AECOM 401(k): Merrill Lynch, match 3% max
AECOM Retirement & Savings Plan · ACM · CIK 868857
Merrill Lynch is the recordkeeper named on the Form 5500 filed for this plan, the company that keeps the account records. Where to log in, and what the filing says.
Maximum employer match, as a share of pay
3%
AECOM matches 50% of the first 6% of pay.
From the Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026 ↗, covering the plan year ended December 31, 2025. Page data last updated July 28, 2026, when the Form 5500 bulk data was last refreshed. Why filings lag
On this page: what the employer actually paid in · the formula, word for word · when the money becomes yours · who can join · who holds your account · what the plan reports to the DOL · how it compares · what to do next
What AECOM puts in, and what the plan costs
What AECOM put into the plan, per active participant
$2,839
AECOM put $2,839 into this plan for each of its 17,515 active participants in plan year 2024. This is the whole employer side of the plan: matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions, and reallocated forfeitures. The Form 5500 does not separate them, so this is what the employer put in and not the match.
AECOM put in less per active participant than 54% of plans with 5,000+ participants at law, consulting and engineering firms. The middle plan in that group of 168 reported $2,987. Law, consulting and engineering comes from business code 541330, which AECOM entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.
What this figure cannot separate: how much AECOM pays, and how much it puts in
This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.
This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.
Source: DOL Form 5500 for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, EIN 611088522, plan 055 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $2,839 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. AECOM also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula for plan year 2025: the card below reads $1,485 a year at a $49,500 salary. That second figure is what the formula pays one worker on that salary, and not an amount either filing reports. The two figures cover different plan years and measure different things, so neither one is the other one corrected.
What AECOM puts in
$1,485
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“The participants’ pre-tax and Roth 401(k) contributions made to the Plan are matched 50% by the Company up to 6% of eligible compensation.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Contribute at least 6% of your pay to collect the full match.
That is $2,970 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.
Vesting score
71.43 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 32% of the 369 schedules we have scored.
It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.
Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 0%, 33%, 67%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Vesting — Participants’ contributions and rollovers, and the earnings thereon, are at all times vested in such participants’ accounts. Vesting in the Company contributions and associated earnings is based on years of continuous service. A participant vests in the Company contributions and associated earnings over a three-year period (33% after one year of service, 67% after two years of service, and 100% after three years of service). In addition, participants who are employees become fully vested upon attaining age 65, becoming disabled or deceased while employed at the Company, or upon termination of the Plan.”
The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.
What the plan costs, against plans of its size
37th percentile
$42.39 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 63% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is AECOM's 401(k) match formula?
AECOM's 401(k) employer match tops out at 3% of pay. The match is deposited once a year. One rate up to one limit is the commonest of the four shapes a match formula takes.
| Match formula | 50% of the first 6% of pay |
|---|---|
| Maximum employer match | 3% of compensation |
| Deposited | Once a year |
| Paid in company stock | Yes |
| Conditions | To receive the annual match, participants must generally be employed on the last day of the Plan year. After-tax contributions are not eligible for the match. The annual match is allocated 50% to the participant's selected investments and 50% to AECOM common stock. Participants covered by a collective bargaining agreement, government contract, or specific project agreement receive the match (if any) described in that agreement. |
At a $60,000 salary, contributing 6% ($3,600) earns the full employer match of $1,800 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“The participants’ pre-tax and Roth 401(k) contributions made to the Plan are matched 50% by the Company up to 6% of eligible compensation.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR, corroborated by the filing's inline-XBRL facts · SEC ↗
What is AECOM's 401(k) vesting schedule?
AECOM vests the employer match on a graded schedule: 33% after one year, rising to 100% after three. Each step is money that leaves with you that year, which is how a graded schedule differs from a cliff.
| Employer match vesting | Graded: 33% at 1 yr, 67% at 2 yr, 100% at 3 yr |
|---|---|
| Your own contributions | Immediate: always 100% yours |
| Year of service | Years of continuous service |
| Accelerated vesting | Fully vested upon attaining age 65, becoming disabled or deceased while employed at the Company, or upon termination of the Plan; different vesting requirements may apply under a CBA, government contract, specific project agreement, or corporate transaction |
Vesting, word for word
“Vesting — Participants’ contributions and rollovers, and the earnings thereon, are at all times vested in such participants’ accounts. Vesting in the Company contributions and associated earnings is based on years of continuous service. A participant vests in the Company contributions and associated earnings over a three-year period (33% after one year of service, 67% after two years of service, and 100% after three years of service). In addition, participants who are employees become fully vested upon attaining age 65, becoming disabled or deceased while employed at the Company, or upon termination of the Plan.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join AECOM's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
AECOM enrolls new hires automatically at 1% of pay.
| Plan entry | Eligible employees become eligible to participate on their date of hire and can enroll as soon as administratively feasible thereafter |
|---|---|
| Automatic enrollment | Yes: default deferral 1% of pay; default investment: Target date fund, as determined by the AECOM Americas Retirement Plan Investment Committee |
Eligibility, word for word
“Eligibility — Eligible employees become eligible to participate in the Plan on their date of hire, and can enroll as soon as administratively feasible thereafter (“Eligible Employees,” as defined in the Plan document).”
Automatic enrollment, word for word
“The Plan provides for an automatic enrollment feature for Eligible Employees. A participant’s contribution under the automatic enrollment feature will be a pre-tax contribution equal to one percent of his or her eligible compensation until either a participant elects to discontinue or change his or her election.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who holds your account
Schedule C of the Form 5500 filed for plan year 2024 reports Merrill Lynch, filed as “MERRILL LYNCH, PIERCE, FENNER AND S”. That is the company paid to keep the account records: what is in an account, what went into it, and usually the site a participant signs in to. The trustee that holds the plan’s assets can be a different company, and this filing does not name it.
663 plans on file name Merrill Lynch as their recordkeeper. Of those, the 659 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $87.18 per participant.
Participants log in at Merrill Benefits OnLine ↗. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Merrill Lynch or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Merrill Lynch |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EIN | 135674085 |
What does the AECOM plan report on Form 5500?
The AECOM plan reported $6.8B in assets and 34,502 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $6,778,848,784 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 34,502 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $42.39 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $42.39 per participant. The median across plans at law, consulting and engineering firms is $152.18, from the 7,159 of 7,635 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
AECOM Retirement & Savings Plan on its Form 5500 filing: fees, providers and financials
How does AECOM's 401(k) match compare?
AECOM's maximum 401(k) match of 3% of pay compares with a median of 4% across the 269 companies in our data with a computable formula.
Employers worth reading next
Of the six employers below, three file at law, consulting and engineering firms, two report the same recordkeeper and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 4% of pay. Also at law, consulting and engineering firms.
Maximum match 4.5% of pay. Also at law, consulting and engineering firms.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also at law, consulting and engineering firms.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Merrill Lynch.
Maximum match 3.5% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Merrill Lynch.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also fully vested after 3 years, like AECOM.
What can you do next?
- Read the Form 11-K on SEC EDGAR ↗
Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR. Every match fact on this page comes from it.
- Changed jobs? Find an old 401(k) ↗
The Department of Labor's Retirement Savings Lost & Found, a free government database.
- This year's IRS contribution limits ↗
The official deferral and catch-up limits every formula operates under.
Questions this filing answers
What is AECOM's 401(k) match?
AECOM matches 50% of employee contributions up to 6% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the AECOM 401(k) match vest?
Graded: 33% at 1 yr, 67% at 2 yr, 100% at 3 yr.
Does AECOM's 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Yes: default deferral 1% of pay; default investment: Target date fund, as determined by the AECOM Americas Retirement Plan Investment Committee.
Who is the recordkeeper for AECOM's 401(k)?
Merrill Lynch is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for AECOM Retirement & Savings Plan for plan year 2024. That is the company paid to keep the account records: what is in an account, what went into it, and usually the site a participant signs in to.
Source
The match formula, the vesting schedule and the enrollment rules on this page were read from one document: the Form 11-K annual report that AECOM filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for the plan year ended December 31, 2025. Each of those fields carries the filing sentence it was read from, expandable where the field appears. Nothing on this page was supplied by the employer to this site.
The plan assets, the participant counts, the plan-paid fees and the recordkeeper come from a different document, the plan’s DOL Form 5500 annual return, and the section that reports them links it. Comparisons with other employers are computed across the filings named in the section they appear in.
Read the filing on SEC EDGAR ↗
| Document | Form 11-K annual report |
|---|---|
| Filed with | US Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) |
| Filed by | AECOM |
| SEC CIK | 868857 |
| Accession number | 0000868857-26-000018 |
| Plan | AECOM Retirement & Savings Plan |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 26, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with AECOM, with the Securities and Exchange Commission or with this plan’s recordkeeper, and publishes this page without their involvement. It republishes a public filing and says where it came from.
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, “AECOM 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0000868857-26-000018, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
