DOL Form 5500 — ERISA pension & welfare plan filings

Form 5500 (US DOL / EBSA) is the free annual ERISA filing for every US pension and welfare plan with ≥100 participants. Schedule H gives plan-level asset breakdowns — including mutual-fund holdings — making it the go-to free source for retirement, household-finance, DC/401(k), and pension-as-shareholder research. It is what the ZeroPaper pipeline uses for retirement and labor-finance work.

• Cost: free, no auth.
• Coverage: annual from 1999; stable schedule structure from 2009 (post EFAST2). Plans <100 participants file 5500-SF (separate).
• Home: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/public-disclosure/foia/form-5500-datasets

Access

Per-year, per-schedule ZIPs (no auth):

https://www.askebsa.dol.gov/FOIA%20Files/{year}/Latest/F_{NAME}_{year}_Latest.zip
NAME ∈ {5500, SCH_A, SCH_C, SCH_D, SCH_G, SCH_H, SCH_I, SCH_R, SCH_MB, SCH_SB}

import io, zipfile, requests, pandas as pd

def get_5500(year, name="5500"):
    url = (f"https://www.askebsa.dol.gov/FOIA%20Files/{year}"
           f"/Latest/F_{name}_{year}_Latest.zip")
    z = zipfile.ZipFile(io.BytesIO(
        requests.get(url, stream=True, timeout=120).content))
    return pd.read_csv(z.open(z.namelist()[0]), low_memory=False)

main22 = get_5500(2022)            # ~243K plan filings
sch_h  = get_5500(2022, "SCH_H")   # plan financials / asset breakdown
joined = main22.merge(sch_h, on="ACK_ID")   # filing-level key — see gotchas

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

The reason to read this page rather than the DOL site. Verified live on the date above (the 2022 main file is a ~30 MB ZIP; the apex-redirect below was reproduced).

• Hit www.askebsa.dol.gov, not the apex. The apex askebsa.dol.gov issues a 301 whose Location contains a literal space (FOIA Files, not FOIA%20Files) — confirmed live. That malformed header hangs urllib. Always request the www. host directly.
• Join schedules on ACK_ID, not EIN. ACK_ID is the DOL filing ID and the correct key to attach a schedule to one filing. (EIN, PN) identifies a plan across years — use that for a plan-year panel, not for joining schedules.
• “Latest” is a moving target. DOL revises files as late filings arrive. Row counts change month to month — snapshot the cache and report the access date, or your results aren’t reproducible.
• Slow source. ~50 KB/s on urllib; use requests streaming (~2.5 MB/s). Expect a multi-minute first download per (year, schedule). Cache to data/form_5500/.
• Big in memory. Schedule H is ~52 MB CSV/year; multi-year panels reach hundreds of MB — use a column subset (usecols=).
• Schedule structure stabilized in 2009. Pre-2009 column names differ; don’t assume a 2022 schema for a 2005 file.

Key columns

Column	Meaning
ACK_ID	DOL filing ID — the join key for schedules
EIN, PN	Sponsor EIN + plan number; (EIN, PN) = plan across years
TOT_ASSETS_EOY_AMT	Total plan assets, end of year (Sch H)
INT_REG_INVST_CO_EOY_AMT	Mutual-fund holdings (registered inv. cos.)
INT_COMMON_TR_EOY_AMT	Common collective trusts (DC substitute)
EMPLR_CONTRIB_*_AMT / PARTCP_CONTRIB_*_AMT	Employer / participant contributions
PARTCP_LOANS_*_AMT	Participant loans outstanding

Pair BOY/EOY columns to construct flows.

Standard operations

• Plan-year panel: stack Schedule H across years, key on (EIN, PN, year).
• Mutual-fund exposure share: INT_REG_INVST_CO_EOY_AMT / TOT_ASSETS_EOY_AMT.
• Implied flows: EOY − BOY·(1+r_t) with a benchmarked plan return.
• Sponsor link: match sponsor EIN to Compustat for firm characteristics.
• Always state schedule, year, and access date (DOL revises “Latest”).

Citation

U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration, Form 5500 [Schedule, plan year], public-use research files; https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/…/form-5500-datasets, accessed YYYY-MM-DD.