IBM 401(k) Plan
International Business Machines Corporation · Armonk, NY · EIN 130871985 · Plan 005 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024
What IBM put into the plan, per active participant
Not on this filing
Schedule H leaves the employer contribution line blank on this filing. A blank line is an unfilled line, not a zero, and one sponsor often files several plans, so the employer money can sit in another plan of the same sponsor.
Nothing is filled in from an average, from another year or from another plan.
Source: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL July 18, 2025 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
What the plan cost, per participant
$229.90
The plan paid $229.90 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, more expensive than 98% of plans with 5,000+ participants. The middle plan of that size paid $54.84.
Why a plan this big pays less per person before anything else
Bigger plans pay less per head by construction, because the same negotiated bill divides across more people. That is why this ranking sits inside the plan's own size cohort and is never taken across all plans.
Schedule H reports only what came out of plan assets. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees taken inside fund expense ratios, never appear here, so this is a floor and not the all-in cost.
401(k) Monitor Score
Not scored
This filing reports one of the two amounts the score is built from, so it takes none. Schedule H leaves the employer contribution line blank on this filing. A blank line is an unfilled line, not a zero, and one sponsor often files several plans, so the employer money can sit in another plan of the same sponsor.
It keeps whichever of the two it does report, above. Nothing is filled in from an average, from another year or from another plan, because a two-part score computed on one part is a different measure wearing the same name.
What the score would read, on a filing that carries both: Where this plan stands against plans of its size and industry on two amounts its Form 5500 reports: employer money in per active person, and plan-paid cost per person. It reads no match formula, no vesting schedule and no fund lineup, because a Form 5500 states none of them.
On this page: the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers
The match and vesting terms, from a Form 11-K
The match formula and the vesting schedule are stated in a Form 11-K, which is filed only by employers whose plan holds company stock. A Form 5500 reports neither.
What IBM puts in
$0
a year, at any salary.
The filing discloses no employer contribution to this plan.
The match paragraph, word for word
“As previously disclosed, beginning January 1, 2024, IBM began providing a new cash balance retirement benefit to eligible employees under the company's existing U.S. Defined Benefit Qualified Personal Pension Plan (Qualified PPP) called the Retirement Benefit Account (RBA). IBM's contributions to the Plan ended and employees can continue to make contributions to the Plan.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Nothing to collect
The filing discloses no employer contribution to this plan, so no contribution rate collects one.
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 in the Plan are at all times fully vested in their account balance, including employee contributions, prior IBM contributions and earnings thereon, if any.”
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
98th percentile
$229.90 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 98% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by International Business Machines Corporation, whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.
Matched to this employer by sponsor name, not by an identifier stated in the filing. That Form 11-K covers IBM 401(k) Plan.
What to check next
There is no employer contribution to collect
IBM’s Form 11-K discloses no employer contribution to this plan for the year it covers. No contribution rate a worker sets changes what the employer adds.
That Form 11-K covers plan year 2025. The plan’s Summary Plan Description states the terms in force, and the plan administrator must provide it to participants on request.
A blank line is not a zero
Schedule H leaves the employer contribution line unfilled on this filing, which is not the same as reporting nothing was paid in. Your own statement, on Fidelity NetBenefits ↗, shows what reached your account.
What to ask about the fees
This plan paid $229.90 per participant out of plan assets, more than 98% of plans with 5,000+ participants, where the middle plan paid $54.84. The filing does not say what the difference buys. Two questions put that to a benefits or HR team: what the recordkeeping and administration contract costs, and how much of it comes out of participant accounts rather than being paid by IBM. The lines this total is made of are further down.
Your own numbers are not on this page
Every figure here is the whole plan for plan year 2024, taken from one filing and divided by headcounts. Your own contribution rate, your balance and the fees taken from your account are on your recordkeeper’s site, which this filing names as Fidelity NetBenefits ↗. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.
Key figures
| Total plan assets, end of year | $60,393,556,150 |
|---|---|
| Net assets | $59,358,554,739 |
| Participants, beginning of year | 156,865 |
| Of which active | 49,030 |
| Plan type | Single employer |
| Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against. | 5,000+ participants |
| Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024One of the two contribution lines is blank on this filing. A blank employee line against a filled employer line would read as every dollar coming from the employer, which is a gap in the filing rather than a fact about the plan, so no share is shown. | not stated on this filing |
Plan-paid administrative expenses
The plan paid $36,062,497 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 156,865 participants: $229.90 per participant.
| Contract administrator fees | not reported in filing |
|---|---|
| Professional fees | not reported in filing |
| Investment management fees | $29,912,272 |
| Other administrative fees | $4,537,519 |
These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here. This figure is a floor, not the all-in cost, and a low number is not “free”.
The plans this one is ranked against
Fees on this page are ranked against the 5,000+ participant cohort, where the median plan pays $54.84 per participant. The sponsor files from New York, one of 3,878 plans on file there, at a median of $108.03 per participant. Its business code places the plan in software and IT services, one of 2,956 on file, which run to a median of $125.69.
Plans of a similar size in New York
| Plan | Participants | Cost per participant |
|---|---|---|
| The PepsiCo Savings PlanPepsiCo, Inc. | 174,823 | $11.58 |
| Building Service 32BJ Supplemental Retirement Savings PlanBoard Of Trustees Of The Building Service 32BJ Supplemental | 123,030 | $65.18 |
| Real Estate Commission Retirement Savings PlanBurke Capital Vi, Inc. | 115,298 | $1.39 |
| I.A.T.S.E. Annuity FundBoard Of Trustees I.A.T.S.E. Annuity Fund | 97,354 | $75.46 |
Service providers (Schedule C)
Recordkeeper: Fidelity Investments (as filed: “FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL”)
10,593 plans on file name Fidelity Investments as their recordkeeper, at a median of $97.71 per participant.
| Provider | Service codes | Direct comp. ($) | Indirect comp. ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statestreet | 50, 21 | 6,706,853 | not reported |
| Prudential Insurance Company | 67, 51 | 3,965,588 | 0 |
| Pimco | 99, 51 | 3,483,088 | 0 |
| The Loomis, Sayles & Company, L.P. | 51 | 2,648,010 | not reported |
| Rbc Capital Markets | 67 | 2,372,860 | not reported |
| New York Life Insurance Company | 51, 28 | 1,689,647 | not reported |
| Metropolitan Life Insurance Company | 73 | 1,638,084 | not reported |
| Bridgewater | 51 | 1,615,035 | 0 |
| Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance | 67 | 1,560,271 | 0 |
| IBM | 99, 50, 35, 14 | 1,405,037 | not reported |
| Vanguard | 51 | 1,388,233 | not reported |
| Blackrock Financial Management | 51, 50, 28 | 1,076,149 | not reported |
| Western Asset Management | 51 | 1,068,031 | not reported |
| Jp Morgan | 51, 28, 27 | 978,703 | not reported |
| Baird Advisors | 28 | 847,967 | not reported |
| Voya | 16 | 818,460 | 0 |
| Dodge & Cox | 68, 52, 51 | 778,449 | 0 |
| Mackay Shields, LLC | 51 | 400,983 | not reported |
| Barings LLC | 51 | 367,790 | not reported |
| Northeast Retirement Services, Inc. | 49 | 285,781 | not reported |
| Neuberger Berman | 51 | 258,473 | not reported |
| Willis Towers Watson | 16 | 210,312 | not reported |
| Edelman Financial Engines, LLC | 28, 26 | 164,003 | not reported |
| Jellyvision Lab, Inc. | 16 | 146,887 | not reported |
| Paul Hastings | 29 | 126,903 | not reported |
| Ivins, Phillips And Barker | 29 | 61,338 | not reported |
| Morningstar | 99 | 23,500 | not reported |
| Mercer Investment Consulting Inc. | 27 | 18,532 | not reported |
| Fidelity Investments Institutional | 64, 37, 60, 99, 50, 65, 49 | 12,104 | 0 |
| Andersen Tax LLC | 10 | 5,750 | not reported |
Useful links
- Find a 401(k) you left at an old job ↗
The DOL's Retirement Savings Lost & Found. Free and official.
- Look up this plan's full Form 5500 ↗
The DOL's own filing search. Search by plan or sponsor name.
- Download this plan's data (CSV) ↗
Every field on this page, one row, ready for a spreadsheet.
Source
| Dataset | DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA) |
|---|---|
| Form year | 2024 |
| Filing ACK_ID | 20250718120137NAL0000793987001 |
| Dataset last refreshed | July 28, 2026 |
Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Look up the filing on EFAST2 ↗
Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, "IBM 401(k) Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250718120137NAL0000793987001, plan year ended December 31, 2024.