Specialized Returns and Taxpayers · Retirement plans
Reporting requirements
tax year · reviewed 2026-08-21 · Draft for I. Ohu review
Plan reporting is where an otherwise well-run plan gets into trouble, because the deadlines run off the plan year rather than the employer’s tax year and nothing on the business return prompts them. A sponsor that files its own return perfectly can still be accruing a daily penalty on a plan return nobody remembered.
The rule
The annual return (IRC § 6058(a)). every employer maintaining a pension, annuity, stock bonus, profit-sharing or other funded plan of deferred compensation, or the plan administrator within the meaning of IRC § 414(g), must file an annual return stating what the Secretary prescribes about the plan’s qualification, financial condition and operations (IRC § 6058(a))TY2026 That return is the Form 5500 series. Form 5500 is filed by the employer or plan administrator of a pension or welfare benefit plan covered by ERISA; Form 5500-SF by a plan with fewer than 100 participants that meets the eligibility conditions; and Form 5500-EZ by a one-participant plan or a foreign plan. Form 5500-SF may no longer be used in place of Form 5500-EZTY2026
One-participant plans. a one-participant plan for Form 5500-EZ purposes is a retirement plan not subject to the annual ERISA Title I reporting requirements that covers only the owner of the entire business, whether or not incorporated, and the owner’s spouse, or one or more partners in a business partnership and their spouses — treating a 2 percent shareholder of an S corporation as defined in IRC § 1372(b) as a partner. A plan benefiting anyone else is not a one-participant planTY2026 The definition is narrower than “small plan.” A single employee outside the owner-and-spouse group takes the plan out of Form 5500-EZ entirely.
When. the Form 5500 series return is due on the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends — 31 July for a calendar-year plan — with an extension requested on Form 5558TY2026 Form 5558 extends the time to file Form 5500, Form 5500-SF, Form 5500-EZ and Form 8955-SSA; since 1 January 2025 it may be filed electronically through EFAST2 or on paper with the Service, no signature is needed for a Form 5500 series or Form 8955-SSA extension, and a single Form 5558 may extend the Form 5500 and the Form 8955-SSA for the same plan. It is no longer used for Form 5330, which is extended on Form 8868 insteadTY2026 Note the change of vehicle for one form: Form 5558 no longer extends Form 5330, which now goes on Form 8868.
How. Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF must be filed electronically through EFAST2. A one-participant or foreign plan may file Form 5500-EZ electronically through EFAST2 or on paper with the Service unless the sponsor is subject to the mandatory electronic filing requirement of Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2, and information filed electronically for such a plan is not made public on the Department of Labor websiteTY2026 a filer must file the Form 5500 series electronically if, during the calendar year that includes the first day of the plan year, it is required to file at least 10 returns of any type — information returns such as Forms W-2 and 1099, income tax returns, employment tax returns and excise tax returns all counting. Filer means the employer or employers maintaining the plan and the IRC § 414(g) plan administrator, and the IRC § 414(b), (c), (m) and (o) aggregation rules apply, so a controlled group counts the returns of every member (Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2(d)(3))TY2026 The ten-return count is not a count of plan returns. It sweeps in Forms W-2, Forms 1099, income tax returns, employment tax returns and excise tax returns, so almost any employer with a handful of staff is over it.
The registration statement. Form 8955-SSA is the IRC § 6057(a) annual registration statement, filed by the plan administrator of a plan subject to the ERISA § 203 vesting standards, naming each participant who separated from covered service during the plan year and is entitled to a deferred vested benefit at the end of it; it is due on the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends and is extended on Form 5558TY2026 It is a separate filing with the same due date, and the two are extended together on a single Form 5558.
Distribution reporting. the employer or plan administrator of a plan from which designated distributions may be made, and any issuer of a contract under which they may be made, must report to the Secretary, to participants and beneficiaries, and to any other person the Secretary prescribes — but no report is required as to distributions to a person in a year unless they aggregate $10 or more (IRC § 6047(d))TY2026 That is the statutory basis for Form 1099-R, and the aggregation floor is the reason a trivial distribution generates no form. failure to file a report required under IRC § 408(i) or (l) for an individual retirement plan, or under the corresponding provisions for Archer MSAs, health savings accounts or qualified tuition programs, costs $50 for each failure unless the failure is due to reasonable cause (IRC § 6693(a))TY2026
What a miss costs. failure to file a return or statement required under IRC § 6058, § 6047 or § 6039D on time, unless due to reasonable cause, costs $250 for each day the failure continues, capped at $150,000 for any one return (IRC § 6652(e))TY2026 failure to file a complete IRC § 6057(a) registration statement on time, unless due to reasonable cause, costs $10 for each participant omitted multiplied by the number of days the failure continues, capped at $50,000 for any plan year; failure to file the IRC § 6057(b) notification of a change of plan status costs $10 a day capped at $10,000 (IRC § 6652(d))TY2026 the current Form 5500 and Form 8955-SSA penalty amounts come from § 403 of the SECURE Act, Division O of Pub. L. 116-94, and apply to returns, statements and notifications required to be filed after 31 December 2019 — a tenfold increase on the amounts before that dateTY2026
Getting out of it. two penalty relief routes exist for a delinquent Form 5500-EZ — the Service’s penalty relief programme under Rev. Proc. 2015-32 and ordinary reasonable cause relief under IRM 20.1.1.3.2. The Department of Labor’s Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program is not available for a Form 5500-EZ, though it is the route for a delinquent Form 5500 or Form 5500-SFTY2026
A plan adopted after the year ended. under SECURE Act § 201 an employer may adopt a plan by the due date of its tax return including extensions and elect to treat it as effective for that tax year, for plans adopted for taxable years beginning after 31 December 2019; no Form 5500 series return is required for the retroactively adopted year, a box on that year’s form records the election, and filing a Form 5558 for such a plan does not itself create a filing requirement or trigger a delinquency noticeTY2026
Current figures
| Item | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Which return | Form 5500 is filed by the employer or plan administrator of a pension or welfare benefit plan covered by ERISA; Form 5500-SF by a plan with fewer than 100 participants that meets the eligibility conditions; and Form 5500-EZ by a one-participant plan or a foreign plan. Form 5500-SF may no longer be used in place of Form 5500-EZTY2026 |
| One-participant plan | a one-participant plan for Form 5500-EZ purposes is a retirement plan not subject to the annual ERISA Title I reporting requirements that covers only the owner of the entire business, whether or not incorporated, and the owner’s spouse, or one or more partners in a business partnership and their spouses — treating a 2 percent shareholder of an S corporation as defined in IRC § 1372(b) as a partner. A plan benefiting anyone else is not a one-participant planTY2026 |
| Due date | the Form 5500 series return is due on the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends — 31 July for a calendar-year plan — with an extension requested on Form 5558TY2026 |
| Extension | Form 5558 extends the time to file Form 5500, Form 5500-SF, Form 5500-EZ and Form 8955-SSA; since 1 January 2025 it may be filed electronically through EFAST2 or on paper with the Service, no signature is needed for a Form 5500 series or Form 8955-SSA extension, and a single Form 5558 may extend the Form 5500 and the Form 8955-SSA for the same plan. It is no longer used for Form 5330, which is extended on Form 8868 insteadTY2026 |
| Electronic filing threshold | a filer must file the Form 5500 series electronically if, during the calendar year that includes the first day of the plan year, it is required to file at least 10 returns of any type — information returns such as Forms W-2 and 1099, income tax returns, employment tax returns and excise tax returns all counting. Filer means the employer or employers maintaining the plan and the IRC § 414(g) plan administrator, and the IRC § 414(b), (c), (m) and (o) aggregation rules apply, so a controlled group counts the returns of every member (Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2(d)(3))TY2026 |
| Registration statement | Form 8955-SSA is the IRC § 6057(a) annual registration statement, filed by the plan administrator of a plan subject to the ERISA § 203 vesting standards, naming each participant who separated from covered service during the plan year and is entitled to a deferred vested benefit at the end of it; it is due on the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends and is extended on Form 5558TY2026 |
| Form 5500 penalty | failure to file a return or statement required under IRC § 6058, § 6047 or § 6039D on time, unless due to reasonable cause, costs $250 for each day the failure continues, capped at $150,000 for any one return (IRC § 6652(e))TY2026 |
| Form 8955-SSA penalty | failure to file a complete IRC § 6057(a) registration statement on time, unless due to reasonable cause, costs $10 for each participant omitted multiplied by the number of days the failure continues, capped at $50,000 for any plan year; failure to file the IRC § 6057(b) notification of a change of plan status costs $10 a day capped at $10,000 (IRC § 6652(d))TY2026 |
| Relief | two penalty relief routes exist for a delinquent Form 5500-EZ — the Service’s penalty relief programme under Rev. Proc. 2015-32 and ordinary reasonable cause relief under IRM 20.1.1.3.2. The Department of Labor’s Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program is not available for a Form 5500-EZ, though it is the route for a delinquent Form 5500 or Form 5500-SFTY2026 |
How it works in practice
Start from the plan year, not the tax year. A plan year need not match the sponsor’s taxable year, and where they differ the Form 5500 deadline moves with the plan and the contribution deduction deadline moves with the sponsor. Two calendars, two diary entries, and confusing them is how a plan that was funded on time gets reported late.
Establish the participant count before choosing a form, because the count decides the form and the form decides the audit requirement. Fewer than 100 participants opens the door to Form 5500-SF and to the small plan audit waiver; the owner-and-spouse test is different again and opens the door to Form 5500-EZ. A plan that adds one non-owner employee mid-year has changed category, and the change is not obvious from the accounts.
Assume electronic filing. The ten-return threshold in Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2 counts every return of every type across the controlled group, which in practice means any employer with employees is mandatory-electronic. The rare paper filer is a one-participant plan whose sponsor files fewer than ten returns of any kind in the year — an owner-only professional practice, and not many of those.
When a filing has been missed, identify the right relief programme before doing anything else, because they are not interchangeable. A delinquent Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF goes through the Department of Labor’s Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program, which the Service honours for its own penalties. A delinquent Form 5500-EZ cannot use that programme at all and must go through the Service’s own penalty relief procedure or reasonable cause. Filing the late return outside a programme, without more, starts the correspondence rather than ending it.
The plan that stopped being a one-participant plan
An architect operates through an S corporation and has maintained a solo 401(k) for eleven years, filing Form 5500-EZ each July. In March she hires a full-time draughtsman, who becomes eligible under the plan’s terms in September of the same year. Her adviser files Form 5500-EZ as usual the following July.
The plan ceased to be a one-participant plan the moment it covered someone other than the owner and the owner’s spouse, and it became subject to ERISA Title I reporting at the same time. The correct filing for that plan year was Form 5500-SF, filed electronically through EFAST2 with the additional schedules a Title I plan requires. Filing Form 5500-EZ is not a return “in the manner prescribed,” so the IRC § 6652(e) penalty runs from 31 July at the daily rate. Because the plan is now a Title I plan, the Department of Labor programme is available to correct it — which it would not have been had the plan remained a one-participant plan.
The paper filer who could not file on paper
A dentist with no employees other than his spouse sponsors a solo 401(k). The practice files four Forms 1099-NEC to contract hygienists, two Forms W-2 for himself and his spouse, four quarterly Forms 941, an annual Form 940 and the corporation’s Form 1120-S. His adviser mails a paper Form 5500-EZ to Ogden.
Count the returns: four Forms 1099-NEC, two Forms W-2, four Forms 941, one Form 940 and one Form 1120-S is twelve returns of any type in the calendar year that includes the first day of the plan year. Twelve is at least ten, so Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2 makes electronic filing through EFAST2 mandatory notwithstanding that this is a one-participant plan. The paper return is not a filing in the prescribed manner. The Service may waive the electronic requirement year by year for undue hardship, but the burden is on the filer to document it, and “we have always mailed it” is not hardship.
Two returns, one extension, one missed
A manufacturer’s 401(k) has a plan year ending 30 September. Three participants separated during the year with deferred vested benefits. The plan administrator files a single Form 5558 in April extending the Form 5500, and files the Form 5500 within the extension. No Form 8955-SSA is ever filed.
The Form 5500 is fine. The Form 8955-SSA was separately required by IRC § 6057(a), was due on 30 April — the last day of the seventh month after a 30 September plan year end — and could have been extended on the very same Form 5558 the administrator filed, had it been checked. The penalty is $10 for each of the three participants for each day the failure continues, so $30 a day, running until the statement is filed and capped at $50,000 for the plan year. Nothing about the correctness of the Form 5500 mitigates it, because the two filings answer to different statutes.
“Small plan” and “one-participant plan” are different tests. Fewer than 100 participants gets a plan to Form 5500-SF. Only the owner, the owner’s spouse, partners and their spouses gets it to Form 5500-EZ. A four-employee plan is small and is not a one-participant plan.
The ten-return threshold counts every return, not plan returns. Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2(d)(3) counts information returns, income tax returns, employment tax returns and excise tax returns together, and aggregates across a controlled group under IRC § 414(b), (c), (m) and (o). Reading it as “ten Forms 5500” gets the answer backwards for essentially every employer.
The DOL programme does not reach Form 5500-EZ. It is the standard answer for a delinquent Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF and it is unavailable for a one-participant plan. The Service’s own programme under Rev. Proc. 2015-32 is that plan’s route, and an adviser who sends a Form 5500-EZ filer to the Department of Labor has sent them nowhere.
Form 5558 no longer extends Form 5330. The excise tax return for prohibited transactions and other plan excise taxes is now extended on Form 8868 — the same form used for exempt organisation returns. Material written before the change routes it to Form 5558.
How this has changed
Penalties for plan reporting were multiplied roughly tenfold by § 403 of the SECURE Act, Division O of Pub. L. 116-94, for returns, statements and notifications required to be filed after 31 December 2019. All three amounts moved at once — the IRC § 6058 daily penalty and its cap, the IRC § 6057(a) per-participant registration penalty and its cap, and the IRC § 6057(b) change-of-status notification penalty and its cap, each set out above. Any calculation using the pre-2020 amounts understates the exposure by an order of magnitude.
Electronic filing arrived in stages and is now near-universal. Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF have gone through EFAST2 for years; a one-participant or foreign plan gained the option to use EFAST2 from 1 January 2021 and lost the option to use Form 5500-SF as a substitute for Form 5500-EZ at the same time. Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2 then made electronic filing mandatory for filers over the ten-return threshold.
Form 5558 itself became electronically filable through EFAST2 from 1 January 2025, and stopped serving as the extension request for Form 5330 — a small change that catches out advisers working from a prior year’s checklist.
SECURE Act § 201 changed when a plan can come into existence, allowing adoption by the due date of the employer’s return including extensions with retroactive effect for the prior tax year. The reporting consequence is counter-intuitive: there is no Form 5500 series return for the retroactive year at all, and a Form 5558 filed for such a plan does not create one.
Exam focus
Know which return goes with which plan: Form 5500 for an ERISA plan generally, Form 5500-SF for one with fewer than 100 participants, Form 5500-EZ for a one-participant or foreign plan. Know the owner-and-spouse definition precisely, including the treatment of a 2 percent S corporation shareholder as a partner.
Know the due date as the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends, that Form 5558 extends it, and that one Form 5558 can cover both the Form 5500 and the Form 8955-SSA for the same plan.
Know the current penalty amounts and that they date from filings due after 2019. Know that Form 8955-SSA is a separate obligation under IRC § 6057(a) with a per-participant penalty, and that the Department of Labor’s voluntary compliance programme is closed to Form 5500-EZ filers.
Check yourself
1. A plan year ends 31 March. When is the Form 5500 due, and when if extended?
Answer: 31 October — the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends. Form 5558 extends it by two and a half months to 15 January. Note that neither date has anything to do with the sponsor’s tax year; a calendar-year sponsor with a 31 March plan year has one deadline in October and an unrelated one in April.
2. A married couple own a business jointly and employ their adult son, who participates in the plan. May the plan file Form 5500-EZ?
Answer: No. A one-participant plan covers only the owner and the owner’s spouse, or partners and their spouses. A son is neither, so the plan benefits someone outside the group, is subject to ERISA Title I reporting, and files Form 5500-SF or Form 5500 depending on participant count.
3. A plan administrator files the Form 5500 forty days late without a valid extension. The plan has 60 participants. What is the exposure?
Answer: Under IRC § 6652(e) the penalty is $250 for each day the failure continues, so $10,000 for forty days, against a cap of $150,000 for the return. The participant count is irrelevant to this penalty — it drives the Form 8955-SSA penalty, not this one. Reasonable cause is a defence, and if the plan is a Title I plan the Department of Labor programme will usually produce a far better result than arguing it.
4. An owner-only plan’s sponsor files five returns of all types during the relevant calendar year. May it file Form 5500-EZ on paper?
Answer: Yes. Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2 mandates electronic filing only for a filer required to file at least ten returns of any type during the calendar year that includes the first day of the plan year, counting across the controlled group. At five returns the sponsor is under the threshold, so the paper Form 5500-EZ to Ogden remains available.
5. A retirement plan distributes $8 to a former participant with a residual balance and issues no Form 1099-R. Is that a failure?
Answer: No. IRC § 6047(d)(1) provides that no return or report may be required as to distributions to a person during a year unless they aggregate $10 or more. At $8 there is nothing to report. Had a second $5 distribution gone to the same person in the same year, the aggregate would clear the floor and a form would be required for the total.
Change log
- Initial draft. Sets out the IRC § 6058(a) annual return and which of Form 5500, Form 5500-SF and Form 5500-EZ applies, the one-participant plan definition, the last-day-of-the-seventh-month due date and the Form 5558 extension, the Treas. Reg. § 301.6058-2 ten-return electronic filing threshold with its IRC § 414(b)-(o) aggregation, the IRC § 6057(a) registration statement on Form 8955-SSA, and the IRC § 6652(d) and (e) penalties as increased by SECURE Act § 403 for filings due after 2019.