Biggest 401(k) Providers (2024) by Plans Served

Plan sponsors searching for the biggest 401(k) providers usually want a filing-derived answer: which recordkeepers appear most often on public Form 5500 disclosures. This ranking answers that from DOL Schedule C for plan year 2024. It is a plans-served ranking (not an assets-under-administration survey), so payroll specialists that dominate the small-plan market can outrank asset-heavy platforms that concentrate on fewer mega plans.

Top recordkeepers by plans served

# Provider Plans served Participants on those plans
1 Fidelity Investments 11,283 23,976,106
2 Empower 8,830 10,481,542
3 Principal 5,945 6,753,750
4 ADP 4,027 2,268,068
5 John Hancock 2,850 1,664,765
6 Vanguard 2,627 3,775,924
7 Transamerica 2,084 2,154,911
8 Voya 1,691 2,604,191
9 TIAA 1,260 1,561,820
10 Ascensus 1,237 490,636
11 The Standard (Stancorp) 1,222 643,004
12 Charles Schwab 1,049 1,435,909
13 Capital Group 906 512,981
14 T. Rowe Price 902 2,336,820
15 OneAmerica 886 526,622
16 Merrill Lynch (Bank of America) 768 3,917,734
17 Newport Group 763 370,324
18 Paychex 590 951,549
19 Milliman 448 872,130
20 Alerus 392 141,587
21 Alight Solutions 226 2,846,171
22 Ameritas 218 160,990

Methodology

Source files: DOL Form 5500 Schedule C Part 1 Item 2 (provider name, EIN, relation, compensation) plus Part 1 Item 2 Codes (service codes), joined to PlainRetire’s 2024 plan table on ACK_ID. Provider name strings are normalized through a curated EIN map and brand patterns (Fidelity, Empower, Vanguard, Principal, Alight, Voya, Transamerica, ADP, TIAA, John Hancock, Schwab, Merrill Lynch, T. Rowe Price, Ascensus, Paychex, The Standard, OneAmerica, and peers). Unmapped literal strings remain separate buckets and are excluded from the published top list until they clear a 50-plan floor and a mapped alias. External spot-check: the leading names align with independent Form 5500–based market-share reports (Fidelity / Empower / Principal / Vanguard cluster) even when exact plan counts differ by universe filter.

Caveats

A plan can list multiple service providers; only the highest-scoring primary is counted, so secondary TPAs and advisors are not double-counted as recordkeepers. Assets are not the sort key - a provider with fewer but larger plans can rank below a high-volume small-plan specialist. Church, governmental, and 5500-EZ filings are outside the public dataset. Alias coverage is re-checked when DOL releases a new Schedule C vintage.

FAQ

What does “provider” mean on this page?

A defined-contribution recordkeeper, the firm that keeps participant accounts, processes contributions, and issues statements. We identify them from Form 5500 Schedule C Part 1 Item 2 (service providers) joined to the same filing’s ACK_ID.

How is the primary recordkeeper chosen when a plan lists several providers?

Each Schedule C row is scored: service code 15 (recordkeeping) first, then a RELATION of RECORDKEEPER, then a curated major-brand match in an admin role (needed because some majors, notably Principal, usually file as CONTRACT ADMINISTRATOR rather than RECORDKEEPER). The highest-scoring row wins; ties break alphabetically by normalized name.

Why might this differ from PLANSPONSOR or other industry surveys?

Surveys ask recordkeepers to self-report assets and plans. This page counts only what sponsors disclosed on public Form 5500 Schedule C filings for a single plan year, after normalizing known EIN/name aliases. Small-plan coverage, late filers, and filers that omit Schedule C will differ from survey universes.

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 2026-08-06.