense that it doesn't exist.
Which one should you pick?
A reasonable default: workaround one if your gap-year spending is more than ~3 years away (that is, for everyone starting now — set reminders for the 2027–2029 auctions); workaround two if you need the whole ladder locked today and can accept a short nominal bridge; workaround three only if you would hold long TIPS anyway. Whatever you choose, decide explicitly. The most expensive option is discovering the gap after you thought the ladder was finished.