Most participants with rollovers from Vanguard-administered plans remained in interim retirement accounts rather than reaching a new employer plan by early 2026, Vanguard research found.
Vanguard defined a cash-out as at least one cash distribution. The comparison describes changes in the plans studied; it was not a randomized estimate of the program’s effect.
Vanguard said participants with balances from $1,000 to $7,000 had other choices, including keeping savings in a former employer’s plan or rolling them into an individual retirement account.
The PSN began operating in 2023 to help carry eligible small retirement accounts across job changes. In Vanguard’s implementation, a balance goes into a Retirement Clearinghouse safe-harbor IRA while the network looks for the worker’s next employer plan. Vanguard found that about 6% of participants with PSN rollovers from its administered plans had been matched by early 2026; 94% remained in interim IRAs. Those figures describe participants in Vanguard-administered plans, not the network as a whole or the share of dollars transferred.
Vanguard reported about 220,000 outbound rollovers into safe-harbor IRAs from April 2024 through January 2026. Nearly three-quarters were below $1,000, and the median transfer was $200. The firm described the typical user as 31 years old, with about six months of median job tenure and annual income of approximately $20,000.
Vanguard estimated that about 3% of U.S. 401(k) plans were enrolled at the time of its research. The PSN adoption tracker listed 23,738 plan sponsors as having elected automatic portability by Sept. 30, 2026. Vanguard also warned that fees and conservative default investments could erode small balances while they await a match, but its research did not establish actual losses.
CNBC reported Oct. 31 that Steve Holman, Retirement Clearinghouse’s senior vice president of PSN strategy and development, provided figures showing 1.22 million eligible participants awaiting a match, more than 25% above the start of 2026. Citing Holman, CNBC also reported 53,118 completed transfers totaling $71.3 million since the network launched. “These early results really highlight both the promise and the current limitations of auto portability,” said Fu Tan, a senior investment strategist at Vanguard.
