401(k) plans by industry
The median 401(k) plan at hotels and restaurants paid $54.65 per participant per year in plan-paid administrative fees; in construction the median is $166.95. Computed from 57,824 Form 5500 filings, form year 2024.
Industry comes from the IRS business code on each plan’s own Form 5500, and every figure is computed from DOL EFAST2 bulk data, not from surveys. These medians describe the 57,824 plans published here so far, a subset of the 57,824 large plans in the form-year-2024 data, so they skew toward the plans we publish first.
What does the median 401(k) plan pay in each industry?
How industries are assigned
Every Form 5500 carries a six-digit IRS principal business activity code chosen by the sponsor (the same code list used on corporate tax returns, following the NAICS sector structure). We group those codes into the industries above; each industry page lists the exact code ranges it covers. Fees are Schedule H plan-paid administrative expenses divided by beginning-of-year participants; the median counts only plans where that figure is positive and computable.
Industries with fewer than 15 published plans get no page until more plans are published. 80 published plans carry a business code outside the IRS list and are counted in the overall median only. Plan-paid expenses only: fund expense ratios and employer-paid bills never appear in Schedule H, so every median is a floor, not the all-in cost. Median fees by plan size · Full methodology
Source dataset last refreshed July 28, 2026.
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, “Median plan-paid 401(k) administrative cost per participant by industry”, computed from DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data, form year 2024.