Corning Incorporated 401(k) match: 4% max
Corning Incorporated Investment Plan · GLW · CIK 24741
Maximum employer match, as a share of pay
4%
Corning Incorporated matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 2% of pay, then 50% of the next 4% of pay, for a maximum employer match of 4% of pay.
Corning's Form 11-K filings for plan year 2025 describe two separate 401(k) plans. The terms on this page are read from the Corning Incorporated Investment Plan. They do not all state the same match, so each one is listed below with the group it covers and what it pays.
From the Form 11-K filed June 15, 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: which plan you are in · what the employer actually paid in · the formula, word for word · when the money becomes yours · who can join · what the plan reports to the DOL · how it compares · what to do next
Which Corning 401(k) plan are you in?
Corning's Form 11-K filings for this plan year describe two plans, and they do not state the same match. Find the plan you are in before you take a number off this page. The terms in the rest of the page are read from the Corning Incorporated Investment Plan.
Corning Incorporated Investment Plan (the plan this page answers for)
The filing states no limit on who this plan covers · Form 11-K ↗
4% of pay, at most
Corning Incorporated Investment Plan for Unionized Employees
Employees covered by a collective-bargaining agreement · Form 11-K ↗
5% of pay, at most
One row per plan, taken from the two Form 11-K reports this site has read for the plan year ended December 31, 2025. Each maximum comes from that plan’s own filing and describes only that plan.
What Corning puts in, and what the plan costs
What Corning put into the plan, per active participant
$4,107
Corning Incorporated put $4,107 into this plan for each of its 11,726 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.
Corning put in less per active participant than 54% of plans with 5,000+ participants in medical devices and other manufacturing. The middle plan in that group of 81 reported $4,432. Medical devices and other manufacturing comes from business code 339900, which Corning 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.
Matched to this employer by sponsor name, not by an identifier stated in the filing. This record could cover another plan of the same employer.
What this figure cannot separate: how much Corning 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 160393470, plan 002 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $4,107 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Corning Incorporated also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula for plan year 2025: the card below reads $1,980 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 Corning puts in
$1,980
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“Employees receive matching contributions that equal 100% of the first 2% of eligible pay contributed and 50% of the next 4% of the eligible pay contributed.”
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 4% of the 253 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 vested immediately in their contributions plus actual earnings thereon. Company contributions to the Plan are fully vested after three years of service. All Company contributions become fully vested upon attainment of Early or Normal Retirement Age, total and permanent disability, or death.”
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
55th percentile
$59.96 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 55% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is Corning's 401(k) match formula?
Corning's 401(k) employer match tops out at 4% of pay. A tiered formula pays its best rate on the first slice of pay and less on the next, which is how the rate steps down.
| Match formula | 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 2% of pay |
|---|---|
| then | 50% of the next 4% of pay |
| Maximum employer match | 4% of compensation |
At a $60,000 salary, contributing 6% ($3,600) earns the full employer match of $2,400 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“Employees receive matching contributions that equal 100% of the first 2% of eligible pay contributed and 50% of the next 4% of the eligible pay contributed.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 15, 2026, SEC EDGAR, corroborated by the filing's inline-XBRL facts · SEC ↗
What is Corning's 401(k) vesting schedule?
Corning 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 | All Company contributions become fully vested upon attainment of Early or Normal Retirement Age, total and permanent disability, or death |
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are vested immediately in their contributions plus actual earnings thereon. Company contributions to the Plan are fully vested after three years of service. All Company contributions become fully vested upon attainment of Early or Normal Retirement Age, total and permanent disability, or death.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 15, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join Corning's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
Corning enrolls new hires automatically at 6% of pay, rising 1% a year to 10% of pay.
| Plan entry | Most non-union employees of the Company and participating subsidiaries; eligible upon reaching age 18 and completing one year of eligible service, or immediately if age 18 and scheduled to work at least 16 hours a week |
|---|---|
| Excluded groups | Employees who are members of a union |
| Automatic enrollment | Yes: default deferral 6% of pay; 90-day opt-out window; auto-escalation +1%/yr to 10% |
Eligibility, word for word
“The Plan covers most employees of the Company and participating subsidiaries who are not members of a union. An employee is eligible for participation in the Plan upon reaching the age of 18 and completing one year of eligible service (or if earlier, upon satisfying the special service requirements with respect to employee contributions for certain long-term part-time employees). Notwithstanding the foregoing, an employee who has attained age 18 and is scheduled on a normal basis to work at least 16 hours a week shall be immediately eligible.”
Automatic enrollment, word for word
“The Plan includes an auto-enrollment provision whereby all newly eligible employees are automatically enrolled in the Plan unless they affirmatively elect not to participate in the Plan or they make an affirmative election to contribute to the Plan. Automatically enrolled participants have their before-tax deferral rate set at 6% of eligible compensation. New employees have 90 days in which to change or opt-out of this provision before deferrals begin. Such auto-enrolled new employee shall have their before-tax contribution automatically increased annually in 1% increments until the employee’s contribution percentage reaches 10% of eligible compensation, provided the employee has not elected to opt-out of the automatic increase feature.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 15, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
What does the Corning plan report on Form 5500?
The Corning plan reported $4.1B in assets and 16,699 participants for plan year 2024.
Matched to this employer by sponsor name, not by an identifier stated in the filing. This record could cover another plan of the same employer.
| Plan named in the DOL record | Corning Incorporated Investment Plan |
|---|---|
| Total plan assets | $4,063,233,837 |
| Participants | 16,699 |
| Recordkeeper | Empower |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $59.96 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $59.96 per participant. The median across plans in medical devices and other manufacturing is $125.72, from the 1,386 of 1,455 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
The plan reports Empower as its recordkeeper, one of 7,876 plans it runs in the data we publish. Of those, the 7,814 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $165.69 per participant.
Corning Incorporated Investment Plan on its Form 5500 filing: fees, providers and financials
How does Corning's 401(k) match compare?
Corning Incorporated's maximum 401(k) match of 4% of pay compares with a median of 4.5% across the 181 companies in our data with a computable formula.
Employers worth reading next
Of the six employers below, three file in medical devices and other manufacturing, two report the same recordkeeper and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 4% of pay. Also in medical devices and other manufacturing.
Maximum match 4.5% of pay. Also in medical devices and other manufacturing.
Maximum match 3.5% of pay. Also in medical devices and other manufacturing.
Maximum match 3.6% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Empower.
Maximum match 4% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Empower.
Employer match vests in full after 3 years. Same 3-year cliff as Corning.
What do Corning's other 401(k) plans say?
Corning Incorporated Investment Plan for Unionized Employees
Employees covered by a collective-bargaining agreement
Corning Incorporated discloses its match formula in the 11-K for the plan year ended December 31, 2025.
- Employer match vesting
- Cliff: 100% vested after 3 years of service
- Automatic enrollment
- Yes: default deferral 6% of pay; 90-day opt-out window; auto-escalation +1%/yr to 10%
What the filing says, word for word
“The Company makes matching contributions as a percentage of a participant’s first 5% of eligible pay contributed according to years of service as of December 31 of the prior year as follows: Less than 19 years of service 50 % 19 but less than 24 years of service 75 % 24 or more years of service 100 % With respect to all employees eligible to participate in the Plan, each employee who has nine or more years of vesting service as of the preceding December 31, irrespective of whether such employee has elected to contribute to the Plan, the Company contributes weekly or monthly (based on employee’s pay frequency) a supplemental contribution to the Plan equal to 1.175% of such employee’s eligible compensation.”
What can you do next?
Check your own balance and contribution rate at Empower ↗, the recordkeeper this plan reports.
- Read the Form 11-K on SEC EDGAR ↗
Form 11-K filed June 15, 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.
- Download this data (CSV)
Formula, vesting and source references for this company, one file.
Questions this filing answers
What is Corning Incorporated's 401(k) match?
Corning Incorporated matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 2% of pay, then 50% of the next 4% of pay, for a maximum employer match of 4% of compensation (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the Corning Incorporated 401(k) match vest?
Cliff: 100% vested after 3 years of service.
Does Corning Incorporated's 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Yes: default deferral 6% of pay; 90-day opt-out window; auto-escalation +1%/yr to 10%.
Cite: 401(k) Monitor, “Corning Incorporated 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0001628280-26-043287, plan year ended 2025-12-31.