State retirement profile · Form 5500

Retirement Plans in North Carolina

Employer-sponsored 401(k), pension, and other retirement plans headquartered in North Carolina, drawn from DOL Form 5500 filings (plan year 2024).

Data updated 2026-05-15

3,325
Plans
$348.1B
Total assets
#13
By assets

The state in one line

North Carolina hosts 3,325 employer-sponsored retirement plans holding $348.1B for 2,814,122 participants, the 13th-largest state by plan assets.

$348.1B
total plan assets
3,325
employer plans
$123,689
avg assets per participant
88%
of plans are 401(k)s
Total Plans
3,325
401(k) Plans
2,926
Participants
2,814,122
Total Assets
$348.1B

What the Form 5500 Data Shows for North Carolina

North Carolina: 3,325 employer-sponsored plans (2,926 401(k)), $348.1B aggregate assets, 2,814,122 participants. Average plan: $105M; largest is The Bank of America 401(k) Plan at $62.9B. 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 North Carolina

# Plan Name Type Participants Total Assets
1 The Bank of America 401(k) Plan 401(k) 168,963 $62.9B
2 Honeywell Retirement Earnings Plan Defined Benefit (Pension) 9,923 $16.6B
3 Honeywell 401(k) Plan 401(k) 39,468 $16.3B
4 Truist Financial Corporation Pension Plan Defined Benefit (Pension) 38,548 $14.7B
5 Duke Energy Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 27,341 $11.3B
6 The Duke University Faculty and Staff Retirement Plan Profit Sharing 48,377 $11.0B
7 Nucor Corporation Profit Sharing and Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 27,070 $9.3B
8 Truist Financial Corporation 401(k) Savings Plan 401(k) 52,699 $9.2B
9 Charter Communications, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan 401(k) 102,013 $8.9B
10 Lowes 401(k) Plan 401(k) 280,261 $8.6B
11 Trane Technologies Employee Savings Plan (Esp) 401(k) 19,674 $7.5B
12 Duke Energy Retirement Cash Balance Plan Other 13,576 $4.7B
13 Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings 401(k) Savings Plan 401(k) 47,710 $4.5B
14 Sas Retirement Plan 401(k) 6,175 $3.7B
15 Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan Profit Sharing 19,745 $3.6B
16 Iqvia 401(k) Plan 401(k) 20,245 $3.6B
17 Abb Inc. Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 13,559 $3.3B
18 Hearst Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 14,150 $3.1B
19 First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company 401(k) Plan 401(k) 15,251 $2.7B
20 Lenovo Savings Plan Profit Sharing 4,711 $2.6B
21 Tax Deferred Savings Plan of Novant Health, Inc. 401(k) 38,137 $2.5B
22 Compass Group Retirement Plan 401(k) 244,875 $2.5B
23 The Hearst Corporation Retirement Plan Defined Benefit (Pension) 1,745 $2.4B
24 Old Dominion 401(k) Retirement Plan 401(k) 23,235 $2.4B
25 Duke Energy Legacy Pension Plan Other 300 $2.4B

Nearby States by Retirement Plan Footprint

States ranked adjacent to North Carolina by total retirement plan assets.

Compare North Carolina side-by-side with 3 peer states →

Frequently Asked Questions

How many retirement plans are in North Carolina? ▼
North Carolina has 3,325 employer-sponsored retirement plans as reported in 2024 DOL Form 5500 filings, including 2,926 401(k) plans.
What are the total retirement plan assets in North Carolina? ▼
Retirement plans in North Carolina hold $348.1B in total assets, covering 2,814,122 participants. The average plan holds $105M in assets.
What is the largest retirement plan in North Carolina? ▼
The largest retirement plan in North Carolina is The Bank of America 401(k) Plan with $62.9B in total assets and 168,963 participants.
How does North Carolina compare to other states for retirement plans? ▼
You can compare North Carolina's retirement plan statistics against all 50 states on the States page. Rankings are based on total assets, plan count, and participant coverage from DOL Form 5500 data.

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Understanding Form 5500

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA Form 5500 public disclosure dataset. Shows the top 25 plans by total assets headquartered in North Carolina, out of 122,942 ERISA-covered plans nationally. Plan year 2024.

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.

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

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.