DOL Form 5500 Scraper

Search U.S. Department of Labor (EBSA) Form 5500 filings — the official annual disclosure reports that virtually every U.S. retirement plan (401(k), pension) and employee welfare benefit plan (health, life, disability) must file. Look up filings by plan sponsor/company name, Employer ID Number (EIN), state, plan year, or plan category, and get plan name, sponsor details, participant counts, and total plan assets (for small-plan filings). Pure HTTP against DOL's public bulk data files — no login, no API key, no proxy required.

What this actor does

• Search by sponsor/company name, EIN, plan name, or state — combine any of these filters
• Filter by plan year (2009–2025), plan category (defined benefit, defined contribution, welfare), and sponsor industry (NAICS sector)
• Total plan assets, income, expenses, contributions, and participant counts for Form 5500-SF (small-plan) filings
• Sponsor contact details — mailing address, phone number, and NAICS business code for every filing
• Covers both Form 5500 (all plan sizes) and Form 5500-SF (small plans, simplified)
• Empty fields are omitted — a record never contains null, "", or []

Output per plan filing

• ackId — DOL's unique acknowledgement ID for the filing
• formType — 5500 or 5500-SF
• planYear
• planName, planNumber
• sponsorName, sponsorEin (formatted XX-XXXXXXX), sponsorEinRaw (digits only)
• sponsorAddress, sponsorCity, sponsorState, sponsorStateName, sponsorZip
• sponsorPhone — plan sponsor's phone number on file
• businessCode, naicsSector — sponsor's 6-digit NAICS industry code and its industry sector (e.g. "Manufacturing", "Health Care and Social Assistance")
• adminName, adminEin — plan administrator, if different from sponsor
• planEntityTypeCode, planEntityType — single-employer / multiple-employer / multiemployer plan
• planCategories[] — definedBenefit, definedContribution, and/or welfare
• collectivelyBargained — whether the plan is maintained under a collective bargaining agreement
• totalActiveParticipants, totalParticipantsBeginningOfYear
• totalAssetsEndOfYear, totalAssetsBeginningOfYear, netIncomeAmount — Form 5500-SF only (see FAQ)
• totalIncomeAmount, totalExpensesAmount, employerContributionsAmount, participantContributionsAmount, totalBenefitsDistributedAmount — Form 5500-SF only
• planEffectiveDate, dateReceived, filingStatus
• sourceDatasetUrl — the official DOL bulk data file this record was extracted from
• recordType: "planFiling", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
sponsorName	string	–	Partial, case-insensitive match on plan sponsor/employer name
ein	string	–	Exact 9-digit sponsor EIN, with or without dashes
planName	string	–	Partial, case-insensitive match on plan name
state	string	CA	2-letter sponsor state/territory, or blank for all
planYear	string	2023	Filing year, 2009–2025
formType	string	both	5500-SF, 5500, or both
planCategory	string	–	definedBenefit / definedContribution / welfare
planEntityType	string	–	Plan structure: single-employer, multiemployer, or multiple-employer (with/without collective bargaining)
collectivelyBargained	string	–	yes / no — filter by whether the plan is maintained under a collective bargaining agreement
naicsSector	string	–	Sponsor's industry sector, derived from NAICS business code
minTotalAssets	integer	–	Minimum end-of-year assets (USD); Form 5500-SF only
maxTotalAssets	integer	–	Maximum end-of-year assets (USD); Form 5500-SF only
minParticipants	integer	–	Minimum active participants at end of year; both Form 5500 and 5500-SF
maxParticipants	integer	–	Maximum active participants at end of year; both Form 5500 and 5500-SF
maxItems	integer	25	Hard cap on returned records (1–1000)

Example: search by sponsor name

{
  "sponsorName": "Walmart",
  "planYear": "2023",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: look up an exact employer by EIN

{
  "ein": "71-0415188",
  "planYear": "2023"
}

Example: 401(k) plans in Texas over $10M in assets

{
  "state": "TX",
  "planCategory": "definedContribution",
  "minTotalAssets": 10000000,
  "formType": "5500-SF",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: small welfare (health/benefit) plans in New York

{
  "state": "NY",
  "planCategory": "welfare",
  "formType": "5500-SF",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: manufacturing plan sponsors in Ohio

{
  "state": "OH",
  "naicsSector": "Manufacturing",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Use cases

• Due diligence / M&A — check a target company's retirement plan obligations and participant counts
• Benefits benchmarking — compare plan assets and participant counts across sponsors in your industry or state
• Retirement plan research — study defined benefit vs. defined contribution adoption trends by state or year
• Compliance monitoring — track a specific EIN's Form 5500 filing history year over year
• Sales intelligence — identify companies by size/state that sponsor employee benefit plans

FAQ

What is the data source? The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) publishes bulk CSV datasets of every Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF filing at dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/.../form-5500-datasets. This is the same data reportable at the free public EFAST2 search site, provided instead as downloadable bulk files, which this actor queries directly.

Is this affiliated with the Department of Labor? No. This is an independent, third-party actor that reads DOL's public bulk data files. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the DOL or EBSA.

Why do only some records have totalAssetsEndOfYear? Form 5500-SF (the simplified form used by small plans) reports total plan assets directly in the base filing. The full Form 5500 (used by all plan sizes, including large plans) reports assets on a separate Schedule H attachment, which is not part of this dataset. Search formType: "5500-SF" if total assets is important to your use case.

What does planEntityType mean? It classifies the filing as a single-employer plan, a multiple-employer plan (with or without collective bargaining), or a multiemployer (union/Taft-Hartley) plan, based on DOL's plan-entity code field. Note that Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF use different code numbering for this field internally — the actor maps each form's codes correctly, so planEntityType is always accurate regardless of formType.

How current is the data? DOL republishes each plan year's "Latest filing" dataset roughly monthly as new/amended filings are processed. Plans generally file within ~7–9.5 months of their plan year end (with extensions), so the most recent 1–2 plan years may still be incomplete.

Why is state limited to the sponsor's mailing address? That's the only state field DOL's base filing datasets carry. It reflects where the plan sponsor's mail is addressed, not necessarily where plan participants work or live.

Can I search multiple plan years at once? Not in a single run — DOL publishes one dataset per plan year, so each run searches one planYear. Run the actor once per year to cover a range.

How is naicsSector determined? It's derived from the sponsor's 6-digit NAICS businessCode reported on the filing itself, mapped to its standard 2-digit NAICS sector (e.g. code 621111 → sector "Health Care and Social Assistance"). This field is self-reported by the sponsor on the filing, so occasional miscoding by filers is possible — DOL does not audit it.

Are there rate limits? None from DOL for the bulk dataset files. The actor is capped by your maxItems setting to keep runs fast and predictable.