Ecolab Inc. 401(k): Fidelity, match 6% max
Ecolab Savings Plan and ESOP · ECL · CIK 31462
Fidelity Investments 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.
Matched to this employer by sponsor name, not by an identifier stated in the filing.
Maximum employer match, as a share of pay
6%
Ecolab Inc. matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 4% of pay, then 50% of the next 4% of pay, for a maximum employer match of 6% of pay.
Ecolab's Form 11-K filings for plan year 2025 describe two separate 401(k) plans. The terms on this page are read from the Ecolab Savings Plan and ESOP. Both state the same maximum match.
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: which plan you are in · 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
Which Ecolab 401(k) plan are you in?
Ecolab's 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 Ecolab Savings Plan and ESOP.
Ecolab Savings Plan and ESOP (the plan this page answers for)
The filing states no limit on who this plan covers · Form 11-K ↗
6% of pay, at most
Ecolab Puerto Rico Savings Plan
Employees in Puerto Rico · Form 11-K ↗
6% 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 Ecolab puts in, and what the plan costs
What Ecolab put into the plan, per active participant
$4,650
Ecolab Inc. put $4,650 into this plan for each of its 19,704 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.
Ecolab put in less per active participant than 77% of plans with 5,000+ participants in pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The middle plan in that group of 63 reported $8,101. Pharmaceuticals and chemicals comes from business code 325600, which Ecolab 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 Ecolab 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 410231510, plan 003 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $4,650 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Ecolab Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula for plan year 2025: the card below reads $2,970 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 Ecolab puts in
$2,970
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“Participant contributions of up to 4% of eligible compensation are matched 100% by the Company and participant contributions over 4% and up to 8% of eligible compensation are matched 50% by the Company. The Plan also allows additional employer matching contributions to true-up the employer match. This true-up ensures all participants receive their full annualized employer match.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Contribute at least 8% of your pay to collect the full match.
That is $3,960 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 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: 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are fully vested in their account at all times.”
The plan tops the match up after year end, so contributing unevenly through the year does not cost the worker part of it.
The same match paragraph, word for word
“Participant contributions of up to 4% of eligible compensation are matched 100% by the Company and participant contributions over 4% and up to 8% of eligible compensation are matched 50% by the Company. The Plan also allows additional employer matching contributions to true-up the employer match. This true-up ensures all participants receive their full annualized employer match.”
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
38th percentile
$43.76 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 62% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is Ecolab's 401(k) match formula?
Ecolab's 401(k) employer match tops out at 6% of pay. The match is deposited each payroll and the plan pays an annual true-up. What an annual true-up repays is the arithmetic behind that line: it matters most in a year when contributions land unevenly.
| Match formula | 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 4% of pay |
|---|---|
| then | 50% of the next 4% of pay |
| Maximum employer match | 6% of compensation |
| True-upA year-end recalculation that repays match lost to uneven contributions. | Yes, annual true-up |
| Deposited | Each payroll |
| Conditions | The levels of matching contributions made by or on behalf of highly compensated participants are subject to limitations under the Code. |
At a $75,000 salary, contributing 8% ($6,000) earns the full employer match of $4,500 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“Participant contributions of up to 4% of eligible compensation are matched 100% by the Company and participant contributions over 4% and up to 8% of eligible compensation are matched 50% by the Company. The Plan also allows additional employer matching contributions to true-up the employer match. This true-up ensures all participants receive their full annualized employer match.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
What is Ecolab's 401(k) vesting schedule?
Ecolab 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 |
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are fully vested in their account at all times.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join Ecolab's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
Ecolab's filing does not mention automatic enrollment, which is not the same as the plan having none.
| Plan entry | Eligible employees regularly scheduled to work at least 20 hours per week may participate immediately; part-time employees working fewer than 20 hours a week must be employed for a twelve consecutive month period during which they have worked at least 1,000 hours |
|---|---|
| Excluded groups | Employees subject to a collective bargaining agreement which does not provide for their participation |
| Automatic enrollment | Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence) |
Eligibility, word for word
“Eligible employees regularly scheduled to work at least 20 hours per week may participate immediately in the Plan provided they are not subject to a collective bargaining agreement which does not provide for their participation. Part-time employees working fewer than 20 hours a week must be employed for a twelve consecutive month period during which they have worked at least 1,000 hours to be eligible to participate.”
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 Fidelity Investments, filed as “FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL”. 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.
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.
10,593 plans on file name Fidelity Investments as their recordkeeper. Of those, the 10,022 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $97.71 per participant.
Participants log in at Fidelity NetBenefits ↗. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Fidelity Investments or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Fidelity Investments |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EIN | 042647786 |
What does the Ecolab plan report on Form 5500?
The Ecolab plan reported $4.2B in assets and 25,415 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 | Ecolab Savings Plan And ESOP |
|---|---|
| Total plan assets | $4,179,911,662 |
| Participants | 25,415 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $43.76 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $43.76 per participant. The median across plans in pharmaceuticals and chemicals is $128.47, from the 870 of 942 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
Ecolab Savings Plan And ESOP on its Form 5500 filing: fees, providers and financials
How does Ecolab's 401(k) match compare?
Ecolab Inc.'s maximum 401(k) match of 6% 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 pharmaceuticals and chemicals, two report the same recordkeeper and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Maximum match 6% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Vests immediately too, like Ecolab.
What do Ecolab's other 401(k) plans say?
Ecolab Puerto Rico Savings Plan
Employees in Puerto Rico
Ecolab Inc. matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 4% of pay, then 50% of the next 4% of pay, for a maximum employer match of 6% of compensation (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
“Participant contributions of up to 4% of eligible compensation are matched 100% by the Company and participant contributions over 4% and up to 8% of eligible compensation are matched 50% by the Company. The Plan also allows additional employer matching contributions to true-up the employer match. This true-up ensures all participants receive their full annualized employer match.”
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 Ecolab Inc.'s 401(k) match?
Ecolab Inc. matches 100% (dollar-for-dollar) of the first 4% of pay, then 50% of the next 4% of pay, for a maximum employer match of 6% of compensation (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the Ecolab Inc. 401(k) match vest?
Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed.
Does Ecolab Inc.'s 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence).
Who is the recordkeeper for Ecolab Inc.'s 401(k)?
Fidelity Investments is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for Ecolab Savings Plan And ESOP 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. 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.
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 Ecolab 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 | Ecolab Inc. |
| SEC CIK | 31462 |
| Accession number | 0001104659-26-077749 |
| Plan | Ecolab Savings Plan and ESOP |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 25, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Ecolab 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, “Ecolab Inc. 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0001104659-26-077749, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
