401(k) Plan Restatement: Cycle 4, 2026 Deadline, and Fixes

If you sponsor a pre-approved 401(k) plan, the current 401(k) plan restatement deadline works in two parts: December 31, 2026 is the deadline for adopting interim amendments from the 2024 Required Amendments List, and the full Cycle 4 employer adoption deadline for signing your rewritten plan document has not yet been set. The IRS will announce that date once it finishes reviewing document providers’ Cycle 4 submissions, which closed on August 25, 2025.¹

Where Cycle 4 Stands Right Now

The IRS runs pre-approved defined contribution 401(k) plans on a six-year remedial amendment cycle. Each cycle has a provider submission phase, an IRS review phase, and then a window for employers to sign the newly approved document.²

Cycle 4 opened for provider submissions in February 2024. The submission window was originally scheduled to close January 31, 2025, but the IRS extended it to August 25, 2025.¹ The IRS is now reviewing those submissions. Once it issues opinion letters and announces the employer adoption deadline, sponsors will typically have around two years to sign, based on how prior cycles ran.²

For reference, Cycle 3’s remedial amendment window ended January 31, 2023. If your plan was restated then, you are on Cycle 4 now.

Individually Designed Plans Are on a Different Track

The six-year cycle applies only to pre-approved plans, the template documents that providers make available to many unrelated employers. Most small and mid-size 401(k) plans use them. Individually designed plans, drafted from scratch for a single employer, do not go through the cyclical restatement process. Instead, they adopt amendments by the deadlines set on the IRS Required Amendments List each year. If your plan is individually designed, the Cycle 4 adoption deadline does not apply to you.

The December 31, 2026 Interim Amendment Deadline

Do not wait for the Cycle 4 restatement to handle every recent legal change. When Congress or the IRS requires a plan change mid-cycle, that change usually needs its own interim amendment before the next full restatement rolls it in.³

The 2024 Required Amendments List (Notice 2024-82) sets December 31, 2026 as the general amendment deadline for the items it identifies, and it applies to both pre-approved and individually designed plans.⁴ The list includes several SECURE 2.0 Act items, such as changes to the family attribution rules under Section 414 and modified Section 415 limits for certain rural electric cooperative employees.

A common mistake: assuming the six-year restatement will absorb everything, and skipping interim requirements. It will not. If a change appears on the Required Amendments List, you need a standalone amendment signed by the listed deadline, even though the next restatement will eventually incorporate it.

Discretionary Amendments Have Their Own Clock

Voluntary design changes—new eligibility rules, a different match formula, adding loan provisions, adding Roth deferrals—must be signed by the last day of the plan year in which the change takes effect.⁵ For a calendar-year plan, that means December 31 of the year the change is effective.

How the Restatement Itself Gets Done

Your Third-Party Administrator or benefits counsel handles the document work. You, as plan sponsor, make the design decisions and sign.

Your TPA or document provider prepares a new plan document based on the IRS opinion letter issued for Cycle 4. The mandatory law changes are already built in.
Walk through the optional provisions. Eligibility, match formula, vesting, distribution rules, loans, Roth features—decide what stays and what changes. This is the moment to redesign without a separate amendment.
Review the draft carefully. Document errors are the sponsor’s problem regardless of who drafted them.
The plan sponsor or an authorized officer executes the restated document before the IRS adoption deadline.⁶
Keep the executed restatement and all prior versions as permanent plan records.

If you are changing document providers or recordkeepers during the cycle, confirm which provider is handling the restatement and make sure the new document preserves your existing benefit structures. Transitions are where gaps appear.

Telling Participants After You Adopt

A restatement almost always changes plan terms, which triggers a disclosure obligation under ERISA. The plan administrator has to furnish either an updated Summary Plan Description or a Summary of Material Modifications no later than 210 days after the close of the plan year in which the restatement was adopted.⁷ Sending one is enough. A full updated SPD within the window makes a separate SMM unnecessary.

The 210 days runs from the end of the plan year of adoption, not the day the document was signed. A calendar-year plan that adopts a restatement in October 2026 has until July 29, 2027 to distribute the disclosure. Retroactive amendments do not shift the clock backward; adoption date controls.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

A plan without a current, IRS-approved document is no longer qualified. The consequences: trust earnings become taxable, employer contributions may lose their deduction, and participants can lose tax-favored rollover treatment.⁸ In practice the IRS rarely goes straight to full disqualification, but the plan is out of compliance from the moment the deadline passes, and exposure grows with every day the failure sits uncorrected.

Fixing a Missed Restatement Deadline

Correction is available. It is not free.

Voluntary Correction Program

The main route is the IRS Voluntary Correction Program under the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System. You adopt the restated document, file a VCP submission, and pay a user fee based on your plan’s net assets:⁹

$0 to $500,000 in net plan assets: $2,000
Over $500,000 to $10 million: $3,500
Over $10 million: $4,000

These are the standard fees for submissions made on or after January 1, 2026. The IRS can impose larger sanctions in cases involving egregious or intentional failures.⁹

Umbrella Closing Agreements

Document providers with many affected employers can use an umbrella closing agreement instead of individual VCP filings. The provider negotiates a single agreement covering a group of at least 20 plans. The fee is $10,000 for the first 20 plans plus $250 per additional plan, capped at $50,000.¹⁰ If your TPA or recordkeeper offers to handle the correction under an umbrella agreement, it is usually cheaper and faster than filing on your own.

Self-Correction Has Narrow Availability

The Self-Correction Program under EPCRS can address some plan document failures, but the conditions are strict. The failure must be corrected within a two-year window, and the plan must have held a favorable IRS letter at the time the error began. Self-correction is not available for a failure to adopt an initial plan document, and corrective amendments for demographic testing failures are also excluded.⁶ For most missed restatement deadlines, VCP or an umbrella agreement is the realistic path.

1
Internal Revenue Service. List of Pre-Approved Plans
2
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Announcement 2020-7 – Third Six-Year Cycle Pre-Approved Defined Contribution Plans
3
Internal Revenue Service. Required Amendments List
4
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Notice 2024-82 – 2024 Required Amendments List
5
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Notice 2022-33 – Plan Amendment Deadlines
6
Internal Revenue Service. 401(k) Plan Fix-It Guide – Plan Document Updates
7
eCFR. 29 CFR 2520.104b-3 – Summary of Material Modifications
8
Internal Revenue Service. Correct the Failure to Adopt the Pre-Approved Plan by the Applicable Deadline
9
Internal Revenue Service. Voluntary Correction Program (VCP) Fees
10
Internal Revenue Service. Umbrella Closing Agreement Program Allows Providers of Pre-Approved Plan to Correct Missed Deadlines