Methodology
Where the data comes from
Every figure on this site originates in the U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration public Form 5500 datasets — the same annual return/report that plan administrators file through EFAST2. Each dataset is published per filing year and refreshed on a monthly cycle; the vintage date shown throughout the site is the refresh date of the dataset actually loaded.
How filings and schedules are linked
The main form (Form 5500 or the short-form 5500-SF) and every attached schedule share an acknowledgement identifier, ACK_ID. Schedule C service-provider rows and Schedule H financial lines are joined to their filing on that identifier, so a provider or financial line never migrates between plans. Column names change from year to year, so fields are resolved through each year's data dictionary rather than hardcoded positions.
Exactly as filed
A value is shown only if the plan filed it. A blank field is displayed as "Not filed" — never as zero, never filled in from another plan, another year, or a model. Ratios such as fees per participant are simple arithmetic on filed inputs and are labelled as derived. Nothing here is estimated, projected, or valued.
Schedule C coverage caveat
Service-provider compensation is reported on Schedule C, which is filed mainly by larger plans. Small plans filing the short-form 5500-SF carry little or no fee detail at all. That means fee figures exist for a subset of the population, and any fee comparison is valid only inside a stated cohort with its cohort size and filed-fee coverage shown alongside it. A percentile is a position within that cohort, not a judgement that a fee is high, low, or reasonable.
Not advice
A filing is not an endorsement. Nothing on this site is fiduciary, investment, legal, or employment advice. Always confirm any figure against the plan's own filing on EFAST2.