State retirement profile · Form 5500
Retirement Plans in California
Employer-sponsored 401(k), pension, and other retirement plans headquartered in California, drawn from DOL Form 5500 filings (plan year 2023).
- 15,829
- Plans
- $1.2T
- Total assets
- #1
- By assets
The state in one line
California hosts 15,829 employer-sponsored retirement plans holding $1.2T for 9,333,149 participants, the 1st-largest state by plan assets.
- $1.2T
- total plan assets
- 15,829
- employer plans
- $132,962
- avg assets per participant
- 82%
- of plans are 401(k)s
What the Form 5500 Data Shows for California
California: 15,829 employer-sponsored plans (13,019 401(k)), $1.2T aggregate assets, 9,333,149 participants. Average plan: $78M; largest is Wells Fargo & Company 401(k) Plan at $51.8B. DOL Form 5500 methodology + HQ-vs-residence caveats →
A state total like this counts every plan whose sponsor lists a headquarters address in the state on its Form 5500 filing, so the figure reflects where employers are based rather than where their workers live or where the money is ultimately invested. A handful of very large sponsors — a national retailer, a bank, a multi-employer union fund — can dominate a single state's asset total, which is why the average plan size and the largest-plan name matter as much as the headline number. Smaller plans, those with fewer than one hundred participants, file a simplified schedule and are exempt from independent audit, so part of any state total rests on sponsor attestation rather than auditor confirmation. Treat these aggregates as a structural picture of the state's private retirement economy, not as a measure of any single worker's benefit or account.
Largest Plans in California
Nearby States by Retirement Plan Footprint
States ranked adjacent to California by total retirement plan assets.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Source: U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA Form 5500 public disclosure dataset. Shows the top 25 plans headquartered in California from the 5,000 largest plans nationally. Plan year 2023.
Source: DOL EFAST2 filing system (efast.dol.gov) — state is the plan sponsor's headquarters state as recorded on the Form 5500 filing.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Why Form 5500 Data Matters for Retirement Planning
Form 5500 is the annual return that virtually every private-sector retirement plan in the United States files with the Department of Labor. The filing covers funding, participant counts, plan investments, fees, service providers, and corrective contributions. Because the data is collected for regulatory oversight rather than marketing, it is one of the most consistent windows into the retirement economy: the same questions are asked of plans across all industries and all states, year after year. That consistency makes it possible to compare plans, sponsors, and markets on equal footing — a kind of comparability that voluntary survey data and vendor brochures cannot provide.
PlainRetire reorganizes the Form 5500 universe so a participant, employer, or analyst can ask everyday questions of the dataset without reading thousands of pages of agency documentation. Browsing by state surfaces concentration patterns: where pension assets sit, which states host the largest 401(k) sponsors, where retirement coverage trails the national average. Browsing by industry reveals the structural difference between sectors that historically relied on defined-benefit pensions and sectors that adopted defined-contribution plans early. Browsing by plan size highlights both the largest sponsors — typically Fortune 500 employers and multi-employer Taft–Hartley funds — and the long tail of small plans that collectively cover millions of workers.
What This Hub Page Aggregates
Each hub page on PlainRetire is a navigable index into the underlying database. The page shows summary counts, the most recent Form 5500 vintage, and direct links to individual plan detail pages. Detail pages carry the canonical filings, schedules where applicable, and audit trail back to the DOL's EFAST2 disclosure portal. Where the underlying dataset supports it, hub pages also expose key aggregates: total participant counts, aggregate assets, plan-type breakdowns (401(k), pension, profit-sharing, ESOP), and changes over the most recent reporting period.
Plan data is updated as DOL releases new annual Form 5500 datasets. Filings have a roughly seven-month lag from plan year end, so the most recent vintage typically reflects the previous full calendar year. This lag is inherent to the disclosure regime — plans are given time to gather audit reports and service-provider statements — and PlainRetire reflects the timing transparently rather than backfilling estimates.
Reading the Data With Appropriate Caveats
Aggregate numbers are useful for trend-spotting and structural comparison; they are less useful for decisions about a specific plan. The participant count for a state, for instance, includes both very large plans (which dominate the total) and very small plans (which influence median but not mean). When evaluating a specific employer's plan, drill into the plan detail page and consider plan-type, asset-mix, fee structure, and audit history — these details are flattened in any hub-level aggregate. Where regulatory updates change the categorization of a plan, PlainRetire preserves the historical filing alongside the most recent one so longitudinal analyses remain valid.