401(k) Monitor

Walmart Puerto Rico 401(k) Plan

Walmart Inc. · Bentonville, AR · EIN 710415188 · Plan 004 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024

What Walmart put into the plan, per active participant

$807

Walmart Inc. put $807 into this plan for each of its 11,133 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.

0 · least per person100 · most per person

Walmart put in more per active participant than 59% of plans with 5,000+ participants in retail. The middle plan in that group of 196 reported $700. Retail comes from business code 452300, which Walmart 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 Walmart 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 January 31, 2025, received by the DOL August 14, 2025 · DOL EFAST2

The $807 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Walmart Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2026: 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

$27.74

The plan paid $27.74 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, cheaper than 79% 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

65 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: $807. Higher than 59% of plans with 5,000+ participants in retail.
  • What the plan cost, per participant: $27.74. Cheaper than 79% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

How this score is built

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 Walmart puts in

$2,970

a year, at a $49,500 salary.

The match paragraph, word for word
The Company match is 100% of deferrals up to 6% of each participant's eligible wages for the Plan year. Company matching contributions are contributed to the Plan each payroll period and are calculated based on each participant's cumulative compensation and cumulative elective and catch-up contributions through such payroll period. Rollover contributions into the Plan are not eligible for a Company matching contribution.

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 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.

Vesting scheduleImmediate

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 all elective, catch-up, rollover, Company matching and qualified non-elective contributions. A participant's profit sharing contribution account shall vest based on years of service at a rate of 20% per year from years two through six and may become fully vested upon participant retirement at age 65 or above, total and permanent disability, or death.
Wait before the match starts1 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
Each eligible employee may begin receiving matching contributions on the first day of the month after completing at least 1,000 hours of service in a consecutive 12-month period commencing on date of hire (or during any subsequent Plan year).
True-up after year endStated in the filing

The plan tops the match up after year end, so contributing unevenly through the year does not cost the worker part of it.

The same match paragraph, word for word
The Company match is 100% of deferrals up to 6% of each participant's eligible wages for the Plan year. Company matching contributions are contributed to the Plan each payroll period and are calculated based on each participant's cumulative compensation and cumulative elective and catch-up contributions through such payroll period. Rollover contributions into the Plan are not eligible for a Company matching contribution.

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.

The formula, the six-year window and a worked example

What the plan costs, against plans of its size

21st percentile

$27.74 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 79% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by Walmart Inc., whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.

What to check next

  • Collecting the whole match

    Walmart’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 Merrill Benefits OnLine account both show the rate you set. A rate below 6% collects less than the whole match.

    That Form 11-K covers plan year 2026. The plan’s Summary Plan Description states the terms in force, and the plan administrator must provide it to participants on request.

  • Weighing this employer against another

    Walmart’s filed match formula is set against another employer’s, term by term, on 6 pages: Home Depot, Kroger, Lowe's, Best Buy, Macy's and O'Reilly Automotive.

  • 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 Merrill Benefits OnLine. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.

Key figures

From Schedule H of Form 5500 filing 20250814104459NAL0013576224001, plan year 2024.
Total plan assets, end of year$180,197,331
Net assets$179,640,788
Participants, beginning of year12,406
Of which active11,133
Plan typeSingle employer
Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against.5,000+ participants
Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $10,035,862. 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.47%

Plan-paid administrative expenses

The plan paid $344,145 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 12,406 participants: $27.74 per participant.

Contract administrator fees$167,849
Professional feesnot reported in filing
Investment management fees$1,003
Other administrative fees$114,037

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 Arkansas, one of 310 plans on file there, at a median of $119.81 per participant. Its business code places the plan in retail, one of 2,305 on file, which run to a median of $93.99.

Plans of a similar size in Arkansas

The plans nearest this one by participant count, out of 14 in its peer group. Cost per participant is each plan’s own Schedule H figure, and a filing that reported no administrative expenses says so instead of showing a zero.
PlanParticipantsCost per participant
Windstream 401(k) PlanWindstream Services LLC13,123$45.97
Murphy USA Inc. Savings PlanMurphy USA Inc.12,659$61.12
Mountaire Corporation & Subsidiaries Retirement PlanMountaire Corporation9,537$83.12
Arvest Bank 401(k) & Profit Sharing Retirement PlanArvest Bank8,104$35.39

Service providers (Schedule C)

Recordkeeper: Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner Smith (as filed: “MERRILL LYNCH PIERCE FENNER SMITH”)

Providers from Schedule C, Part 1, Item 2 of filing 20250814104459NAL0013576224001. Direct compensation is paid from plan assets. Amounts in USD.
ProviderService codesDirect comp. ($)Indirect comp. ($)
Banco Popular De Puerto Rico2161,256not reported
Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner Smith62, 37, 60, 13, 38, 72, 65, 15168,066not reported

Source

DatasetDOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA)
Form year2024
Filing ACK_ID20250814104459NAL0013576224001
Dataset last refreshedJuly 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, "Walmart Puerto Rico 401(k) Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250814104459NAL0013576224001, plan year ended January 31, 2025. 401(k) Monitor Score 65 out of 100 (exact value 64.56).