How to read these records

Which employers

Four tests, all from the Form 5500 and 5500-SF files for 2024: the filing is marked as the final return; the plan is a single-employer plan; it had 50 participants or more at the start of the year; and no other plan filed under the same employer number that year was still continuing.

A final return is not a closure notice

It says the plan ended. Companies that shut down file one; so do companies that were bought and moved their staff to the buyer's plan, and companies that simply dropped a plan. The record cannot tell these apart.

Participants are not headcount

The count includes former employees who still had a balance. “Active participants at the end” is usually zero on a final return: the plan has paid everyone out.

What is not here

Names of signers, administrators or any individual. Mailing addresses. Health-care employers and public bodies. Plans of fewer than 50 participants. Multiemployer and union plans.