Defined Benefit (Pension) · DOL Form 5500 · 2023

Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University

Data updated 2026-05-15

$2.6B
Total assets
21,020
Participants
99th
Percentile by assets
$124,494
Avg per participant

Sponsored by Duke University · North Carolina · Educational Services

What the 2023 filing shows

Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University holds $2.6B for 21,020 participants - about $124,494 per participant, among the largest 1% of all filed plans, up 5.9% over the 2023 plan year.

$2.6B
total plan assets (2023 EOY)
21,020
covered participants
99th
percentile by assets (of 126,618 plans)
$124,494
avg assets per participant
Industry
Educational Services

Defined Benefit (Pension) · DOL Form 5500 · 2023

What the Filing Says About Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University

Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University is a Defined Benefit (Pension) retirement plan sponsored by Duke University, headquartered in North Carolina. According to the U.S. Department of Labor's 2023 Form 5500 filing, the plan reports $2.6B in total end-of-year assets and covers 21,020 participants across the Educational Services industry. The sponsor's EIN on file with the U.S. Department of Labor is 560532129, and the plan has been effective since 1959-07-01. Its filing status is currently FILING RECEIVED.

Year over year, total assets grew at a solid clip from $2.5B at the beginning of 2023 to $2.6B at year-end - up 5.9%. Net assets (after liabilities) closed the year at $2.6B, with reported net income of $155M driven by investment returns, contributions received, and benefit payments during the period. These figures reflect what the plan administrator certified on Schedule H or Schedule I of the Form 5500 annual return and can be compared against 2 prior plan-year filings from the same sponsor shown below.

Across the 3 plan years Duke University has on file with PlainRetire (2022-2024), sponsor-wide plan assets have moved from $10.0B to $11.0B, a gain of 10.1%, while reported participants moved from 64,524 to 48,439 (-24.9%). The strongest year on file by total sponsor assets was 2023 at $11.6B; the softest was 2022 at $10.0B. Year-by-year, sponsor-wide filings show: 2022 - $10.0B in assets across 3 plans covering 64,524 participants; 2023 - $11.6B in assets across 3 plans covering 65,887 participants; 2024 - $11.0B in assets across 2 plans covering 48,439 participants.

By assets, Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University outranks 99% of the 126,618 plans that filed a Form 5500 for the 2023 plan year, and holds roughly 26x the national average plan size of $100M and 730 average participants.

Asset totals and participant counts reflect a single plan year snapshot and can change materially with market conditions, plan mergers, or workforce changes. Fields such as "net income" include both realized investment performance and contribution/distribution flows, a single-year figure does not by itself indicate plan health or participant outcomes. This page summarizes public DOL disclosures for research and educational purposes only and is not retirement, tax, legal, or financial advice. Before making decisions about your own retirement benefits or evaluating an employer's plan, verify the underlying filing directly via the DOL EFAST2 system and consult a qualified professional.

How the percentile is calculated: we count every plan that filed a 2023 Form 5500 with a reported end-of-year asset figure (126,618 plans), rank Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University against all of them by total assets, and report the share of those plans it outranks. A plan reporting no asset figure for the year is excluded from the ranking rather than assumed to be zero.

Financial Summary (2023)

Total Assets (Beginning of Year)$2.5B
Total Assets (End of Year)$2.6B
Net Assets (End of Year)$2.6B
Net Income$155M
Plan TypeDefined Benefit (Pension)
Employer EIN560532129
Plan Effective Date1959-07-01
Filing StatusFILING RECEIVED

Sponsor Plan History (Duke University)

Year Plans Participants Total Assets
2022 3 64,524 $10.0B
2023 3 65,887 $11.6B
2024 2 48,439 $11.0B

Nearby Defined Benefit (Pension) Plans in North Carolina

Peer Defined Benefit (Pension) plans, same state, same plan type, ranked by total assets.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money is in the Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University?
As of the 2023 Form 5500 filing, Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University holds $2.6B in total assets with 21,020 participants. It is sponsored by Duke University.
What type of plan is Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University?
Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University is a Defined Benefit (Pension) plan. It has been effective since 1959-07-01. The plan is filed with the U.S. Department of Labor under EIN 560532129.
Who sponsors the Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University?
Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University is sponsored by Duke University, located in North Carolina. The sponsor's EIN is 560532129 and the plan operates in the Educational Services industry.
How did Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University perform in 2023?
Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University grew at a solid clip - up 5.9% during 2023, moving from $2.5B to $2.6B in total assets. Net income was $155M.

What this filing means

Ways to act on Employees' Retirement Plan of Duke University's numbers.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), Form 5500 public disclosure dataset. Plan year 2023.

Source: DOL EFAST2 filing system (efast.dol.gov) - original filing retrieval by EIN 560532129.

Reference: IRS Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business, contribution-limit rules.

Reference: IRS Publication 590-B, Distributions from IRAs, RMD rules under SECURE Act 2.0.

Data sourced from U.S. Department of Labor Form 5500 filings (EBSA). See our methodology for details.

Every figure on PlainRetire is rendered directly from the Department of Labor's Form 5500 annual return filings, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-05-15.