The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has released the results of its Employee Benefits Security Administration’s (EBSA) enforcement actions during fiscal year (FY) 2025.
Through its enforcement of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the EBSA oversees approximately 2.8 million health plans, 837,00 private pension plans, and 521,000 other welfare benefit plans. According to the audit, these plans cover 155 million workers, retirees and dependents.
Enforcement Statistics
In FY 2025, EBSA recovered nearly 1.4 billion dollars in direct payment to plans, participants and beneficiaries. Other key EBSA enforcement results include the following:
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EBSA closed 878 civil investigations; of those, 63% resulted in monetary results for plans or other corrective action. According to EBSA, recoveries for terminated vested participants (i.e., individuals who are no longer working for an employer but are still entitled to benefits from their retirement plan) played a large role in these results;
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EBSA handled over 27,000 No Surprises Act complaints;
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EBSA referred 75 cases for civil litigation and closed 253 criminal investigations; and
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EBSA’s criminal investigations led to the indictment of 62 individuals and the conviction of 45 individuals—including plan officials, corporate officers and service providers—for offenses related to employee benefit plans.
Compliance Assistance Statistics
The audit fact sheet also includes statistics for the EBSA’s compliance assistance programs, the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) and the Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program (DFVCP).
The VFCP allows plan officials who have identified specified ERISA violations to take corrective action to remedy the breaches and voluntarily report the violations to EBSA without becoming the subject of an enforcement action. In FY 2025, EBSA processed 797 applications through the VFCP.
The DFVCP encourages plan administrators to bring their plans into compliance with ERISA’s filing requirements. EBSA received 24,513 annual reports through this program in FY 2025, and the EFAST2 Help Desk handled over 17,391 inquiries to help filers meet their reporting obligations.
Enforcement Resources
The EBSA has a dedicated enforcement webpage, which includes outlines of ERISA civil violations and criminal provisions, as well as enforcement accomplishments and national enforcement priorities and projects. There is also an agency enforcement results archive for prior fiscal years.
This Legal Update is not intended to be exhaustive nor should any discussion or opinions be construed as legal advice. Readers should contact legal counsel for legal advice. © 2026 Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.