Form 5500 Data, Cleaned and Connected
Every private-sector retirement plan in the U.S. files a Form 5500 with the Department of Labor each year. The filings are public, but raw they're hard to use. RetireFax cleans them, connects them across years and checks them against the source.
Coverage
- Plan years 2015–2024, updated as the Department of Labor releases new filings.
- 1.3 million plans and 1.19 million sponsoring employers: 401(k), 403(b), pension, cash balance, ESOP and other ERISA plans.
- Provider and lineup detail for large plans. Plans with roughly 100 or more participants file Schedules C and H and an audit. Smaller plans file a short form without providers or holdings.
- Not included: government plans and most church plans, which don't file a Form 5500.
Sources
- Form 5500 and 5500-SF
- Plan, sponsor, plan type, participants, assets, contributions, expenses and features such as auto-enrollment.
- Schedule C
- Service providers paid $5,000 or more: recordkeepers, advisors, auditors, trustees, with direct and indirect pay.
- Schedule H
- Large plans' financial statements: assets by type (mutual funds, collective trusts, pooled accounts, company stock), income and expenses.
- Schedule D
- The collective trusts, pooled separate accounts and master trusts a plan invests through.
- Schedule A
- Insurance contracts, the insurer and commissions.
- Audited Financial Statements
- The fund-by-fund lineup with year-end dollars, read from the accountant's report filed with the plan's Form 5500.
- SEC Fund Lists
- Registered funds, share classes and tickers, used to tie lineup lines to the right fund.
Filings by Plan Year
Every plan that filed, and the large plans that file full financial statements, provider lists and an audit. The drop in large plans from 2023 is a rule change: since then, defined contribution plans count only participants with an account balance, so fewer plans count as large.
Large plans (full financials) All plans
2024 filings are still arriving; late filers add to the latest year.
Raw Filings vs. RetireFax
| Raw Government Data | RetireFax | |
|---|---|---|
| Firm Names | Dozens of spellings and legal entities for one firm | One firm, followed through sales and rebrands |
| Plan History | One filing at a time; breaks when a plan changes its number or tax ID | Ten years linked into one record |
| Amended Filings | Originals and amendments side by side | The right version chosen for each year |
| Fund Lineups | Inside a PDF attachment | Read line by line, totaled against the form, tied to funds |
| Sponsors | Each plan on its own | Every plan a company files, together |
| Search | One plan at a time | Across all 1.3 million plans, by size, place, provider or fund |
How It's Cleaned
One Plan, One History
A plan keeps its history when it changes its name, its plan number or its sponsor's tax ID. Amended filings replace the original, and duplicate filings are set aside.
One Name per Firm
Each provider's many spellings and legal entities are merged into one firm, and a firm that was bought is followed to its buyer. A sale or a rebrand is never counted as a plan switching.
Flags Instead of Guesses
When a filing's numbers don't add up, or its years don't connect, the plan is flagged and the figures are shown as filed. A blank means not reported, never zero.
Checked on Every Build
More than 200 automated checks run each time the data is rebuilt. If one fails, nothing is published.
How We Know It's Right
- Totals match the government's. For plan years ending in 2022, our totals are within about 1% of the Department of Labor's Private Pension Plan Bulletin: $10.89 trillion in assets vs. $11.00 trillion, and 103.5 million active participants vs. 103.9 million. The Bulletin adjusts for late filers and leaves out one-participant plans, so a small gap is expected.
- Filings match the filing system. We spot-checked 2,213 plan-years, chosen at random across every kind of plan, against the Department of Labor's EFAST2 search. Plan year, participants and assets matched on every filing found there.
- The filings' own math holds. 99.98% of filings add up, and 99.94% of consecutive years connect (each year opens where the last one closed).
See It on Your Own Plans
A 30-minute walkthrough on the plans, providers and funds you sell to.