State retirement profile · Form 5500

Retirement Plans in South Dakota

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

Data updated 2026-05-15

303
Plans
$7.7B
Total assets
#52
By assets

The state in one line

South Dakota hosts 303 employer-sponsored retirement plans holding $7.7B for 104,908 participants, the 52nd-largest state by plan assets.

$7.7B
total plan assets
303
employer plans
$73,198
avg assets per participant
82%
of plans are 401(k)s
Total Plans
303
401(k) Plans
249
Participants
104,908
Total Assets
$7.7B

What the Form 5500 Data Shows for South Dakota

South Dakota: 303 employer-sponsored plans (249 401(k)), $7.7B aggregate assets, 104,908 participants. Average plan: $25M; largest is Black Hills Corporation 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan at $811M. 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 South Dakota

# Plan Name Type Participants Total Assets
1 Black Hills Corporation 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 2,881 $811M
2 Monument Health, Inc. 403(b) Plan IRA-Based 5,261 $365M
3 Good Samaritan Society 401(k) Plan 401(k) 12,199 $278M
4 Black Hills Retirement Plan Defined Benefit (Pension) 692 $272M
5 Poet 401(k) Plan 401(k) 2,380 $266M
6 Daktronics, Inc. 401(k) Plan 401(k) 2,369 $263M
7 Premier 401(k) Plan 401(k) 1,821 $241M
8 401(k) Simplified Flexible 401(k) 3,007 $157M
9 Fishback Financial Corporation 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan 401(k) 714 $113M
10 The First National Bank in Sioux Falls Employees Profit Sharing Plan 401(k) 281 $110M
11 Yankton Medical Clinic P.C. Profit Sharing Plan & Trust 401(k) 311 $107M
12 Dacotah Banks, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan 401(k) 625 $107M
13 Monument Health, Inc. Pension Plan Defined Benefit (Pension) 2,726 $105M
14 Showplace Wood Products, Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan 401(k) 529 $104M
15 Performance Bankers, Inc. Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 752 $101M
16 Associated General Contractors of Sd 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan 401(k) 1,328 $96M
17 Sonifi Solutions, Inc. 401(k) Plan 401(k) 620 $95M
18 First Dakota Financial Corporation 401(k) Plan 401(k) 364 $93M
19 Cnos, PC 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan 401(k) 321 $87M
20 Empirical 401(k) and Profit Sharing Plan 401(k) 1,191 $84M
21 Rapid City Medical Center 401(k) Plan 401(k) 467 $75M
22 Orthopedic Institute Profit Sharing and Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 227 $74M
23 Billion Motors, Inc. Salary Deferral 401(k) Pln 401(k) 1,195 $72M
24 Ubg 401(k) - Agtegra 401(k) 895 $69M
25 C&b Operations, LLC Retirement Savings Plan 401(k) 1,073 $69M

Nearby States by Retirement Plan Footprint

States ranked adjacent to South Dakota by total retirement plan assets.

Compare South Dakota side-by-side with 3 peer states →

Frequently Asked Questions

How many retirement plans are in South Dakota? ▼
South Dakota has 303 employer-sponsored retirement plans as reported in 2024 DOL Form 5500 filings, including 249 401(k) plans.
What are the total retirement plan assets in South Dakota? ▼
Retirement plans in South Dakota hold $7.7B in total assets, covering 104,908 participants. The average plan holds $25M in assets.
What is the largest retirement plan in South Dakota? ▼
The largest retirement plan in South Dakota is Black Hills Corporation 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan with $811M in total assets and 2,881 participants.
How does South Dakota compare to other states for retirement plans? ▼
You can compare South Dakota'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 South Dakota, 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.