Methodology
This page describes every step between the Department of Labor's files and a figure on this site. Filings received through 24 Aug 2026 are included. The benchmark year, used for all peer medians, is plan year 2024: the most recent form year holding at least 90% as many large plans as the year before it.
Which filings are used
- Pension plans only: filings with at least one pension characteristics code (1x, 2x or 3x) on line 8a. Welfare plans and direct filing entities (master trusts, collective trusts and similar) are excluded.
- One filing per plan per form year. Where a short plan year puts two filings in one form year, the one with the later plan year end is kept. Amended filings replace the original when EBSA refreshes its files.
- A plan is identified by the sponsor's EIN and the three-digit plan number. When a filing reports a previous EIN or plan number, the earlier years filed under that identity are joined to the plan's history.
- "Plan year 2024" means a plan year that began in 2024.
Which plans have pages
- 100 or more total participants at plan year end (line 6f; the beginning-of-year count where 6f is blank).
- A filing for one of the two most recent form years (2024 or 2025). Plans that stopped filing earlier are not shown.
- The sponsor is an organisation. Sponsors whose name reads as a natural person, including professional practices named for an individual, are excluded at ingest, along with any plan whose own name carries a professional title. For plan year 2024 that removed 578 plans. The screen errs toward exclusion, so some trade names built from surnames are also missing.
- Plans with fewer than two filings on record are built but marked noindex.
Measures
| Measure | Definition |
|---|---|
| Net assets per participant | Schedule H net assets at end of year, divided by total participants at end of year. Includes former employees and beneficiaries with balances. |
| Employer contributions per active participant | Schedule H employer contributions received or receivable, divided by active participants at end of year. Plans with no employer contribution count as zero. |
| Schedule C compensation per participant | Direct plus indirect compensation reported on Schedule C Part I line 2 for organisations, divided by total participants. Computed only where the amount is above zero. |
| Schedule C compensation, share of net assets | The same amount divided by net assets at end of year. |
| Administrative expenses per participant | Schedule H total administrative expenses divided by total participants, where above zero. |
Peer groups, medians and percentiles
Defined benefit plans (any 1x code) and defined contribution plans (all others) are never mixed. Within each type a plan is compared with three groups from the benchmark year: plans in the same size band (100 to 249; 250 to 499; 500 to 999; 1,000 to 4,999; 5,000 to 24,999; 25,000 or more participants), plans in the same industry sector (first two digits of the business code, with manufacturing, retail and transportation each combined), and all US plans of the type. Medians need at least five plans; percentiles need at least twenty. A percentile is the share of peer plans at or below the plan's value. It describes position only: a high position on a fee measure can reflect more services bought through the plan instead of through fund expenses, and says nothing about value.
If a plan has filed for the benchmark year, that filing is the one compared. If its only recent filing is for a later year, those figures are compared with benchmark-year peers and the page says so.
Providers
Schedule C rows are grouped by the provider's EIN. Rows without an EIN join the EIN most often filed under the same normalised name; otherwise they are grouped by name. The display name is the spelling most plans used. A provider has a page when 25 or more plans with 100+ participants name it for the benchmark year. Rows carrying the service codes for individual trustees, plan employees and sponsor employees (20, 30, 35), and rows whose name reads as a person, are dropped before anything is stored; their compensation is not included in any total. The "role" shown for a provider is the group of service codes most often attached to it.
Employers
An employer page groups the plans filed under one EIN when two or more of them have pages. Subsidiaries that file under their own EIN are separate employers. Participant totals count records, so a person in two plans is counted twice.
State, industry and size pages
Totals (plans, participants, assets, contributions, benefits) cover every pension plan on the full Form 5500 in the group, large or small. Medians and plan lists cover plans with 100 or more participants. The state is that of the sponsor's address. Small plans on Form 5500-SF are reported as a separate count. Business code labels are those printed in the Form 5500 instructions; codes from older lists appear by number. An industry code has a page at 20 or more large plans.
Trends
History rows for a plan are the years in which it filed the full form with 100 or more participants and the sponsor passed the organisation screen. Dollar amounts in histories are rounded to the nearest thousand. From plan year 2023 the Department of Labor counts only participants with account balances when deciding whether a defined contribution plan is "large", which moved several thousand plans to the short form and lowers every count of large plans from that year.
Known limits
- Schedule C understates cost. Fund expense ratios, revenue sharing disclosed by formula ("eligible indirect compensation") and fees paid by the employer carry no dollar amount.
- Figures are as filed. Obvious entry errors (a stray extra digit, contributions entered in the wrong row) are not corrected here.
- Form 5500 does not state the match formula, the investment menu, or anything about individual participants.
- Filings lag. See why filings lag.