U.S. Retirement Plan Statistics
A national snapshot of America's ERISA-covered retirement plans, computed live from DOL EBSA Form 5500 filings. Each figure below is aggregated directly from the plan-level records, not estimated.
- 122,942
- ERISA plans tracked
- $11.6T
- total plan assets
- 89,805,449
- total participants
- 102,703
- 401(k)-type plans
The national picture
PlainRetire tracks 122,942 ERISA-covered retirement plans holding $11.6T in assets for 89,805,449 participants, plan year 2024, with California sponsoring the largest share of national assets at $1.2T.
- 122,942
- ERISA-covered plans tracked (2024)
- $11.6T
- Total plan assets
- 89,805,449
- Total participants
- $100M
- Average plan size (assets)
Data year 2024. Aggregated directly from DOL EBSA Form 5500 plan-level filings, ERISA-covered private plans only.
States with the most retirement-plan assets
Total ERISA-covered plan assets by sponsor business-address state, plan year 2024, in billions. Reflects where plan sponsors are headquartered, not where individual participants live.
Plans by size
Plan count and total assets by participant-count bucket, plan year 2024.
| Participant range | Plans | Total assets |
|---|---|---|
| Micro (1-10 participants) | 32,081 | $38.0B |
| Small (11-100 participants) | 24,625 | $235.2B |
| Medium (101-1,000 participants) | 51,113 | $1.8T |
| Large (1,001-10,000 participants) | 9,862 | $3.8T |
| Mega (10,000+ participants) | 1,337 | $5.7T |
Cite this page
These statistics are free to quote and link with attribution. Suggested citation:
PlainRetire, "U.S. Retirement Plan Statistics," based on DOL EBSA Form 5500 data (plan year 2024). https://plainretire.com/statistics/
Source data is a public federal filing. Plan-level figures come from the DOL EBSA Form 5500 Annual Returns. See our methodology for the full processing pipeline.
Reading these numbers
A national total hides wide variation by state, industry, and plan size.
- Professional & Technical Services sponsors the most plans nationally (20,409), but plan count alone doesn't measure asset scale. Browse by industry
- California leads in total plan assets ($1.2T), reflecting where large sponsors are headquartered, not participant residency. Browse by state
- Plan size buckets show most plans are small by participant count, but a small number of very large plans hold most of the total assets, the classic pattern for ERISA-covered retirement plans. Largest plans
Figures are DOL EBSA Form 5500 plan-year 2024 aggregates and are refreshed when DOL publishes the next annual dataset. They describe ERISA-covered private plans only (government and one-participant Form 5500-EZ plans are excluded, see methodology), and are not financial or retirement advice.
