By Tom Hawkins | June 6, 2026

FACT: Retirement savings portability helps everyone, hurts no one – and with no cost to plan sponsors to implement – it’s the equivalent of a “free lunch” for the retirement savings ecosystem.

Need convincing?

Consider the benefits of retirement savings portability to:

  • Millions of participants, whose retirement security is increased by reducing cashout leakage, preserving retirement assets and consolidating retirement savings.
  • Hundreds of thousands of plan sponsors, whose plans become more efficient by shrinking terminated participant accounts, increasing average balances, reducing fiduciary risk and minimizing the problem of missing participants.
  • Plan advisors, who increase assets under management, creating more opportunities for wealth management.
  • Plan recordkeepers, whose platforms are competitive and enjoy fully reciprocated relationships with other networked recordkeepers.
  • Practically every retirement savings public policy initiative, where policy benefits are dramatically enhanced through savings preservation and the systemic efficiencies that portability affords.

Portability is NOT Hyperbole
Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) has solid empirical evidence supporting the benefits of portability:

Are you a plan sponsor who wants to calculate the potential long-term benefits of auto portability? Visit the Auto Portability Plan Calculator for a high-level estimate, based upon the Auto Portability Simulation.

Portability: An Idea Whose Time Has (Finally) Come
The concept of retirement savings portability has been around for quite a while, but like many things in the retirement ecosystem, it takes time to be embraced.

Now, there are clear signals that the concept of portability is being embraced, and that it’s time for mainstream adoption has finally come.

This article takes stock of five recent, broad-based developments that, taken together, make a compelling case that full retirement savings portability is close to becoming a reality, including:

Portability is in retirement’s future. Become a part of it!

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