Average 401(k) Balance by Age (2026): Accounts, Not People

Before you measure yourself against a published average, it is worth knowing what it is an average of. Recordkeeper reports describe one firm's book accurately and were never intended to measure what Americans have saved.

The difference matters most for the people it describes least well. If you have changed employer a few times your savings may sit in three or four places at once, and no single one is your total. If you rolled an old plan into an IRA, that money is not in a 401(k) recordkeeper's figures at all. If your employer has never offered a plan, you were never in the denominator.

What is the average 401(k) balance?

$167,970 on average and $44,115 at the median, per participant account, at year-end 2025.

Vanguard, Previewing How America Saves 2026, reflecting year-end 2025. The average rose 13% and the median 16% from year-end 2024. Age-banded figures are not published on that page, which is part of why this article uses a household source for the by-age table below.

The average sits 3.8 times above the median, which is what a distribution with a long upper tail looks like. That is where nearly every competing article stops. It is not the useful question. The useful question is whether the thing being averaged is the same thing you are holding.

The number almost nobody publishes

Roughly 45.7% of American families hold no retirement account of any kind. Under 35, the share with one is below half.

This is the fact that reframes every benchmark on this page. A recordkeeper report cannot see a family with no plan, because it is built from plans. When under half of a bracket holds an account, the median family in that bracket has nothing, and a headline median of $18,880 for the under-35s is describing only the half who are in the system.

Notice also where the share peaks. It rises to about 62.2% in middle age and then falls away, which is partly people spending down and closing accounts and partly the cohorts who reached retirement before workplace plans were universal.

Balances by age, per household

Among the families who do hold a retirement account, here is the middle and the average. Both are conditional on holding one.

Balances peak in the 65 to 74 bracket at $200,000 and then fall, which is drawdown doing exactly what it should. A falling balance after retirement is the plan working, not a failure.

One caution on comparing yourself to this table: it covers retirement accounts of every kind, not 401(k)s alone. That is deliberate. Your total across a current plan, old employers' plans and every IRA is the figure worth benchmarking, and it is the figure this source measures.

Whose balances are actually being counted?

A 401(k) balance is a property of an account. Your retirement savings are a property of you. Recordkeeper benchmarks measure the first and get read as the second.

Four situations where a published average describes someone other than you:

• You have changed jobs. Four employers can mean four balances, each modest on its own. A benchmark built from accounts has no way to know they belong to one person.
• You rolled an old plan into an IRA. Consolidating your savings can make you disappear from the statistics that measure them.
• Your employer offers no plan. Roughly 45.7% of families hold no retirement account, and recordkeeper reports structurally cannot see them.
• You are self-employed. Solo 401(k)s, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs sit outside the typical workplace-plan dataset.

A reasonable objection: Vanguard administers millions of accounts, so surely it is representative? Large and representative are different properties. A near-census of one firm's plans is an excellent description of that firm's plans and still not a sample of American workers.

What moves the balance more than picking funds

• Contribution rate. The largest single lever and the most under your control. The 2026 elective deferral limit is $24,500, rising to $32,500 from 50 and $35,750 between 60 and 63. Full detail is in the 2026 contribution limit guide.
• The employer match. The highest-certainty return available in a workplace plan. Contributing below the match threshold leaves part of your stated compensation unclaimed.
• Fees. Expense ratios compound against you exactly as returns compound for you. Worth checking once, not worth agonising over monthly.
• Years invested. The one you cannot buy back. See what time does to contributions.

A note on tax treatment, since it changes what a balance means: a traditional 401(k) balance is pre-tax money and the figure on your statement is not what you would keep. A Roth balance is after-tax. Comparing the two at face value overstates the traditional one. Weigh pre-tax against after-tax, or project a balance forward.

How to add up your own total

Do this before comparing yourself to anything.

1. Current employer's plan. Log in, note the balance.
2. Every former employer's plan. Work backwards through your employment history. Money left behind stays invested and stays yours.
3. Every IRA. Traditional, Roth, rollover, SEP, SIMPLE.
4. Any solo 401(k) from self-employed work.
5. Add them up. That total is your retirement savings. One statement is not.

Lost track of an old plan? The Department of Labor runs a free Retirement Savings Lost and Found database, created under the SECURE 2.0 Act and launched in December 2024, which you reach through Login.gov. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation runs a separate search for unclaimed pensions. Do not pay a finder service to locate money that is already yours.

For where retirement savings sit inside the rest of a household balance sheet, see average net worth by age. That page covers everything you own minus everything you owe; this one covers retirement accounts only.

Frequently asked questions