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

Fidelity Investments leads this Form 5500 Schedule C ranking with 11,624 plans served (2024).

Among 2024 Form 5500 filings that disclose a primary recordkeeper on Schedule C, Fidelity Investments leads this ranking with 11,624 plans served. This page lists all 45 curated providers with at least 50 disclosed plans (Schedule C service code 15 / recordkeeper relation / curated brand admin roles) - not a marketing survey and not padded to a round 100.

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 45 recordkeepers by plans served

#	Provider	Plans served	Participants on those plans
1	Fidelity Investments	11,624	24,495,966
2	Empower	9,428	10,765,339
3	Principal	6,324	6,932,721
4	ADP	4,211	2,389,655
5	John Hancock	3,036	2,029,440
6	Vanguard	2,743	3,893,290
7	Transamerica	2,134	2,211,582
8	Voya	1,786	2,675,849
9	TIAA	1,493	1,661,289
10	Ascensus	1,326	521,809
11	The Standard (Stancorp)	1,314	678,336
12	Charles Schwab	1,086	1,484,661
13	Mutual of America	984	317,501
14	Capital Group	973	535,828
15	OneAmerica	963	554,223
16	T. Rowe Price	925	2,370,535
17	Newport Group	823	401,710
18	Merrill Lynch (Bank of America)	803	3,936,662
19	Lincoln Financial	680	739,711
20	Nationwide	658	309,529
21	Paychex	611	959,902
22	Milliman	502	1,047,634
23	J.P. Morgan	434	963,568
24	Alerus	415	151,638
25	EPIC Retirement Plan Services	325	109,437
26	Willis Towers Watson	314	722,458
27	USI Consulting Group	254	266,914
28	Alight Solutions	242	3,132,878
29	Ameritas	235	169,868
30	NWPS	230	284,918
31	PCS Retirement	226	99,780
32	Benefit Plans Administrative Services	219	114,509
33	Guideline	215	43,527
34	Sentinel Benefits Group	210	81,575
35	CMFG Life (CUNA Mutual)	195	80,925
36	TAG Resources	150	102,391
37	Human Interest	144	29,446
38	July Business Services	130	51,625
39	CPI Qualified Plan Consultants	129	36,030
40	Associated Trust Company	124	71,977
41	American Trust Company	117	36,511
42	Betterment for Business	111	30,087
43	Slavic Integrated Administration	106	468,290
44	AT Retirement Services	88	34,339
45	Vestwell	64	20,329

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 spanning majors (Fidelity, Empower, Vanguard, Principal, …) and mid-tier recordkeepers/TPAs (Nationwide, Mutual of America, Human Interest, Guideline, Vestwell, and peers). Unmapped literal strings remain separate buckets and are excluded from the published top-100 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.

Compiled by PlainRetire

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 2026-08-25.