New tool for finding old retirement accounts

If you are like many of us and have worked for different employers through the years, you may have old retirement plans that have been forgotten or have been hard to track. A study that was released in the fall of 2025 laid out a variety of trends and reasons why forgotten employer-sponsored retirement accounts are on the rise, including frequent job changes and three years of strong stock market returns. 

As a result, the value of forgotten retirement accounts has crossed the $2 trillion mark for the first time – there are now nearly 32 million accounts with an average balance of over $66,000 each. This number has skyrocketed in recent years - it rose over 30% from mid-2023 to mid-2025 alone, and is nearly double what it was 10 years ago.  

Financial planners have long seen this dynamic as problematic, as scattered employer-sponsored plans – even if they aren’t forgotten or otherwise abandoned – present complexities in managing a household’s overall asset allocation and investment strategy. There are efficiencies and actual cost savings to be had when all those accounts are gathered under one umbrella: we can assure that each account is invested correctly, and coordinated with the rest of the household investments; there can be a reduction of excess or duplicative costs; we can create an easier – and dare we say enjoyable?! – administrative experience for the account owners; and there are opportunities for an efficient, thoughtful, and simpler eventual drawdown or liquidation strategy.

Now there’s help for people who would do well to tackle this type of project: a new tool from the Department of Labor may help you track down these old accounts. Funding for the DOL’s Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database was created back in 2022, in the legislation known as the SECURE Act 2.0. The database is meant to help taxpayers who have contributed to accounts sponsored by a private-sector employer (it will not, for example, track down forgotten IRAs or plans set up by government employers such as cities, states, or federal agencies). 

To use the website and search tool, you’ll need to use your Login.gov account – something you may have already established, if you’ve recently accessed your Social Security records. 

If you use the database to locate an old account, we would be interested in hearing about your experience. Or, if you are a client and think you have a long-forgotten plan floating around out there, please reach out to us so that we can help you track down your missing account.