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Find Your Forgotten 401(k)s With This New Government Tool
By Adam Hardy MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
You could find benefits you didn’t know you had.
In the final days of the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Labor quietly released an online tool to help millions of Americans more easily track down lost or forgotten retirement accounts from private-sector employers.
It’s been years in the making, stemming from a directive in 2022’s SECURE 2.0 Act retirement-reform legislation. Congress directed the Labor Department to create a search engine for abandoned retirement accounts by Dec. 29, 2024.
The department appears to have met that deadline, pushing its Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database live just before the end of the year.
Here’s what you need to know about it.
Tracking down lost retirement accounts
In November, the Labor Department sent out a notice asking retirement plan administrators to submit accountholder records to populate its new database. The agency is also relying on information from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Social Security Administration to help workers track down lost retirement benefits.
It’s a big job. According to the financial technology firm Capitalize, American workers have left behind nearly 30 million 401(k) plans as of 2023, accounting for some $1.7 trillion in unclaimed assets. In other words, over 25% of all money in 401(k)s is sitting in inactive retirement accounts.
Job switching is a major reason why. The Labor Department notes that it can be easy for workers to forget about these accounts if they don’t roll over the funds. “Workers may lose track of their retirement plans after they change jobs or after a prior employer merges with another company or goes out of business,” the agency wrote in the notice.
The solution? Its new lost-and-found tool.
How to find lost retirement savings
The retirement savings tool is up and running at Lostandfound.dol.gov.
Before you can start searching for old retirement accounts, you’ll need to enroll in an ID verification service through Login.gov.
You’ll need several things to verify your identity:
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- Legal name
- Valid email address
- A driver’s license or state-issued ID card
- A mobile phone with access to a web browser
Verifying your identity through Login.gov may take several minutes. You will need to take clear photos of the front and back of your ID as well as a well-lit selfie photo without any hats, glasses or other obstructing accessories on.
If digital verification isn’t working, your other option is to complete the enrollment process in person at a nearby post office. You will need to bring the documents mentioned above with you; you’ll also need to be able to print out a barcode generated when you set up your in-person appointment on the website.
After you’ve verified your identity, return to Lostandfound.dol.gov and select the “sign in with Login.gov” button to begin your search. Any matched retirement accounts will automatically display on a results page, and the department will list the contact information for the plan administrator so you can contact them and collect any benefits that might be owed to you.
Limitations of the database
The biggest drawback at the moment is that retirement plan administrators aren’t yet required to submit this information. The Labor Department is requesting that administrators submit records and update them annually, but compliance is voluntary.
The database only includes retirement accounts offered by private-sector employers or unions, such as pension plans and 401(k)s (or 403(b)s for nonprofit workers). And the accounts must be attached to your Social Security number.
Other retirement plans, like individual retirement accounts (IRAs), will not show up since they aren’t offered by employers.
The department’s website also says that just because an account shows up in the database doesn’t mean that you’re owed any money. The database simply shows all retirement plans associated with your Social Security number. You will need to contact your retirement account administrator to confirm your unclaimed benefits.
It’s also possible that no retirement accounts will show up in the search results. (This was the case when I tested it out, even though I have several accounts through previous employers.)
If no matches are found, an error message prompts you to check back later as the database is “constantly being updated.”
The department did not respond to Money’s request for comment on how many accounts are currently in the database or when more accounts will be added.
In a statement to the industry trade publication Plansponsor shortly after the database’s launch, a department spokesperson under the Biden administration encouraged retirement plan administrators to send in their records to help build out the tool.
“While the database has been launched,” the spokesperson said, “we hope that future improvements will result in higher data quality.”
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Adam Hardy is Money's lead data journalist. He writes news and feature stories aimed at helping everyday people manage their finances. He joined Money full-time in 2021 but has covered personal finance and economic topics since 2018. Previously, he worked for Forbes Advisor, The Penny Hoarder and Creative Loafing. In addition to those outlets, Adam’s work has been featured in a variety of local, national and international publications, including the Asia Times, Business Insider, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Nasdaq and several others. Adam graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida, where he studied magazine journalism and sociology. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income, single-parent household, Adam understands firsthand the financial barriers that plague low-income Americans. His reporting aims to illuminate these issues. Since joining Money, Adam has already written over 300 articles, including a cover story on financial surveillance, a profile of Director Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an investigation into flexible spending accounts, which found that workers forfeit billions of dollars annually through the workplace plans. He has also led data analysis on some of Money’s marquee rankings, including Best Places to Live, Best Places to Travel and Best Hospitals. He regularly contributes data reporting for Best Colleges, Best Banks and other lists as well. Adam also holds a multimedia storytelling certificate from Poynter’s News University and a data journalism certificate from the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) at the University of Missouri. In 2017, he received an English teaching certification from the University of Cambridge, which he utilized during his time in Seoul, South Korea. There, he taught students of all ages, from 5 to 65, and worked with North Korean refugees who were resettling in the area. Now, Adam lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his pup Bambi. He is a card-carrying shuffleboard club member.