Verified against official sources — 31 Oct 2026

401(k) Basics in the USA: How Your Employer's Retirement Plan Actually Works

NEW Published 31 October 2026

Somewhere in your first months at a US job, HR invites you to join a 401(k), colleagues mention "the match" as though it were weather, and your payslip starts showing deductions you did not have before. Our payslip guide shows where those deductions sit on a W-2; this guide explains the plan itself — what it is, how money goes in, what the employer's part really is, and what happens when you change jobs or leave the country. Mechanics and tax treatment only, from the IRS and Department of Labor texts. It is not investment advice.

SECTION 01What a 401(k) Is — and What It Is Not

RULE — It is a feature of an employer's plan, holding an individual account in your name. The IRS's definition is one sentence: "A 401(k) is a feature of a qualified profit-sharing plan that allows employees to contribute a portion of their wages to individual accounts." The Labor Department places it in its family tree: a 401(k) is a type of defined contribution plan, in which "you and/or your employer contribute money to your individual account in the plan". That classification carries the plan's defining property — "A defined contribution plan, on the other hand, does not promise you a specific benefit amount at retirement." Instead, "[t]he value of your account depends on how much is contributed and how well the investments perform", and "[y]ou receive the balance in your account, reflecting the contributions, investment gains or losses, and any fees charged against your account".

RULE — It is not a bank account, and the government does not guarantee it. The account holds investments, not a deposit, and its balance rises and falls with them. Unlike the traditional pensions the same booklet describes, there is no federal backstop: of defined contribution plans the Department's table states plainly, "No Federal guarantee of benefits", and "[t]he government does not guarantee benefit payments for defined contribution plans". The guarantee that exists for most private defined benefit plans, through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, does not extend to a 401(k).

RULE — Your employer chose to offer it; no law made them. "Employers can choose whether to offer a retirement plan to employees; Federal law does not require employers to offer or to continue to offer a plan." A job with no 401(k) breaks no rule, and a plan can be changed or terminated — though an employer "may not reduce the benefit you have already accrued in the plan". The federal texts supply the frame: tax treatment in the Internal Revenue Code, and standards in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which the Labor Department administers for private-sector plans. Within that frame, the operative document is your plan's own.

SECTION 02How Money Goes In: Deferrals, the Limits, Pre-Tax and Roth, Catch-Ups

RULE — Your part enters by election, straight out of pay. In the IRS's Topic on 401(k) plans: "If you're eligible under the plan, you generally can elect to have your employer contribute a portion of your compensation to the plan on a pretax basis." Amounts contributed this way are called elective deferrals. On the pre-tax route, deferrals are not subject to income tax withholding at the time of deferral, and you do not report them as wages "because it isn't included in box 1 wages on your Form W-2"; they are "reported as an information item in box 12 of your Form W-2" — our guide to your payslip and W-2 shows where. One tax still touches them for most workers: deferrals are "included as wages subject to withholding for Social Security and Medicare taxes". The pre-tax treatment is an income-tax treatment, not a payroll-tax one. (Section 07 covers the F-1 and J-1 position, where those taxes may not be due at all.)

RULE — The 2026 ceiling on your own deferrals is $24,500. The IRS's contribution-limits page states it in terms: "The limit on employee elective deferrals (for traditional and safe harbor plans) is: $24,500 in 2026, subject to cost-of-living adjustments." Two qualifications belong with the figure. It is a ceiling, not a target, and it is yours across employers: "Generally, you aggregate all elective deferrals you made to all plans in which you participate to determine if you have exceeded these limits." And your plan can be stricter: "Your plan's terms may impose a lower limit on elective deferrals." The limits are adjusted annually, so a figure quoted without its year — including this one, after 2026 — should not be relied on.

RULE — From age 50, catch-up contributions raise the ceiling — $8,000 in 2026, and $11,250 at ages 60 to 63. "If permitted by the 401(k) plan, participants age 50 or over at the end of the calendar year can also make catch-up contributions", of "$8,000 in 2026" for traditional and safe harbor plans. "Under a change made in SECURE 2.0, a higher contribution limit applies for employees aged 60, 61, 62 or 63 who participate in these plans. For 2026, this higher catch-up contribution limit is $11,250." The name misleads some readers: "You don't need to be 'behind' in your plan contributions in order to be eligible to make these additional elective deferrals." Note the opening condition — catch-ups exist only if your plan permits them.

RULE — Pre-tax and Roth are two tax timings, and they share one ceiling. Some plans let you direct deferrals instead into a designated Roth account: "a separate account in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan to which designated Roth contributions are made. Designated Roth contributions are not excluded from gross income and are currently taxed. Qualified distributions from a Roth account, including earnings, are excluded from gross income." Put side by side: pre-tax money is taxed on the way out; Roth money is taxed on the way in, and "distributions from the account are generally tax-free, including previously untaxed earnings in the account" when they are qualified — made "at least five years after the year of the participant's first designated Roth contribution (counting the first year as part of the five)" and on or after age 59½, or on account of disability or death. The two routes are not two allowances: "The combined amount a participant may contribute as pre-tax elective deferrals and designated Roth contributions each taxable year is limited" to the same deferral limit. Which timing suits a given person is a question about their own tax circumstances, and this article does not answer it.

RULE — The employer's money sits under a different, larger limit — which is why the match does not eat your $24,500. A second, overall limit caps everything entering your account. The IRS states that it "applies to the total of: elective deferrals (but not catch-up contributions); employer matching contributions; employer nonelective contributions; allocations of forfeitures", and that "[t]he annual additions paid to a participant's account cannot exceed the lesser of: 100% of the participant's compensation, or $72,000 in 2026 ($80,000 including catch-up contributions or up to $83,250 for those age 60 to 63)". The point readers most often get backwards: employer contributions do not count against your elective deferral limit; they count against this overall one.

SECTION 03The Employer Match and Vesting: Whose Money Is It, and When?

RULE — A match is the employer contributing alongside you, on a formula the plan itself sets. The Labor Department describes it without numbers, and the absence of numbers is the accurate part: "Your employer may add to your account, in some cases by matching a certain percentage of your contributions", and "[t]he employer may choose to match a portion of the employees contributions or to contribute without employee contributions". Federal law neither requires a match in an ordinary 401(k) nor prescribes its size; the formula is a term of your employer's plan, found in its Summary Plan Description. To show the shape of a formula and nothing more: if a plan added 50 cents for every $1 an employee deferred, a $100 deferral would draw a $50 employer contribution. That example is invented arithmetic, printed to make "matching a portion" concrete; it describes no real plan, and no official text read states a typical match to compare yours against. One detail the IRS does fix: even where your deferrals are Roth, the match cannot follow them into the Roth account — "Matching contributions and profit-sharing contributions may not be made directly to the designated Roth account", though "[a]n employer may use designated Roth deferrals in calculating a matching contribution", paying it into another account in the plan.

RULE — Your own contributions are vested immediately and always. Vesting is the earning of the right to keep money. On your own deferrals there is no earning period: "You immediately vest in your own contributions and the earnings on them. This means you have earned the right to these amounts without the risk of forfeiting them." And specifically for this kind of plan: "In a defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) plan, you are always 100 percent vested in your own contributions to a plan, and in any subsequent earnings from your contributions." Whatever else changes when you leave a job, that part of the account cannot be taken back.

RULE — Employer money vests on a schedule, and federal law sets only the slowest schedules allowed. "However, in most defined contribution plans you may have to work several years before you are vested in the employers matching contributions." For matching contributions, the Department states the employer's choice: "Currently, employers have a choice of two different vesting schedules for employer matching 401(k) contributions... Your employer may use a schedule in which employees are 100 percent vested in employer contributions after 3 years of service (cliff vesting). Under graduated vesting, an employee must be at least 20 percent vested after 2 years, 40 percent after 3 years, 60 percent after 4 years, 80 percent after 5 years, and 100 percent after 6 years." Those are outer limits, not a required wait — "[p]lans can allow employees the right to employer-provided benefits sooner than indicated" — and in a safe harbor 401(k), "you are immediately vested in all required employer contributions". The consequence is stated as plainly as the schedule: "You may lose some of the employer-provided benefits you have earned if you leave your job before you have worked long enough to be vested."

MECHANISM — The arithmetic of an unclaimed match, stated as arithmetic and not as advice. A match is paid only on deferrals actually made, under the plan's formula. It follows, arithmetically rather than as a recommendation, that an employee who defers less than the amount the formula matches receives a smaller employer contribution — the difference is compensation the plan offered and did not pay. Whether deferring more is right for any individual depends on their debts, reserves, tax position and plans, none of which this article knows. The match is not a bonus, a fee or a separate account: it is an employer contribution, conditional on yours, vested on the schedule above.

SECTION 04While You Are Employed: What You Can and Cannot Do with the Account

RULE — The money is not generally reachable while you work there. The IRS's distribution rules for participants begin with a closed list: "Generally, distributions of elective deferrals cannot be made until one of the following occurs: You die, become disabled, or otherwise have a severance from employment. The plan terminates... You reach age 59½ or experience a financial hardship." Outside those events, the deferrals stay in the plan. Two plan-optional doors exist within that frame — loans and hardship distributions — and both exist only if your plan opens them.

RULE — Loans: the plan may let you borrow from your own account, within federal ceilings. "Retirement plans may offer loans to participants, but a plan sponsor is not required to include loan provisions in its plan." Where loans exist, the ceiling is federal: "The maximum amount a participant may borrow from his or her plan is 50% of his or her vested account balance or $50,000, whichever is less", with an exception the plan need not adopt under which up to $10,000 may be borrowed where 50% of the vested balance is less than that. The clock is federal too: "Generally, the employee must repay a plan loan within five years and must make payments at least quarterly", with an exception to the five-year requirement where the loan is used to purchase a primary residence. A loan that breaks the rules stops being a loan in the tax system's eyes: loans that don't follow the required repayment schedule are considered "deemed distributions", and the balance "is treated as a distribution that is subject to income tax and may be subject to the 10% early distribution tax". Section 05 covers an outstanding loan when the job ends.

RULE — Hardship distributions: a narrower door, for a defined kind of need, and the money does not come back. "A retirement plan may, but is not required to, provide for hardship distributions." Where a plan does, the IRS's test has two halves: the distribution "must be made on account of an immediate and heavy financial need of the employee and the amount must be necessary to satisfy the financial need". Certain expenses are deemed to meet the first half: certain medical expenses; costs of buying a principal residence; tuition and related educational expenses; payments needed to prevent eviction or foreclosure on a principal residence; burial or funeral expenses; certain repairs to damage to a principal residence; and expenses and losses from a federally declared disaster affecting the employee's home or workplace. The plan chooses which it recognises. The consequences are the part to read twice: "Hardship distributions are includible in gross income unless they consist of designated Roth contributions. In addition, they may be subject to an additional tax on early distributions of elective contributions. Unlike loans, hardship distributions are not repaid to the plan. Thus, a hardship distribution permanently reduces the employee's account balance under the plan." Nor can it be undone by moving the money: "A hardship distribution cannot be rolled over into an IRA or another qualified plan."

RULE — Investment choice, where it exists, is a choice among the plan's options. At mechanism strength only: the Labor Department explains that some plans — "such as most 401(k) or profit sharing plans, can be set up to permit participants to choose the investments in their accounts (within certain investment options provided by the plan)" — and that the plan must give participants information about each option, including its goals, risk and return characteristics, and the fees that may be charged. Many plans also enrol employees automatically unless they opt out, at a contribution level and into a default investment the plan selects, with a notice describing your right to opt out or change both. What to choose among a plan's options is investment judgement, and it is outside this article entirely.

SECTION 05Changing Jobs: the Four Things That Can Happen to the Account

RULE — The starting position: in most cases the balance can move with you, and above a threshold it cannot be pushed out without your say. The Labor Department: "If you leave your employer before retirement age and you are in a defined contribution plan (such as a 401(k) plan), in most cases you will be able to transfer your account balance out of your employers plan." The IRS adds the consent protection that makes leaving the money where it is a real option: "Generally, if your account balance exceeds $5,000, the plan administrator must obtain your consent before making a distribution." The four options:

Option one — leave it in the former employer's plan. With a balance above the consent threshold, the account can simply stay, invested as the plan allows, until you elect a distribution or reach the plan's required distribution age (Section 06). You make no new contributions — you are no longer an employee — and the Department's action item for this case is to "keep your contact information up to date with the former employer, and keep track of the employers contact information".

Option two — roll it into the new employer's plan. "A rollover to another retirement plan — you can ask your employer to transfer your account balance directly to your new employers plan if it accepts such transfers." The condition is the new plan's, and the IRS states it flatly: "Your retirement plan is not required to accept rollover contributions. Check with your new plan administrator to find out if they are allowed and, if so, what type of contributions are accepted."

Option three — roll it into an IRA. "A rollover to an IRA — you can ask your employer to transfer your account balance directly to an individual retirement account (IRA)." On either rollover route, the tax treatment is the point: "When you roll over a retirement plan distribution, you generally don't pay tax on it until you withdraw it from the new plan." The route matters. In a direct rollover, "No taxes will be withheld from your transfer amount." If the distribution is paid to you instead, you have 60 days to deposit it into another plan or IRA — but "[t]axes will be withheld from a distribution from a retirement plan", so "you'll have to use other funds to roll over the full amount of the distribution"; the part not rolled over is taxable in the year and may attract the additional tax in Section 06.

Option four — take it as a lump sum. "A lump sum — you can choose to receive your benefits as a single payment from your plan, effectively cashing out your account. You may need to pay income taxes on the amount you receive, and possibly a penalty." The Department adds: "Transferring your retirement plan account balance to another plan or an IRA when you leave your job will protect the tax advantages of your account and preserve the benefits for retirement." What cashing out costs, mechanically, is Section 06.

RULE — Small balances follow different defaults, and an outstanding loan follows none of them safely. If you make no election: "If you're no longer employed by the employer maintaining your retirement plan and your plan account is between $1,000 and $5,000, the plan administrator may deposit the money into an IRA in your name if you don't elect to receive the money or roll it over. If your plan account is $1,000 or less, the plan administrator may pay it to you, less, in most cases, 20% income tax withholding, without your consent." (These figures are the IRS rollovers page's as fetched on 31 October 2026; thresholds of this kind are adjusted by legislation from time to time, as the verification note records.) Separately, with a loan outstanding: "[p]lan sponsors may require an employee to repay the full outstanding balance of a loan if he or she terminates employment or if the plan is terminated. If the employee is unable to repay the loan, then the employer will treat it as a distribution" — taxable in the year, unless the balance is rolled over into an IRA or another eligible plan by the due date of that year's federal return, including extensions, as the loans page describes.

SECTION 06Taking Money Out: Distributions, the 10% Additional Tax, Withholding, and Required Distributions

RULE — A distribution that is not rolled over is income in the year you receive it. The IRS states the default at the head of its rollovers page: "If you don't roll over your payment, it will be taxable (other than qualified Roth distributions and any amounts already taxed) and you may also be subject to additional tax unless you're eligible for one of the exceptions to the 10% additional tax on early distributions." The 401(k) overview page says the same from the plan side: "Distributions, including earnings, are includible in taxable income at retirement (except for qualified distributions of designated Roth accounts)." Retirement is the design case; the additional tax is the early case.

RULE — Before 59½, add a 10% additional tax on the taxable part, unless an exception applies. The IRS's Topic on 401(k) plans: "Distributions (including hardship distributions) received before age 59½ are subject to the additional 10% tax unless an exception applies." Exceptions exist in the Code — the texts carry their own lists — but the structure to hold is: ordinary income tax on the amount, plus 10% of the taxable portion, is the default cost of taking pre-tax money out early, wherever you live and whatever your visa history. It is a property of the distribution, not of the person.

RULE — Money paid to you arrives with 20% already withheld. "A retirement plan distribution paid to you is subject to mandatory withholding of 20%, even if you intend to roll it over later. Withholding does not apply if you roll over the amount directly to another retirement plan or to an IRA." Withholding is a prepayment, not the tax itself: it is credited on your return for the year, and the taxable amount is the full distribution, not the 80% that reached your bank. This is also why the direct route in Section 05 is mechanically clean — nothing is withheld from a transfer that never passes through your hands.

RULE — Eventually the plan makes you take money out: required minimum distributions. "You cannot keep retirement funds in your account indefinitely. You generally have to start taking withdrawals from your IRA, SIMPLE IRA, SEP IRA, or retirement plan account when you reach age 73." For a 401(k), the required beginning date is "April 1 following the later of the calendar year in which you: reach age 73, or retire (if your plan allows you to delay taking your RMD until retirement)" — and the plan's document governs: "A retirement plan document may require you to begin receiving distributions after you reach age 73, even if you're still employed." Two qualifications from the same page: "You're not required to take withdrawals from Roth IRAs, or from Designated Roth accounts in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan while the account owner is alive"; and under-withdrawing carries "a 25% excise tax on the amount not distributed as required (10% if withdrawn within 2 years)". For most readers here, age 73 is distant; the rule is printed because the account has a statutory endgame designed in from the first deferral.

SECTION 07Visa-Holder Specifics: What the Plan Rules Do and Do Not Say About You

PARTIALLY VERIFIED — No text read for this article makes a visa category a plan-eligibility criterion; eligibility is the plan's, inside federal floors. Stated as a property of the sources, because it cannot be quoted as a rule: across the IRS and Labor Department material read here, who may join a plan is discussed in terms of employment and plan design, never of immigration status. The IRS's own framing is "if you're eligible under the plan". The Labor Department describes the federal floors a plan may apply — "[g]enerally, a plan may require an employee to be at least 21 years old and to have a year of service with the company before the employee can participate in a plan", with plans free to be more generous — and notes that "[f]ederal law allows employers to include certain groups of employees and exclude others from a retirement plan". Whether a given plan covers a given employee is answered by that plan's Summary Plan Description, not by anything in the immigration system. An H-1B worker, an L-1 transferee, or a student on authorised practical training is, for plan purposes, an employee whose eligibility the plan's terms decide. No source read promises a plan must admit you; none read names a status that bars you.

RULE — The one real intersection is payroll tax, and it cuts in the student's favour, not against participation. Section 02 noted that pre-tax deferrals remain wages for Social Security and Medicare taxes. For one part of this audience those taxes are not due in the first place. The IRS's page on aliens employed in the US lists among those exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes: "Nonresident alien students, scholars, professors, teachers, trainees, researchers, and other aliens temporarily present in the United States in F-1, J-1, M-1, or Q-1 nonimmigrant status", on wages "for services performed within the United States as long as such services are allowed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for these nonimmigrant statuses, and such services are performed to carry out the purposes for which they were admitted" — and its list of exempt employment expressly includes "[p]ractical Training student employment on or off campus", which is where OPT sits. The exemption has stated edges: it ends for a person who becomes a resident alien for tax purposes, and it does not cover work outside the authorised purpose. (Which side of that line you are on is the subject of our guide to tax residency and the substantial presence test.) For other employment-visa holders, the same page's baselines apply: wages of nonresident aliens are in general subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes, wages of resident aliens are taxed "under the same rules that apply to U.S. citizens", and the page's H-visa exemption names only H-2 and H-2A cases — an H-1B salary is FICA-taxed, deferrals included. None of this is an eligibility rule: the FICA position changes what is withheld from the pay the deferral comes out of; no text read makes it a condition of joining.

PARTIALLY VERIFIED — Enrolment itself has no immigration effect in either direction, on the texts read. Readers ask both ways: whether joining a retirement plan could look like settling intent, and whether contributing could help a future application. No IRS, Labor Department or immigration text read for this article connects plan participation to status, admissibility, or the outcome of any application. That is an absence, stated as one: there is no official support for the claim that a 401(k) helps or harms an immigration case, and anyone asserting either is going beyond the published texts. What does exist — Sections 05 and 06 — is a set of US tax consequences that follow the money regardless of where its owner later lives.

RULE — Leaving the country is a tax question about the account, not a plan event — and it has its own guide. Nothing in the plan texts read makes departure a distribution event or requires an account to be emptied because its owner moved abroad; the elections in Section 05 open on the plan's own conditions, such as termination of employment. The departure-specific questions — what happens when a distribution is paid to you as a nonresident alien, which withholding regime then applies, and the departure-year return — belong to our guide to leaving the USA for good, which works them from the IRS's nonresident and withholding pages.

FAQFrequently Asked Questions

Official references and verification status

Verified on 31 October 2026 against: the IRS's 401(k) Plans page and Topic No. 424 (the definition; pre-tax exclusion; deferrals outside box 1 but inside Social Security and Medicare wages; box 12 reporting; the 10% additional tax before 59½); the IRS's contribution limits page (the $24,500 deferral limit for 2026; plan terms may set a lower limit; catch-ups of $8,000 for 2026 at 50+ and $11,250 for 2026 at ages 60–63, if the plan permits; the overall limit — the lesser of 100% of compensation or $72,000 for 2026, $80,000 including catch-ups and $83,250 at 60–63 — with employer matching counted there, not against the deferral limit); the IRS's designated Roth account page (Roth deferrals taxed currently; qualified distributions excluded — five-year rule plus 59½, disability or death; one shared limit; matching barred from the Roth account itself); the IRS's plan loans page (loans optional; the lesser of 50% of the vested balance or $50,000; the optional $10,000 exception; five-year repayment; deemed distributions; loans on leaving a job); the IRS's hardship FAQ (hardship optional; the immediate-and-heavy-need test and deemed categories; hardship taxed, not repayable, not rollable); the IRS's 401(k) Resource Guide distribution rules (the closed list of distribution events; the $5,000 consent threshold); the IRS's rollovers page (direct and 60-day rollovers; no withholding on direct transfers; mandatory 20% withholding on distributions paid to you; the small-balance rules; plans not required to accept rollovers); the IRS's required minimum distributions page (withdrawals generally from age 73; the required beginning date; designated Roth accounts exempt while the owner is alive; the 25% excise tax, 10% if corrected within two years); the IRS's page on aliens employed in the US and Social Security taxes (the F-1/J-1/M-1/Q-1 nonresident exemption for authorised services, practical training included, ending on becoming a resident alien; the H-visa exemption confined to H-2 and H-2A); and the Department of Labor's What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan (defined contribution mechanics; no federal guarantee; employers not required to offer plans; participation floors; immediate vesting of your own contributions; the three-year cliff and six-year graduated schedules; safe harbor immediate vesting; the job-change choices). Four limits are flagged. First, the visa-holder eligibility position in Section 07 and the first FAQ is PARTIALLY VERIFIED: it rests on the eligibility rules the texts state and on the absence of any status-based criterion in them; no official text addresses visa holders as plan participants directly. Secondly, the statement that enrolment has no immigration effect in either direction is likewise an absence across the texts read, printed as one. Thirdly, two source vintages: the IRS's designated Roth page still prints earlier years' limits (2024 figures) and an RMD passage written around age 72 — none of its figures is used here; every limit printed comes from the contribution-limits page for 2026, and the RMD position from the required-distributions page, which states age 73. Fourthly, the small-balance figures in Section 05 ($1,000 and $5,000) are the IRS rollovers page's as fetched on 31 October 2026; thresholds of this kind are adjusted by legislation from time to time, and if the page changes, those figures must change with it. No typical or average match is printed, because no source read states one as a rule; the single match example in Section 03 is invented arithmetic and is labelled as such in the text.

• IRS — 401(k) Plans (the definition; pre-tax and Roth treatment; employer contributions; distributions)
• IRS — Topic No. 424, 401(k) Plans (eligibility under the plan; W-2 boxes 1 and 12; Social Security and Medicare wages; the additional 10% tax)
• IRS — 401(k) and Profit-Sharing Plan Contribution Limits (the 2026 deferral limit; catch-ups; the overall limit)
• IRS — Retirement Topics: Designated Roth Account (Roth deferrals taxed now; qualified distributions; the five-year rule; matching kept out of the Roth account)
• IRS — Retirement Topics: Loans (loans optional; the 50%/$50,000 ceiling; five-year repayment; loans when you leave the job)
• IRS — Retirement Plans FAQs Regarding Hardship Distributions (the immediate-and-heavy-need test; the deemed categories; tax and no-repayment consequences)
• IRS — 401(k) Resource Guide, Plan Participants: General Distribution Rules (when distributions can occur; the $5,000 consent rule; required distributions)
• IRS — Rollovers of Retirement Plan and IRA Distributions (direct and 60-day rollovers; 20% mandatory withholding; small-balance defaults)
• IRS — Retirement Topics: Required Minimum Distributions (withdrawals generally from age 73; the required beginning date; designated Roth exemption; the excise tax)
• IRS — Aliens Employed in the U.S.: Social Security Taxes (the F-1/J-1/M-1/Q-1 exemption for authorised services; practical training; resident aliens; H-2/H-2A only)
• U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA — What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan (plan types and guarantees; participation; vesting schedules; taking your benefit with you)

General educational information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Your plan's own document governs its match, vesting and loan terms.

General information only. This guide is based on official sources publicly available and checked on the date shown on this page. Visa rules change, and consular and USCIS officers decide every case on its own facts — nothing here is a confirmation or a guarantee for your individual case, and this is not legal advice. Always confirm the current requirement on the official page linked in this guide before you act, and consider a qualified immigration attorney for your specific situation.