The Goldman Sachs 401(k) Plan: Alight
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. · New York, NY · EIN 134019460 · Plan 001 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024
Alight is the recordkeeper named on this filing, the company that keeps the account records for this plan. Where to log in, and who to call.
What Goldman Sachs put into the plan, per active participant
$8,403
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. put $8,403 into this plan for each of its 23,891 active participants in plan year 2024. That is the whole employer side, matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions and reallocated forfeitures together, because the Form 5500 reports them on one line, so it is not the match rate.
Goldman Sachs put in more per active participant than 68% of plans with 5,000+ participants in investment management and securities. The middle plan in that group of 45 reported $6,786. Investment management and securities comes from business code 523110, which The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 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 Goldman Sachs 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: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL October 15, 2025 · Read the filing (PDF) ↗
The $8,403 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2025: the section below reads $2,970 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 the plan cost, per participant
$331.98
The plan paid $331.98 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, more expensive than 99% 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
48 out of 100
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.
- What the employer put in, per active participant: $8,403. Higher than 68% of plans with 5,000+ participants in investment management and securities.
- What the plan cost, per participant: $332. Cheaper than 1% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
On this page: who holds your account · the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · late deposits · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers
Who holds your account
Schedule C of this filing reports Alight, filed as “ALIGHT SOLUTIONS LLC”. 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.
46 plans on file name Alight as their recordkeeper, at a median of $87.90 per participant.
Participants log in at Alight, find your HR website ↗. Alight runs a separate site for each employer, so that page asks which employer you work for first. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Alight or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Alight |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EINThe provider's own employer identification number, as the filing states it. | 821061233 |
| Plan sponsor telephoneThe number The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. filed on the Form 5500. It reaches the employer, not the recordkeeper. | (212) 902-1000 |
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 Goldman Sachs puts in
$2,970
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The match paragraph, word for word
“The Plan offers a dollar-for-dollar Matching Contribution on participants’ elective deferrals up to 6% of Safe Harbor Compensation, capped at a maximum match of $12,500. If an eligible participant’s Safe Harbor Compensation is less than $125,000, the firm will also allocate to that eligible participant’s account a Fixed Contribution equal to 2% of Safe Harbor Compensation. In addition to these contributions, the firm will allocate to each eligible participant an Additional Retirement Contribution of up to $4,000. Collectively, the Matching Contribution, Fixed Contribution and Additional Retirement Contribution are herein referred to as the Firm Contributions.”
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
71.43 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 32% 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: 0%, 0%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are immediately fully vested in their own 401(k) contributions. A participant’s Matching Contributions, Fixed Contributions and Additional Contributions fully vest upon the earliest to occur of: (i) completion of a two-year period of service for the Matching Contributions and Fixed Contributions or three-year period of service for the Additional Contributions, (ii) attainment of age 65 while employed by the firm or its affiliates, (iii) disability retirement, (iv) death while employed by the firm or on military duty or (v) Plan termination. There is no partial vesting of Matching Contributions, Fixed Contributions or Additional Contributions.”
The match starts with the job. This is a filed term, and it does not move the score above.
Eligibility, word for word
“Employees become eligible to make pre-tax, after-tax, and “Roth” after-tax, contributions to the Plan as of the first day of the month after they join the firm or its affiliates as eligible employees. In addition, employees become eligible for Matching Contributions and Fixed Contributions as of the first day of the month following hire date. In addition, to be eligible for the Fixed Contribution, the employee must be employed on the last day of the firm’s fiscal year that ends with or within the Plan Year.”
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
99th percentile
$331.98 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 99% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.
What to check next
Collecting the whole match
Goldman Sachs’s Form 11-K pays the whole match at 6% of pay, which is $2,970 a year at a $49,500 salary and scales with your own. Your payslip and your Alight ↗ account both show the rate you set. A rate below 6% collects less than the whole match.
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.
What to ask about the fees
This plan paid $331.98 per participant out of plan assets, more than 99% 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 Goldman Sachs. 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 Alight ↗. 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 | $12,807,939,404 |
|---|---|
| Net assets | $12,758,136,879 |
| Participants, beginning of year | 48,550 |
| Of which active | 23,891 |
| Plan type | Single employer |
| Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against. | 5,000+ participants |
| Automatic enrollmentForm 5500 line 8a, code 2S: “Plan provides for automatic enrollment in plan that has elective contributions deducted from payroll.” The box says the plan has the feature and nothing more. The Form 5500 carries no default contribution rate, no escalation schedule and no count of who was enrolled, so none of those is stated here. | Ticked on this filing |
| How the filing meets the 401(k) nondiscrimination rules, plan year 2024Schedule R part VII, as ticked. The rule compares what the higher-paid put in with what everyone else puts in, and the boxes say which method the plan used for this year. A plan can tick a different box next year, so this is an answer for one year, not a label. | Current year ADP test |
| Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $350,720,176. The share falls when employees save more, so a plan whose staff contribute heavily reads lower here through no act of the employer. It is printed as a fact and it is not part of the score. | 36% |
Late deposits of employee contributions
Schedule H line 4a of this filing is answered no: it reports no money withheld from participants’ pay that reached the plan later than the law allows, for plan year 2024.
The line is answered by the employer about its own plan and nobody checks it here, so a no is an answer rather than a clean bill of health. 13,904 of the 55,904 plans that answered this line answered yes.
Plan-paid administrative expenses
The plan paid $16,117,465 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 48,550 participants: $331.98 per participant.
| Contract administrator fees | not reported in filing |
|---|---|
| Professional fees | not reported in filing |
| Investment management fees | $14,994,105 |
| Other administrative fees | $69,107 |
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 investment management and securities, one of 960 on file, which run to a median of $111.34.
Plans of a similar size in New York
| Plan | Participants | Cost per participant |
|---|---|---|
| Pfizer Savings PlanPfizer Inc. | 59,490 | $158.34 |
| The Wegmans Retirement PlansWegmans Food Markets Inc. | 52,123 | $6.92 |
| Omnicom Group Retirement Savings PlanOmnicom Group Inc. | 47,523 | $40.50 |
| EssilorLuxottica Retirement Savings Plan 1EssilorLuxottica USA Inc. | 45,186 | $21.43 |
Service providers (Schedule C)
| Provider | Service codes | Direct comp. ($) | Indirect comp. ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artisan Partners Ltd. Partnership | 51, 68, 28 | 1,195,174 | 0 |
| Blackrock Inst Tr Company Na | 51, 50, 24, 28, 21 | 2,030,058 | 0 |
| Centersquare Investment Management | 51, 68, 28 | 815,518 | 0 |
| Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. | 51, 68, 28 | 1,061,502 | 0 |
| Harding Loevner Lp | 51, 68, 28 | 921,793 | 0 |
| J.P.Morgan Investment Mgmt Inc. | 51, 28, 27 | 2,633,677 | not reported |
| Pimco | 51, 28 | 911,746 | 0 |
| Pricewaterhousecoopers LLP | 50, 10 | 206,032 | not reported |
| State Street Global Advisors | 52, 51, 19, 28, 18 | 111,639 | 0 |
| Victory Capital | 51, 68, 28 | 1,728,596 | 0 |
| Wellington Management Company LLP | 51, 68, 28 | 3,347,480 | 0 |
| Alight Solutions LLC | 50, 15 | 835,532 | 0 |
| Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation | 21, 50, 19 | 184,729 | 0 |
| Callan LLC | 50, 16 | 118,964 | not reported |
| KPMG LLP | 50, 10 | 12,407 | not reported |
Useful links
- Find a 401(k) you left at an old job ↗
The DOL's Retirement Savings Lost & Found. Free and official.
- Read this plan's Form 5500 as filed (PDF) ↗
The document every figure above was read from, served by the DOL. Acknowledgement ID 20251015145512NAL0009864834001.
Source
Everything this page reports about the plan itself was read from one document: the Form 5500 annual return that The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. filed with the US Department of Labor for the plan year ended December 31, 2024. Nothing here is estimated, modelled or supplied by the employer to this site.
Where the page compares this plan with others, the comparison is computed from the same Form 5500 release across the peer group each figure names. The filing is below, and the identifiers under it find it again without this page.
Read the filing as submitted (PDF, dol.gov) ↗
| Document | Form 5500 annual return for plan year 2024 |
|---|---|
| Filed with | US Department of Labor, EBSA (through EFAST2) |
| Filed byAs spelled on the filing | THE GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. |
| Employer EIN | 134019460 |
| Plan number | 001 |
| Filing ACK_ID | 20251015145512NAL0009864834001 |
| Received by the DOL | October 15, 2025 |
| Bulk dataset | DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA) |
| Dataset last refreshed | July 28, 2026 |
Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Search EFAST2 by EIN and plan number ↗
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., with the Department of Labor or with this plan’s recordkeeper, and publishes this page without their involvement. It republishes a public filing and says where it came from.
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
This is an amended filing. It replaces the sponsor's earlier submission for the same year.
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, "The Goldman Sachs 401(k) Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20251015145512NAL0009864834001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 48 out of 100 (exact value 48.01).
