Merck & Co., Inc. 401(k): Fidelity, match 4.5% max
Merck US Savings Plan · MRK · CIK 310158
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.
Maximum employer match, as a share of pay
4.5%
Merck & Co., Inc. matches 75% of the first 6% of pay.
Merck filed three Form 11-K reports for plan year 2025, of which one has been read. The other two reports have not, so this page cannot say what the plans they cover pay.
From the Form 11-K filed June 24, 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 Merck puts in, and what the plan costs
What Merck put into the plan, per active participant
$7,169
Merck & Co., Inc. put $7,169 into this plan for each of its 29,178 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.
Merck put in less per active participant than 60% 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 325410, which Merck 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 Merck 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 221918501, plan 001 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $7,169 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Merck & Co., Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula for plan year 2025: the card below reads $2,228 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 Merck puts in
$2,228
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“In addition, the Company makes matching contributions of $0.75 for every $1.00 of an employee's contributions, up to 6% of such employee's eligible compensation (maximum match is 4.5% of eligible compensation) per pay period (to the statutory limit).”
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
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 immediately vested in their contributions, all Company matching contributions, plus actual earnings thereon.”
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
2nd percentile
$3.06 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 98% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
What is Merck's 401(k) match formula?
Merck's 401(k) employer match tops out at 4.5% of pay. The match is deposited each payroll. One rate up to one limit is the commonest of the four shapes a match formula takes.
| Match formula | 75% of the first 6% of pay |
|---|---|
| Maximum employer match | 4.5% of compensation |
| Deposited | Each payroll |
| Paid in company stock | No, paid in cash or per your investment elections |
| Conditions | Match is $0.75 for every $1.00 of an employee's contributions per pay period, up to 6% of eligible compensation, subject to the statutory limit |
At a $75,000 salary, contributing 6% ($4,500) earns the full employer match of $3,375 for the year.
What the filing says, word for word
“In addition, the Company makes matching contributions of $0.75 for every $1.00 of an employee's contributions, up to 6% of such employee's eligible compensation (maximum match is 4.5% of eligible compensation) per pay period (to the statutory limit).”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 24, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
What is Merck's 401(k) vesting schedule?
Merck 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 immediately vested in their contributions, all Company matching contributions, plus actual earnings thereon.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 24, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join Merck's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
Merck enrolls new hires automatically at 6% of pay.
| Plan entry | Regular full-time, part-time, and temporary employees are eligible on or after their dates of hire or after transferring into a U.S. benefits-eligible position |
|---|---|
| Automatic enrollment | Yes: default deferral 6% of pay |
Eligibility, word for word
“Regular full-time, part-time, and temporary employees as defined by the Plan document are eligible to participate in the Plan on or after their dates of hire or after they transfer into a U.S. benefits-eligible position.”
Automatic enrollment, word for word
“Participants are automatically enrolled in the Plan sixty days after first becoming eligible with a before-tax base pay contribution rate of 6%. In addition, each participant with a before-tax base pay contribution rate of at least 1% may elect to participate in an annual automatic increase program, in whole percentages of at least 1% and not more than 3% per year. The annual percentage increase continues automatically up to 10%. The participant may elect to change or extend it up to 25%.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 24, 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.
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 Merck plan report on Form 5500?
The Merck plan reported $15.0B in assets and 40,572 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $14,970,916,966 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 40,572 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $3.06 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $3.06 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.
Merck US Savings Plan on its Form 5500 filing: fees, providers and financials
How does Merck's 401(k) match compare?
Merck & Co., Inc.'s maximum 401(k) match of 4.5% 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 4.5% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 4.5% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 4% of pay. Also in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Maximum match 4.5% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Maximum match 4.5% of pay. Same recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments.
Employer match vests immediately. Vests immediately too, like Merck.
What can you do next?
- Read the Form 11-K on SEC EDGAR ↗
Form 11-K filed June 24, 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 Merck & Co., Inc.'s 401(k) match?
Merck & Co., Inc. matches 75% of employee contributions up to 6% of eligible pay (plan year ended December 31, 2025).
When does the Merck & Co., Inc. 401(k) match vest?
Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed.
Does Merck & Co., Inc.'s 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Yes: default deferral 6% of pay.
Who is the recordkeeper for Merck & Co., Inc.'s 401(k)?
Fidelity Investments is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for Merck US 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 Merck & Co., 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 | Merck & Co., Inc. |
| SEC CIK | 310158 |
| Accession number | 0000310158-26-000194 |
| Plan | Merck US Savings Plan |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 24, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Merck & Co., 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, “Merck & Co., Inc. 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0000310158-26-000194, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
