Form 5500 is due the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends. For calendar-year plans, that is July 31, 2026. Filing Form 5558 on or before July 31 extends the deadline by two and a half months to October 15, 2026. You must file Form 5558 by the original due date. It does not work afterward. Non-calendar plan years follow the same seven-month rule from their own year end, so a June 30 plan year end is due January 31 and extends to April 15.

Generally yes if the plan had 100 or more participants with account balances at the beginning of the plan year. Large plans must attach a report from an independent qualified public accountant to the Form 5500. One exception matters here. Under the 80-120 participant rule, a plan with 80 to 120 participants at the start of the plan year may elect to file in the same category it used last year. A plan that filed as a small plan last year and has grown to 110 participants can generally file as a small plan again. Once a plan exceeds 120 participants it must file as a large plan and obtain an audit.

Two agencies can assess penalties on the same filing. Under ERISA Section 502(c)(2), the Department of Labor may charge up to $2,739 for each day a complete annual report goes unfiled, with no maximum cap. That figure rises with inflation each year. Separately, under IRC Section 6652(e), the IRS may assess $250 per day up to a maximum of $150,000 per plan year. Where applicable, the PBGC uses the same penalty amounts as the DOL. Because there is no DOL cap, exposure on a filing that is several years overdue can be substantial.

The Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program is a DOL program that lets plan administrators voluntarily file overdue Forms 5500 at sharply reduced penalties. Under the DFVCP the penalty drops to $10 per day, capped at $750 per year for a small plan and $2,000 per year for a large plan. Submit multiple delinquent years for one plan together and the total per-plan cap holds at $1,500 for small plans and $4,000 for large plans, whatever the number of years. Eligibility requires that you file before the DOL notifies you in writing of a failure to file, so the program closes once the DOL makes contact. The IRS generally waives its own late filing penalties for filers who satisfy DFVCP requirements, provided any required Form 8955-SSA is also filed.

No. You must file Form 5558 on or before the original due date of the Form 5500. It cannot cure a deadline retroactively. Miss both the original deadline and the extension window and the plan is simply late. File as soon as possible and pursue relief through the DFVCP instead of attempting an extension.

Submit without a required audit report and the DOL treats the filing as incomplete. An incomplete filing carries the same penalty exposure as a late one. Missing schedules and blank required fields produce the same result. For a large plan, this means submitting the Form 5500 on time without the auditor's report does not preserve the deadline. If the audit will not be complete by the original due date, filing Form 5558 by that date to obtain the October 15 extension is the appropriate step.

Plan for eight to twelve weeks from engagement to issued report, though it depends heavily on how quickly third parties respond. Most of the data sits with the recordkeeper, custodian, and payroll provider rather than with the sponsor. Turnaround from those parties usually sets the timeline, not the audit work itself. A first-time audit also runs longer than a recurring one, because it has to establish prior-year balances and review the plan document in full. Engaging in July or August for an October 15 extended deadline is realistic; engaging in late September generally is not.

A qualifying trustee or custodian can certify the completeness and accuracy of the investment information it holds. Where that happens, the auditor may perform what practitioners have long called a limited scope engagement, and the certified investment information falls outside the audit. This is now performed as an ERISA Section 103(a)(3)(C) audit under the current auditing standard, which changed the form of the report rather than removing the requirement. Everything outside that certified information still gets audited in both cases: participant data, contributions, distributions, and plan operations. No qualifying certification means a full scope audit.

Yes. A plan that terminates during the year still has a final Form 5500 obligation for its final plan year, and a frozen plan that continues to hold assets continues to file annually. Sponsors frequently assume an inactive, frozen, or wound-down plan no longer needs to report. Terminated plans are among the more common situations the DFVCP resolves. If a plan has assets or participants, assume a filing obligation exists until confirmed otherwise.

An independent qualified public accountant. Plan audits form a specialised area with their own body of guidance. The AICPA runs the Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center for that reason. Member firms commit to specific peer review, continuing education, and quality control standards for plan audits. DOL inspections have historically found higher deficiency rates among firms performing very few plan audits, so the number of plan audits a firm performs annually is a reasonable question to ask during selection. GreenGrowth CPAs is an Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center member firm.