CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. 401(k) match: 7% max
The 401(k) Stock Purchase Plan for Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. and Its Affiliates · CFR · CIK 39263
Maximum employer match, as a share of pay
7%
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 7% of pay.
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' Form 11-K filings for plan year 2025 describe two separate 401(k) plans. The terms on this page are read from the 401(k) Stock Purchase Plan for Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. and Its Affiliates. Both state the same maximum match.
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: 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 CULLEN/FROST BANKERS 401(k) plan are you in?
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' Form 11-K filings for this plan year describe two plans and all of them state the same maximum employer match. The group each plan covers still differs, and so can the vesting and enrollment terms further down this page, which are read from the 401(k) Stock Purchase Plan for Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. and Its Affiliates.
The 401(k) Stock Purchase Plan for Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. and Its Affiliates (the plan this page answers for)
The filing states no limit on who this plan covers · Form 11-K ↗
7% of pay, at most
Thrift Incentive Stock Purchase Plan for Certain Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc.
The filing states no limit on who this plan covers · Form 11-K ↗
7% 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 CULLEN/FROST BANKERS puts in, and what the plan costs
What CULLEN/FROST BANKERS put into the plan, per active participant
$5,033
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. put $5,033 into this plan for each of its 5,979 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.
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS put in more per active participant than 54% of plans with 5,000+ participants at banks and lenders. The middle plan in that group of 66 reported $4,881. Banks and lenders comes from business code 522110, which CULLEN/FROST BANKERS 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 CULLEN/FROST BANKERS 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 741751768, plan 003 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $5,033 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula for plan year 2025: the card below reads $3,465 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 CULLEN/FROST BANKERS puts in
$3,465
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“Participants must make 401(k) contributions to receive a matching contribution from CFBI. CFBI matches 100% of each participant's contributions, up to 7% of annual compensation.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Contribute at least 7% of your pay to collect the full match.
That is $3,465 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.
Vesting score
100 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 48% 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: 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in all non-profit sharing related contributions (including participant and CFBI contributions), plus related earnings. Profit-sharing contributions vest after three years of service.”
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
71st percentile
$79.93 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 71% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' 401(k) match formula?
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' 401(k) employer match tops out at 7% of pay. One rate up to one limit is the commonest of the four shapes a match formula takes.
| Match formula | 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 7% of pay |
|---|---|
| Maximum employer match | 7% of compensation |
| Conditions | Participants must make 401(k) contributions to receive a matching contribution from CFBI. |
| Other employer contribution | CFBI may also make discretionary profit-sharing contributions to eligible participants, made at the discretion of the Board of Directors of CFBI without regard to current or accumulated profits; there were no profit sharing contributions in 2025 |
At a $90,000 salary, contributing 7% ($6,300) earns the full employer match of $6,300 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“Participants must make 401(k) contributions to receive a matching contribution from CFBI. CFBI matches 100% of each participant's contributions, up to 7% of annual compensation.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR, corroborated by the filing's inline-XBRL facts · SEC ↗
What is CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' 401(k) vesting schedule?
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS vests the employer match immediately: 100% is yours as soon as it is paid in. Nothing is forfeited when you leave, which is not true of the two schedules that vest over time.
| Employer match vesting | Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed |
|---|---|
| Your own contributions | Immediate: always 100% yours |
| Other employer contributions | Profit-sharing contributions vest after three years of service. |
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in all non-profit sharing related contributions (including participant and CFBI contributions), plus related earnings. Profit-sharing contributions vest after three years of service.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS enrolls new hires automatically at 7% of pay.
| Plan entry | The Plan generally covers full- and part-time employees who complete 30 consecutive days of service and are scheduled to work more than 1,000 hours during the subsequent 12 consecutive months, or who have completed at least 500 hours of service in each year in a consecutive 2-year period. |
|---|---|
| Automatic enrollment | Yes: default deferral 7% of pay |
Eligibility, word for word
“The Plan is a defined contribution plan qualified under Section 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) and generally covers full- and part-time employees who complete 30 consecutive days of service and are scheduled to work more than 1,000 hours hours during the subsequent 12 consecutive months, or who have completed at least 500 hours of service in each year in a consecutive 2-year period.”
Automatic enrollment, word for word
“With respect to 401(k) contributions, newly hired eligible employees are automatically enrolled at a specified deferral rate (currently 7% of compensation), which is contributed to the Plan on their behalf. Employees may change or suspend this election at any time.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
What does the CULLEN/FROST BANKERS plan report on Form 5500?
The CULLEN/FROST BANKERS plan reported $1.2B in assets and 6,747 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $1,214,356,557 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 6,747 |
| Recordkeeper | Fidelity Investments |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $79.93 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $79.93 per participant. The median across plans at banks and lenders is $152.83, from the 2,143 of 2,264 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
The plan reports Fidelity Investments as its recordkeeper, one of 10,593 plans it runs in the data we publish. Of those, the 10,022 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $97.71 per participant.
How does CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' 401(k) match compare?
CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC.'s maximum 401(k) match of 7% 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 at banks and lenders, two report the same recordkeeper and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also at banks and lenders.
Maximum match 7% of pay. Also at banks and lenders.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also at banks and lenders.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Employer match vests immediately. Vests immediately too, like CULLEN/FROST BANKERS.
Compare CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. with any company, side by side
What do CULLEN/FROST BANKERS' other 401(k) plans say?
Thrift Incentive Stock Purchase Plan for Certain Employees of Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc.
The filing states no limit on who this plan covers
Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. matches 100% of employee contributions up to 7% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
- Employer match vesting
- Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed
- Automatic enrollment
- Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence)
What the filing says, word for word
“For each plan year, each active participant is eligible to contribute an amount equal to 7% of their compensation in excess of the maximum annual compensation limit in effect under Code section 401(a)(17)(A) for the plan year. Further, each participant who also participates in the 401(k) Plan will be assumed to have made pre-tax deferrals equal to the Code section 402(g) limit in effect for that plan year. Cullen/Frost's administrative committee determines at such times as the Code limitations are applied under the 401(k) Plan. The Plan is not designed to provide deferred compensation and is intended to be exempt from Section 409A of the Code. For each plan year, Cullen/Frost makes contributions equal to 100% of each participant’s after-tax contributions to the Plan for the respective plan year.”
What can you do next?
Check your own balance and contribution rate at Fidelity NetBenefits ↗, the recordkeeper this plan reports.
- 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.
- Download this data (CSV)
Formula, vesting and source references for this company, one file.
Questions this filing answers
What is CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC.'s 401(k) match?
Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. matches 100% of employee contributions up to 7% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. 401(k) match vest?
Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed.
Does CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC.'s 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Yes: default deferral 7% of pay.
Cite: 401(k) Monitor, “CULLEN/FROST BANKERS, INC. 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0000039263-26-000039, plan year ended 2025-12-31.