J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. 401(k): Merrill Lynch, match 3% max
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. Employee Retirement Plan · JBHT · CIK 728535
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%
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. 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 J.B. Hunt puts in, and what the plan costs
What J.B. Hunt put into the plan, per active participant
$1,094
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. put $1,094 into this plan for each of its 34,171 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.
J.B. Hunt put in less per active participant than 65% of plans with 5,000+ participants in transportation and logistics. The middle plan in that group of 124 reported $1,783. Transportation and logistics comes from business code 484120, which J.B. Hunt 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 J.B. Hunt 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 710335111, plan 001 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $1,094 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. J.B. Hunt Transport Services, 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 J.B. Hunt puts in
$1,485
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“The Company matches 50% of the first 6% of compensation that a participant contributes to the Plan once meeting match eligibility requirements as defined in the plan document. Additional amounts may be contributed at the discretion of the Company’s Board of Directors. No such additional amounts were contributed in 2025.”
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
42.86 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. No schedule among the 369 we have scored is lower.
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%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in their contributions plus actual earnings thereon. Vesting in the Company’s matching and discretionary contribution portion of their accounts, plus actual earnings thereon, is based on years of service. Upon a participant’s retirement, permanent disability or death, he or she becomes fully vested in the Plan. If a participant terminates employment for any other reason on or after being credited with at least six years of vesting service, he or she becomes fully vested in the Plan. Prior to the completion of six years of vesting service, the vesting percentages are as follows: 0 - 1 year – 0%; 2 years – 20%; 3 years – 40%; 4 years – 60%; 5 years – 80%; 6 years – 100%. A year of vesting service is credited to participants that complete 1,000 hours of service within a plan year.”
A worker hired today collects no match for 1 year. This is a filed term, and it does not move the score above.
Eligibility, word for word
“All employees, other than employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement, non-resident aliens, leased employees, and independent contractors, are eligible to make salary reduction contributions immediately following their employment commencement date. Each employee that has completed one year of qualifying service is eligible to receive matching contributions.”
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
45th percentile
$49.82 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 55% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is J.B. Hunt's 401(k) match formula?
J.B. Hunt's 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 | Additional discretionary contributions may be made at the discretion of the Company's Board of Directors; no such additional amounts were contributed in 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
“The Company matches 50% of the first 6% of compensation that a participant contributes to the Plan once meeting match eligibility requirements as defined in the plan document. Additional amounts may be contributed at the discretion of the Company’s Board of Directors. No such additional amounts were contributed in 2025.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
What is J.B. Hunt's 401(k) vesting schedule?
J.B. Hunt vests the employer match on a graded schedule: 0% after one year, rising to 100% after six. Each step is money that leaves with you that year, which is how a graded schedule differs from a cliff.
| Employer match vesting | Graded: 0% at 1 yr, 20% at 2 yr, 40% at 3 yr, 60% at 4 yr, 80% at 5 yr, 100% at 6 yr |
|---|---|
| Your own contributions | Immediate: always 100% yours |
| Year of service | A year of vesting service is credited to participants that complete 1,000 hours of service within a plan year |
| Accelerated vesting | Full vesting upon retirement, permanent disability or death |
| Other employer contributions | Discretionary contributions vest on the same years-of-service schedule as matching contributions |
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately vested in their contributions plus actual earnings thereon. Vesting in the Company’s matching and discretionary contribution portion of their accounts, plus actual earnings thereon, is based on years of service. Upon a participant’s retirement, permanent disability or death, he or she becomes fully vested in the Plan. If a participant terminates employment for any other reason on or after being credited with at least six years of vesting service, he or she becomes fully vested in the Plan. Prior to the completion of six years of vesting service, the vesting percentages are as follows: 0 - 1 year – 0%; 2 years – 20%; 3 years – 40%; 4 years – 60%; 5 years – 80%; 6 years – 100%. A year of vesting service is credited to participants that complete 1,000 hours of service within a plan year.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 26, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join J.B. Hunt's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
J.B. Hunt's filing does not mention automatic enrollment, which is not the same as the plan having none.
| Plan entry | Immediately following employment commencement date for salary reduction contributions |
|---|---|
| Match eligibility | Completion of one year of qualifying service |
| Excluded groups | Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement, non-resident aliens, leased employees, and independent contractors |
| Automatic enrollment | Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence) |
Eligibility, word for word
“All employees, other than employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement, non-resident aliens, leased employees, and independent contractors, are eligible to make salary reduction contributions immediately following their employment commencement date. Each employee that has completed one year of qualifying service is eligible to receive matching contributions.”
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 “BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH”. 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.
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 J.B. Hunt plan report on Form 5500?
The J.B. Hunt plan reported $1.4B in assets and 39,261 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $1,407,976,159 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 39,261 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $49.82 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $49.82 per participant. The median across plans in transportation and logistics is $95.71, from the 1,843 of 1,926 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
How does J.B. Hunt's 401(k) match compare?
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, 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 transportation and logistics, two land near J.B. Hunt's maximum match and one vests on the same schedule.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Also in transportation and logistics.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Also in transportation and logistics.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Also in transportation and logistics.
Maximum match 3% of pay, level with J.B. Hunt.
Maximum match 3% of pay, level with J.B. Hunt.
Maximum match 3% of pay. Also fully vested after 6 years, like J.B. Hunt.
Compare J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. with any company, side by side
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 J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.'s 401(k) match?
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. matches 50% of employee contributions up to 6% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. 401(k) match vest?
Graded: 0% at 1 yr, 20% at 2 yr, 40% at 3 yr, 60% at 4 yr, 80% at 5 yr, 100% at 6 yr.
Does J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.'s 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Not mentioned in the filing (not proof of absence).
Who is the recordkeeper for J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.'s 401(k)?
Merrill Lynch is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. Employee Retirement 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 J.B. Hunt Transport Services, 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 | J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. |
| SEC CIK | 728535 |
| Accession number | 0001437749-26-021820 |
| Plan | J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. Employee Retirement Plan |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 26, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with J.B. Hunt Transport Services, 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, “J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0001437749-26-021820, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
