How to find a pension from a former employer
A traditional pension (a defined benefit plan) promises a monthly payment from retirement age. If you were vested when you left, you may be owed one even if you left decades ago and the company has since been sold or gone bankrupt. Pensions are harder to lose than 401(k)s, because someone is always responsible for paying them: the plan, the company that took it over, an insurance company that bought it out, or the PBGC.
1. Find the plan
Search your old employer above. Its page lists every pension plan it has filed for (plan years 2009 to 2025), with the plan name, plan number and the employer's EIN, which you will need when you call. Your old W-2 shows the EIN in box b.
2. Read what happened to it
- Still active. Call the plan administrator listed on the plan's page and ask for a benefit statement.
- Merged into another plan. After a sale, a pension is often merged into the buyer's plan, which takes on the promise. Our pages link the old plan to the one it went into.
- Closed with enough money (a "standard termination"). The plan bought annuities from an insurance company or paid lump sums. The insurer now pays the pension. The plan administrator, or the PBGC if the plan used its missing-participants program, can tell you which insurer.
- Taken over by the PBGC. When a company cannot pay its pension, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation takes the plan over and pays guaranteed benefits, up to legal limits. 5,175 plans are on its list; see pensions taken over by the PBGC.
- A union plan. Pensions run jointly by unions and employers (multiemployer plans) are paid by the fund's own office, not the employer. The fund's contact details are on its plan page.
3. Contact whoever pays the plan now
Have your Social Security number, the plan name and number, and your dates of employment ready. For a plan the PBGC has taken over, call the PBGC Customer Contact Center at 1-800-400-7242 or use My PBGC.
4. Check the free government searches
- PBGC's unclaimed pension search covers PBGC-trusteed plans and plans that sent missing people to its program.
- Retirement Savings Lost and Found, from the Department of Labor, searches plan records with your Social Security number through Login.gov.
- The Social Security Administration's Notice of Potential Private Retirement Benefit Information lists plans that reported you as leaving with a vested benefit. It can be out of date; check any listing with the plan.
- Free one-on-one help is available from the Pension Rights Center's counseling projects and from the Department of Labor at askebsa.dol.gov or 1-866-444-3272.
Never pay to find your own pension
Every step above is free. Be wary of anyone who charges a fee or a percentage to "locate" a pension.