Companies With the Best 401(k) Match, Ranked by What 48 Employers Actually Paid

By Craig Wear, CFP® · Last reviewed: November 1, 2026

Measured by dollars actually deposited, the companies with the best 401(k) match in plan year 2024 were Amgen ($17,909 of employer contributions per active participant), Visa ($15,916), GM’s salaried plan ($13,545), Lockheed Martin’s salaried plan ($11,755) and Meta ($11,440), according to a Q3 tabulation of 48 large plans’ Form 5500 filings.

Which companies have the best 401(k) match by dollars paid in 2024?

The ten most generous plans in this set each put more than $9,500 per active participant into employee accounts in plan year 2024, and every one is a biotech, payments, defense, aerospace, auto, Big Four or large tech employer. The figure divides each plan’s employer contributions on Schedule H by its year-end count of active participants on the Form 5500.

1. Amgen Retirement and Savings Plan: $17,909 per active participant (14,965 active)
2. Visa 401K Plan: $15,916 (13,476 active)
3. General Motors Retirement Savings Plan for Salaried Employees: $13,545 (41,023 active)
4. Lockheed Martin Salaried Savings Plan: $11,755 (94,445 active)
5. Meta Platforms 401(k) Plan: $11,440 (58,603 active)
6. KPMG 401(k) Capital Accumulation Plan: $10,795 (36,163 active)
7. Google LLC 401(k) Savings Plan: $10,615 (114,321 active)
8. Nvidia 401(k) Plan: $10,209 (17,275 active)
9. Boeing 401(k) Retirement Plan: $9,911 (143,146 active)
10. Netflix 401(k) Plan: $9,570 (8,780 active)

Popular lists rank employers by the headline formula an HR page advertises. This ranking uses the number each plan reported under penalty of perjury to the Department of Labor through EFAST2, which captures what the formula paid after eligibility waits, part-time staff, turnover and non-elective contributions. The two methods disagree often enough to matter, as the Walmart, Costco and Activision Blizzard rows below show.

How do all 48 large 401(k) plans rank on employer dollars per active participant?

Across the 48 plans, the median employer contribution was $3,089 per active participant, and the spread from Amgen ($17,909) to Walmart ($1,092) was more than sixteenfold, even though Walmart’s published formula (100% up to 6%) is richer on paper than Amgen’s 5% match alone. The table covers 25 plans at employers people search by name, the rest of the 25 largest single-employer 401(k) plans, and four employers that list articles feature.

Source: Q3 tabulation of DOL Form 5500 and Schedule H, plan year 2024 (latest public file). Employer $ per active = Schedule H line 2a(1)(A) employer contributions divided by Form 5500 line 6a(2) active participants at year end. Employee $ per active uses line 2a(1)(B). Assets per account = Schedule H line 1l net assets at year end divided by line 6g participants with account balances. “Published formula” appears only where an official source (SEC Form 11-K, plan notice or employer benefits page) states it; formulas are the 2025 or 2026 terms in those documents, while dollars are plan year 2024.

Three patterns stand out under 2026 rules. First, the top of the table is dominated by plans that add a non-elective contribution on top of the match: Amgen’s 2025 Form 11-K describes a 5% “core” contribution plus a 100% match on the first 5%, each capped at $17,500, and Lockheed Martin’s salaried plan pays a profit-sharing contribution of up to 6% of base salary beside its 4% match. Second, the five plans with the highest employee dollars per active participant (Google $30,920, Meta $29,079, Nvidia $24,825, Microsoft $24,163, Netflix $23,937) all exceed the 2024 elective deferral limit of $23,000, which points to heavy after-tax saving. Third, most retail and food service plans with large hourly workforces cluster under $1,100 per active participant regardless of formula, with Costco ($3,196) and CVS Health ($1,778) the exceptions.

A worked example shows why the formula column and the dollar column can both be right. A Walmart associate earning $60,000 in 2026 who defers 6% receives $3,600 of match, the full formula. Walmart’s plan, however, reported 1,670,732 active participants and $1.83 billion of employer contributions for the plan year that began February 1, 2024, because associates may defer from the date of hire but receive the match only after 1,000 hours of service, and the active count includes every eligible associate whether or not that associate contributes.

Why does a 6% match at Walmart produce $1,092 per participant while Boeing’s 10% match produces $9,911?

Federal rules count anyone eligible to defer as a 401(k) participant, so a plan full of eligible non-savers reports low dollars per head even with a rich formula. Under 29 CFR 2510.3-3(d)(1)(ii), a worker becomes a participant on the earlier of the first contribution or the date the plan’s age and service conditions are met.

That regulation explains the bottom of the table. Express Services, the staffing firm, reported 400,408 active participants but only 80 participants with account balances and almost no employer money, a pattern consistent with temporary workers who are eligible to defer but rarely do. Boeing’s careers site, by contrast, says most employees are eligible for the 401(k) on their first day and describes a dollar-for-dollar match on the first 10% of pay for most nonunion employees and immediate vesting.

Four other mechanics separate filed dollars from formulas, and each can be read in a plan’s Form 11-K:

• Service waits. CVS Health’s 2025 Form 11-K pays its 100% match on the first 5% only after one year of service with 1,000 hours, and Wells Fargo requires one year of service before its 100% match up to 6%.
• Non-elective money. Costco’s non-Teamsters match is the lesser of 50% of deferrals or $500 a year, yet its 2025 Form 11-K reports a discretionary contribution of 4% to 9% of pay by years of service, totaling $662.4 million for 2025. That is why Costco ($3,196) outranks Target ($894).
• Plan mergers. Kroger’s active count rose from 135,373 to 380,891 during 2024 and FedEx Retirement Savings Plan II’s from 94,890 to 217,166, so year-end division understates their rates; using the average of the two counts, Kroger’s figure is $1,074 and FedEx II’s is $2,896.
• Pay level. A percentage formula pays more at higher salaries, so a 6% match is worth $12,000 to a $200,000 engineer and $2,400 to a $40,000 cashier.

The filings also test list-article headlines. Activision Blizzard, shown on several lists with a dollar-for-dollar match up to 25% of pay, reported $26.6 million of employer contributions for 6,832 active participants: $3,887 each, 22nd of 48 and less than a quarter of Amgen’s figure. Visa, listed with a 200% match on the first 5% of pay, reported $15,916 per active participant, which is consistent with a formula worth 10% of pay. Defining a “good” match in percentage terms is covered in the guide to how a 401(k) employer match works. One employer’s plan is examined in more depth in the Sherwin-Williams 401(k) guide. Industry medians from the same filings are in average 401(k) match by industry.

What would each published formula pay a $100,000, $200,000 or $400,000 earner in 2026?

At $200,000 of pay in 2026, Boeing’s published nonunion formula is worth $20,000 a year, Microsoft’s $12,250, Walmart’s and Wells Fargo’s $12,000, JPMorgan Chase’s $10,000 and Costco’s match $500. Above $360,000 of pay, every percentage formula stops growing, because IRC section 401(a)(17) caps the compensation a plan may count.

Q3 calculation using 2026 IRS figures; hypothetical employee under age 50 with a full year of service, eligibility met and level contributions each pay period. Elective deferrals are capped at $24,500 and countable pay at $360,000. An asterisk marks a cell where the formula would require more than $24,500 of pre-tax or Roth deferrals, so the match shown is what $24,500 of deferrals earns. Formulas are the published terms linked in the ranking table; Lockheed Martin excludes its separate profit-sharing contribution and Costco excludes its 4% to 9% discretionary contribution.

The $360,000 figure comes from IRS Notice 2025-67, which raised the section 401(a)(17) compensation limit from $350,000 to $360,000 for 2026. Only one of the five list articles reviewed for this report touches the cap, in a single employer entry at the 2025 figure, yet it changes the answer for anyone paid above that line: a $400,000 Walmart or Wells Fargo employee receives at most 6% of $360,000, or $21,600, not $24,000. CVS’s 11-K shows the same cap in action, stating a maximum annual match of $17,500 for 2025, which is exactly 5% of that year’s $350,000 limit.

Formulas tied to the IRS dollar limit behave the other way. Microsoft’s 2025 Form 11-K describes a $0.50 match per $1.00 of pre-tax or Roth deferrals, up to 50% of the annual IRS deferral limit, excluding catch-up. In 2026 that is $12,250 for anyone who defers the full $24,500, whether the salary is $100,000 or $400,000, so it is worth 12.25% of pay at $100,000 and about 3.4% of countable pay at $360,000. JPMorgan Chase’s plan moves in the opposite direction for high earners: its 11-K caps the match at $10,000 for total cash compensation from $350,000 to $999,999 and pays none at $1,000,000 or more.

Worked example: a 45-year-old earning $200,000 in 2026 who defers $24,500 at Microsoft receives $12,250 of match, leaving $35,250 of the $72,000 section 415(c) annual additions limit for after-tax contributions. The same saver at Boeing needs only $20,000 of deferrals (10% of pay) for the full $20,000 match, and the remaining 415(c) room after $24,500 of deferrals and $20,000 of match is $27,500. How the match and deferrals share that cap is explained in whether employer contributions count toward the 401(k) limit.

Which of these employers pay the match each paycheck, at year end, or on cumulative pay?

Timing decides whether a saver who hits $24,500 early keeps the full match. Starbucks matches each pay period with no make-up, Walmart recalculates on cumulative pay every payroll, and Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase pay once a year to employees still on staff at year end. Those three designs produce different results for the same contribution pattern.

Starbucks’ 2026 Safe Harbor notice states that no match is made for any pay period in which contributions stop, including periods suspended because an IRS limit was reached, and warns that front-loading “may result in less overall Starbucks Match.” In a Q3 calculation, a $200,000 earner paid 26 times a year who elects 20% per paycheck reaches $24,500 in the 16th pay period and receives $6,154 of match instead of the $10,000 a level 5% election would earn, a $3,846 shortfall.

Walmart’s Form 11-K for the plan year ended January 31, 2026 says the match is “calculated based on each participant’s cumulative compensation and cumulative elective and catch-up contributions through such payroll period,” which acts as a running true-up: the same $200,000 earner front-loading at Walmart still collects the full $12,000. Lowe’s pays its 4.25% formula each payroll and, unlike Lockheed Martin and Microsoft, matches catch-up contributions. The mechanics of year-end corrections are covered in the explainer on how a 401(k) true-up works.

Annual payers attach a presence test. Wells Fargo’s 2025 Form 11-K pays the match at year end only to participants employed on December 15, with exceptions for retirement age, disability and death; JPMorgan Chase requires employment at the end of the calendar year. An employee who leaves on December 1 forfeits that year’s entire match at both, while the same exit at Starbucks or Walmart loses nothing already deposited.

Which generous plans make you stay three years to keep the match?

Among the plans with published terms, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Northrop Grumman, Wells Fargo (for hires since January 1, 2021), Kroger’s automatic contributions and Publix use three-year vesting, UnitedHealth Group uses a two-year cliff, and Darden vests 5% per quarter over 24 quarters. Boeing, Microsoft, CVS, Lowe’s, Walmart, Target and Starbucks vest the match immediately.

The statutory ceiling sits in IRC section 411(a)(2)(B): matching contributions must vest at least as fast as a 3-year cliff or a 2-to-6-year graded schedule (20% per year starting in year two). Home Depot’s 2025 Form 11-K uses the cliff version, with a year of service counted only for calendar years with at least 1,000 hours. Lockheed Martin vests its match immediately but, for salaried hires on or after January 1, 2025, vests the profit-sharing contribution at 20% per year over five years. The general cliff and graded rules are compared in the 401(k) vesting schedule guide.

Vesting also reshapes the filed numbers: unvested money that departing workers forfeit is typically used to reduce later employer contributions, so a high-turnover plan with a 3-year cliff can report lower Schedule H employer contributions than its formula implies. Darden’s plan adds a different limit, excluding highly compensated employees (2026 threshold $160,000 under IRC section 414(q)) from the plan entirely, according to its fiscal 2026 Form 11-K.

What do the Google, Meta and Microsoft filings reveal about after-tax contributions?

Average employee contributions above the $23,000 deferral limit at Google ($30,920), Meta ($29,079) and Microsoft ($24,163) in plan year 2024 indicate that many employees made after-tax contributions on top of pre-tax and Roth deferrals. Even if every active participant were 50 or older and added the full $7,500 catch-up, the 2024 ceiling would be $30,500, which Google’s average exceeds.

Microsoft’s 11-K confirms the feature: participants could contribute up to $34,750 on an after-tax basis in 2025, with the combined election capped at 65% of pay per period, and after-tax dollars receive no match. Google’s and Meta’s match formulas are not published on an official employer page or SEC filing that Q3 could locate, so this report does not state them; the filed dollars ($10,615 and $11,440 per active participant) are what can be verified. A separate Q3 page on the Google plan covers that employer in depth.

For high earners, after-tax room matters more than the match itself. Under the 2026 section 415(c) limit of $72,000, a Microsoft employee under 50 who defers $24,500 and receives $12,250 of match has $35,250 of after-tax space, and where a plan permits in-plan Roth conversion, converting those dollars makes only their accumulated earnings taxable. The step-by-step mechanics are on the mega backdoor Roth page for high earners, and the tax treatment of the conversion step is in the in-plan Roth conversion guide.

How can you compute your own employer’s number from its Form 5500?

Any employee can reproduce this ranking for an employer in about 15 minutes: divide Schedule H line 2a(1)(A) employer contributions by Form 5500 line 6a(2) active participants, then compare line 2a(1)(B) participant contributions and the published formula. Large plans file Schedule H every year, and the filings are free on EFAST2.

1. Locate the plan’s latest Form 5500 by sponsor name or EIN on EFAST2; the steps for confirming the right sponsor and plan number are in the guide to who the plan sponsor of a 401(k) is.
2. Read Schedule H line 2a(1)(A) for employer contributions and line 2a(1)(B) for participant contributions; line 2a(1)(C) holds rollovers, so it is excluded.
3. Divide by line 6a(2), active participants at year end. If line 6a(1), the beginning-of-year count, differs by more than 20%, use the average of the two, as the Kroger and FedEx rows above require.
4. Compare the result with 5% to 6% of a typical salary at the company. A result far below that usually means low participation, a service wait or a high share of part-time staff, not necessarily a weak formula.
5. If the employer has public stock in the plan, search SEC EDGAR for its Form 11-K, whose “Description of the Plan” note states the match, vesting and any non-elective contribution.

Where no 11-K exists, the plan administrator must provide the plan document, summary plan description and latest annual report on written request under ERISA section 104(b)(4), for no more than a reasonable copying charge. Three questions resolve most gaps: whether the match is calculated per pay period or on cumulative pay, whether after-tax contributions count toward the match, and whether any profit-sharing or non-elective contribution is paid and on what service condition.

Frequently asked questions

This article is for educational purposes only and is not individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.