You Can Now Run a Spartan Race Using Your FSA/HSA Funds
If the cost of registering for a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder has ever given you pause, good news: You can now use funds from your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) to cover race registration costs. Spartan has partnered with Flex, a platform that enables HSA/FSA payments between fitness and wellness brands, to make this possible.
How Using Your FSA to Pay for a Ride Works
A quick refresher on how HSA and FSA accounts work: Both are funded with pre-tax dollars, meaning the money goes into them before the IRS takes its cut. When you spend these funds on a qualifying purchase, you effectively receive a rebate equal to your tax rate. For most people, this translates to 30-40% savings compared to paying out of pocket. So, registering for a $150 race might only cost you $90 to $105.
How to use your HSA/FSA to register for a race
The process is simple: If you have an HSA or FSA debit card, it works much like any other payment method, where you just select it at checkout. Register for a Spartan or Tough Mudder event and pay with your HSA or FSA card. Flex then handles the eligibility check on the backend, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to prove the expense is eligible. (If you don’t have an FSA/HSA debit card or didn’t use one when you signed up, it’s unclear whether you would be able to submit your claim after the fact under this partnership; I’ve reached out to Flex and Spartan for clarification.)
The Flex partnership covers registration fees for Spartan’s portfolio of events, which includes Tough Mudder races. And it may not stop there: Spartan and Flex are reportedly looking at other ways to expand HSA/FSA eligibility to things like training programs, recovery tools and other resources for athletes. This would mean that the entire journey, from training to the finish line, could potentially be (partially) funded by pre-tax healthcare dollars.
What do you think of it so far?
The essentials
Overall, a move like this is part of a growing shift in how fitness and wellness brands think about access. Gym owner Equinox announced a similar partnership with Flex last month, allowing HSA/FSA funds to be dedicated to certain memberships, personal training, recovery services and women’s health programs. The underlying logic is the same: Fitness is an important part of preventive health, and your pre-tax health dollars should be able to contribute to that.
If you’re sitting on unused FSA funds or have accumulated an HSA balance that you haven’t fully used, signing up for a race is an unexpected but worthwhile way to use those dollars.
