401(k) Monitor

The Home Depot FutureBuilder

The Home Depot, Inc. · Atlanta, GA · EIN 953261426 · Plan 001 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024

What Home Depot put into the plan, per active participant

$691

The Home Depot, Inc. put $691 into this plan for each of its 391,522 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

Home Depot put in less per active participant than 51% of plans with 5,000+ participants in retail. The middle plan in that group of 196 reported $700. Retail comes from business code 444110, which The Home Depot, 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 Home Depot 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 July 24, 2025 · DOL EFAST2

The $691 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. The Home Depot, Inc. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2025: the section below reads $1,733 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

$44.92

The plan paid $44.92 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, cheaper than 60% 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

53 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: $691. Lower than 51% of plans with 5,000+ participants in retail.
  • What the plan cost, per participant: $44.92. Cheaper than 60% 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 Home Depot puts in

$1,733

a year, at a $49,500 salary.

The match paragraph, word for word
The Company provides matching contributions of 150% of the first 1% of eligible compensation contributed by a participant and 50% of the next 2% to 5% of eligible compensation contributed by a participant beginning on the first day of the calendar quarter following the completion of the earlier of (i) the date the associate completes one year of service and 1,000 hours; or (ii) the date the associate completes two years of service, regardless of hours worked. Before-tax and after-tax (Roth) contributions are eligible for matching contributions. Effective January 1, 2025, the Plan was amended in order to comply with SECURE 2.0, which made temporary associates eligible to make before-tax and after-tax (Roth) contributions after the earlier of (i) the first day of the calendar quarter beginning on or after the date the associate completes one year of service with 1,000 hours of service, or (ii) the first day of the plan year after the associate completes at least one hour of service in each of two consecutive 12-month periods, disregarding any periods before January 1, 2021. Catch-up contributions are not eligible for matching contributions. Additional amounts may be contributed by the Company.

What you contribute to collect all of it

Contribute at least 5% of your pay to collect the full match.

That is $2,475 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.

Vesting score

57.14 out of 100

How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 4% 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 scheduleCliff, 3 years

Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 0%, 0%, 0%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.

Vesting, word for word
Participants are immediately vested in their contributions and actual earnings thereon. Vesting in the Company's matching and discretionary contributions and actual earnings thereon is generally based on years of vesting service. For vesting purposes, a year of service is any calendar year in which a participant completes at least 1,000 hours of service. A participant is cliff vested 100% in the Company's matching contributions after three years of vesting service. In addition, each participant who completes an hour of service in a calendar year becomes 100% vested in the Company's matching contributions upon completing five years of employment if such event precedes the vesting dates above. A participant becomes 100% vested in the Company's matching and any discretionary contributions and actual earnings thereon upon death, attaining age 65 while still employed, total or permanent disability, or if the Plan is terminated.

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

40th percentile

$44.92 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 60% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by The Home Depot, Inc., 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 The Home Depot FutureBuilder.

What to check next

  • Collecting the whole match

    Home Depot’s Form 11-K pays the whole match at 5% of pay, which is $1,733 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 5% 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.

  • Weighing this employer against another

    Home Depot’s filed match formula is set against another employer’s, term by term, on 6 pages: Lowe's, Walmart, Kroger, 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 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

From Schedule H of Form 5500 filing 20250724062251NAL0010599490001, plan year 2024.
Total plan assets, end of year$14,149,677,171
Net assets$14,141,115,056
Participants, beginning of year446,735
Of which active391,522
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 $711,835,963. 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.28%

Plan-paid administrative expenses

The plan paid $20,067,156 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 446,735 participants: $44.92 per participant.

Contract administrator fees$17,723,237
Professional feesnot reported in filing
Investment management fees$861,637
Other administrative fees$14,875

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 Georgia, one of 1,588 plans on file there, at a median of $110.68 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 Georgia

The plans nearest this one by participant count, out of 80 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
The Teamster - UPS National 401(k) Tax Deferred Savings PlanBoard Of Trustees Of The Teamsters - UPS 401(k) National Savings Plan478,400$17.85
UPS 401(k) Savings PlanUnited Parcel Service Of America, Inc.145,125$77.89
Delta 401(k) Retirement PlanDelta Air Lines, Inc.112,713$103.48
Cox Enterprises, Inc. 401(k) PlanCox Enterprises, Inc.63,569$87.46

Service providers (Schedule C)

Recordkeeper: Alight (as filed: “ALIGHT SOLUTIONS LLC”)

46 plans on file name Alight as their recordkeeper, at a median of $87.90 per participant.

Providers from Schedule C, Part 1, Item 2 of filing 20250724062251NAL0010599490001. Direct compensation is paid from plan assets. Amounts in USD.
ProviderService codesDirect comp. ($)Indirect comp. ($)
Alight Solutions LLC50, 64, 159,107,1230
Alight Financial Advisors, LLC50, 268,241,118not reported
The Northern Trust Company62, 50, 25, 211,329,6010
Sepire LLC50, 36, 15646,6370
Aon Investments USA, Inc.50, 27, 16374,996not reported
Smartpath, Inc.50, 27, 16215,000not reported
Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP50, 29137,806not reported
Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.72, 62, 71, 59, 3300

Source

DatasetDOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA)
Form year2024
Filing ACK_ID20250724062251NAL0010599490001
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, "The Home Depot FutureBuilder: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250724062251NAL0010599490001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 53 out of 100 (exact value 52.53).