Caleres, Inc. 401(k): Principal, match 3% max
Caleres, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan · CAL · CIK 14707
Principal 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%
Caleres, Inc. matches 50% of the first 6% of pay.
From the Form 11-K filed June 25, 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 Caleres puts in, and what the plan costs
What Caleres put into the plan, per active participant
$2,031
Caleres, Inc. put $2,031 into this plan for each of its 2,280 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.
Caleres put in more per active participant than 81% of plans with 1,000–4,999 participants in retail. The middle plan in that group of 316 reported $857. Retail comes from business code 448210, which Caleres 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 Caleres 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 430197190, plan 006 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $2,031 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Caleres, Inc. 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, and the same filing states employer contributions made outside the match. 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 Caleres puts in
$1,485
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“For eligible salaried employees, the Company makes a core contribution of 1.5% of eligible compensation, regardless of whether the salaried employees contribute to the Plan. In April 2025, the Company amended the Plan to cease eligibility of the core contribution for salaried employees hired or rehired on or after April 6, 2025. The Company also makes a matching contribution of 50% on the first 6% percent of participant contributions. In addition, the Company has the discretion to contribute up to an additional 2% percent profit-sharing benefit based on the Company’s performance.”
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
57.14 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 5% 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%, 0%, 0%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in their contributions and related earnings or losses. Vesting in the employer’s core, matching contribution and profit-sharing contribution portions of their accounts and related earnings occurs if: (1) the participants' employment is terminated on account of their death, (2) the participants' employment is terminated on account of their disability, (3) the participants complete at least three years of service with the Company, (4) the participants' employment is terminated after they attain age 65, or (5) the Company completely discontinues contributions or the Plan is terminated while they are an employee.”
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
12th percentile
$20.75 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 88% of plans with 1,000–4,999 participants.
What is Caleres' 401(k) match formula?
Caleres' 401(k) employer match tops out at 3% of pay. 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 |
| Other employer contribution | Core contribution of 1.5% of eligible compensation for eligible salaried employees regardless of whether they contribute to the Plan; the Company amended the Plan in April 2025 to cease eligibility for the core contribution for salaried employees hired or rehired on or after April 6, 2025 |
| Other employer contribution | Discretionary profit-sharing contribution of up to an additional 2% based on the Company's performance; no profit-sharing contributions were made for its fiscal years ended January 31, 2026 and February 2, 2025 |
At a $90,000 salary, contributing 6% ($5,400) earns the full employer match of $2,700 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“For eligible salaried employees, the Company makes a core contribution of 1.5% of eligible compensation, regardless of whether the salaried employees contribute to the Plan. In April 2025, the Company amended the Plan to cease eligibility of the core contribution for salaried employees hired or rehired on or after April 6, 2025. The Company also makes a matching contribution of 50% on the first 6% percent of participant contributions. In addition, the Company has the discretion to contribute up to an additional 2% percent profit-sharing benefit based on the Company’s performance.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR, corroborated by the filing's inline-XBRL facts · SEC ↗
What is Caleres' 401(k) vesting schedule?
Caleres vests the employer match on a cliff schedule: nothing is yours until three years of service, then 100% at once. Leave a day early and the employer money goes back to the plan, the edge a three-year cliff creates.
| Employer match vesting | Cliff: 100% vested after 3 years of service |
|---|---|
| Your own contributions | Immediate: always 100% yours |
| Accelerated vesting | Vesting occurs immediately if the participant's employment is terminated on account of death or disability, terminated after attaining age 65, or if the Company completely discontinues contributions or the Plan is terminated while the participant is an employee. |
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in their contributions and related earnings or losses. Vesting in the employer’s core, matching contribution and profit-sharing contribution portions of their accounts and related earnings occurs if: (1) the participants' employment is terminated on account of their death, (2) the participants' employment is terminated on account of their disability, (3) the participants complete at least three years of service with the Company, (4) the participants' employment is terminated after they attain age 65, or (5) the Company completely discontinues contributions or the Plan is terminated while they are an employee.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join Caleres' 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
Caleres' filing does not mention automatic enrollment, which is not the same as the plan having none.
| Plan entry | Salaried employees are eligible to participate in the Plan beginning the first day of the first payroll period following the later of the date the employee attains age 21 and their first date of employment. |
|---|---|
| Excluded groups | The Plan is a contributory 401(k) savings plan that covers eligible salaried employees of the Company. |
| Automatic enrollment | Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence) |
Eligibility, word for word
“The Plan is a contributory 401(k) savings plan that covers eligible salaried employees of the Company. Salaried employees are eligible to participate in the Plan beginning the first day of the first payroll period following the later of the date the employee attains age 21 and their first date of employment.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who holds your account
Schedule C of the Form 5500 filed for plan year 2024 reports Principal, filed as “PRINCIPAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY”. 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.
5,239 plans on file name Principal as their recordkeeper. Of those, the 5,230 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $170.05 per participant.
Participants log in at Principal ↗. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Principal or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Principal |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EIN | 420127290 |
What does the Caleres plan report on Form 5500?
The Caleres plan reported $276.5M in assets and 3,402 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $276,461,142 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 3,402 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $20.75 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $20.75 per participant. The median across plans in retail is $93.99, from the 2,177 of 2,305 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
Read from the Form 5500 filing of Caleres, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan, which has no page of its own here.
How does Caleres' 401(k) match compare?
Caleres, Inc.'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 in retail, two report the same recordkeeper and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 1.5% of pay. Also in retail.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Also in retail.
Maximum match 3.5% of pay. Also in retail.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Principal.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Principal.
Maximum match 4% of pay. Same 3-year cliff as Caleres.
What can you do next?
- Read the Form 11-K on SEC EDGAR ↗
Form 11-K filed June 25, 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 Caleres, Inc.'s 401(k) match?
Caleres, Inc. matches 50% of employee contributions up to 6% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the Caleres, Inc. 401(k) match vest?
Cliff: 100% vested after 3 years of service.
Does Caleres, Inc.'s 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence).
Who is the recordkeeper for Caleres, Inc.'s 401(k)?
Principal is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for Caleres, Inc. 401(k) 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 Caleres, Inc. 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 | Caleres, Inc. |
| SEC CIK | 14707 |
| Accession number | 0000014707-26-000126 |
| Plan | Caleres, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 25, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Caleres, Inc., 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, “Caleres, Inc. 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0000014707-26-000126, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
