Lifetime funds are target-date retirement portfolios that automatically adjust their mix of stocks, bonds, and other assets as you get closer to a chosen retirement year. The name shows up two ways in the market: as a generic label for target-date or lifecycle funds, and as a branded product line from firms including MFS, Empower, Principal, and Fidelity. More than $5 trillion now sits in the broader target-date category, which has become the default retirement investment for millions of American workers.1
How the Glide Path Works
A lifetime fund holds a diversified mix of underlying investments and follows a preset schedule, called a glide path, that moves the portfolio from growth assets like stocks toward more conservative holdings like bonds and cash as the target year approaches. The target year usually appears in the fund’s name. If you plan to retire around 2050, you would pick a fund labeled “2050,” which starts with heavy stock exposure and dials it down over the following decades.
Most of these funds are built as a “fund of funds,” meaning they invest in other pooled vehicles rather than picking individual stocks or bonds. Managers handle the rebalancing on your behalf, which is why the product is often described as hands-off.
“To” Retirement vs. “Through” Retirement
One distinction matters more than most investors realize. A “to” retirement fund reaches its most conservative allocation right at the target date and holds that mix steady afterward. A “through” retirement fund keeps adjusting for years past the target date, holding somewhat more stock to address the risk of outliving your savings. Research from Manulife suggests “through” glide paths can generate 2% to 10% more wealth at retirement and over 20% more cumulative wealth by age 85, though with more short-term volatility along the way.
The practical consequence: two funds labeled with the same year can hold very different mixes of stocks and bonds. A 2030 fund using a “through” strategy may still carry substantial equity exposure at the target date, which can surprise investors who expected it to be fully conservative by then. Checking the actual allocation at the target date, and how it moves after, is the single most useful thing you can do before putting money in.
The Branded Lifetime Fund Lineups
Several large asset managers sell their target-date products under the “Lifetime” name, each with a different setup.
Empower Lifetime Funds use a multi-manager approach, blending active and passive strategies across more than 20 partner investment firms. Empower Capital Management oversees the lineup, which includes a fixed-interest contract from Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America for capital preservation. The Empower Lifetime 2030 Fund, for instance, targets 45% to 65% in equities, 30% to 50% in fixed income, and up to 10% in real estate-related funds, with quarterly tactical adjustments.
MFS Lifetime Funds offer target dates from 2030 through 2070, plus a Lifetime Income Fund for those already retired. The funds hold only proprietary MFS mutual funds across U.S. equity, international equity, non-traditional, and fixed-income strategies. MFS points to more than 20 years of target-date performance history. The MFS Lifetime 2025 Fund, as of March 2026, carried a net expense ratio of 0.45% for its institutional share class and delivered roughly 6.2% annualized returns over the prior decade.
Principal LifeTime Funds have been in the market since 2001, with about $114 billion in target-date assets. The glide path is described as “participant-informed,” drawing on behavioral data from millions of retirement savers. Principal uses a “through” retirement approach, adjusting allocations for 10 years past the target date before reaching its most conservative mix. The lineup is offered in active, hybrid, and passive index versions.
Funds With Built-In Lifetime Income
A growing subset of these products now packages a guaranteed income feature inside the target-date structure, which changes what you own in an important way. Assets in target-date funds with embedded lifetime income grew 39% in 2025, reaching $139 billion across 17 different solutions.
AllianceBernstein’s Lifetime Income Strategy combines a target-date portfolio with a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit backed by multiple insurers, including Equitable, Jackson National, Lincoln National, Nationwide, and Pacific Life. As you approach retirement, the strategy gradually shifts assets into a “Secure Income Portfolio” over a 12-to-15-year phase-in. In September 2025, the Department of Labor issued Advisory Opinion 2025-04A confirming the product qualifies as a Qualified Default Investment Alternative under ERISA, which cleared the way for employers to use it as a plan default. As of early 2026, the strategy managed $13.8 billion, with $5 billion providing secured income benefits for over 153,000 participants.
BlackRock’s LifePath Paycheck works differently. If you’re under 55, it operates like a standard index target-date fund. Starting at age 55, the fund automatically begins putting 10% of assets into a lifetime-income component, rising to 30% by age 65. Between ages 59½ and 71, you can convert that portion into annuity payments through Equitable or Brighthouse Financial. As of early 2024, 14 plan sponsors covering over 500,000 employees and $27 billion in target-date assets had committed to offering it.
State Street’s IncomeWise, with more than $20 billion in committed assets, uses a two-part structure: immediate monthly drawdowns from your remaining balance, plus a Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract that begins guaranteed payments at age 78. Fidelity announced its own entry in June 2026, the Freedom Lifetime collective investment trusts, combining its existing target-date approach with an insurance pool managed by Nationwide and New York Life. That product is expected to become available in early 2027.
The trade-off with any income-embedded product is complexity and, often, cost: you’re buying an insurance guarantee alongside an investment portfolio, and the terms of the guarantee vary by provider.
What Fees to Expect
Fees in the target-date space have fallen steadily. The asset-weighted average expense ratio for target-date mutual funds dropped to 27 basis points in 2025, down from 29 the prior year, a reduction that saved investors an estimated $80 million. Some providers still charge 0.80% or more. And because these are funds of funds, you’re paying both the wrapper fund’s management fee and the expense ratios of the underlying holdings.
Small differences compound. The Department of Labor’s illustrative calculation shows that a worker with a $25,000 balance earning 7% annually over 35 years would accumulate $227,000 with a 0.5% annual fee, but only $163,000 with a 1.5% fee. Over a full career, the wrapper fee is one of the few variables you can actually control.
Why Lifetime Funds Ended Up in Your 401(k) by Default
Under the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the Department of Labor designated target-date funds as one of only four investment types that qualify as a Qualified Default Investment Alternative. When an employee enrolls in a 401(k) but doesn’t pick investments, the plan can default their contributions into a QDIA, and the plan fiduciary gets a degree of legal protection from liability for investment losses. That designation is the single biggest reason target-date funds now dominate defined-contribution plans.
Plan fiduciaries still have to select and monitor the funds prudently. DOL guidance published in 2013 spells out best practices, including evaluating fees, understanding the glide path, reviewing performance, and considering whether the fund uses proprietary or non-proprietary underlying investments. ERISA’s prudence standard applies to that selection regardless of QDIA status.
The rules kept moving in 2025 and 2026. In August 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14330, titled “Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors,” directing the DOL to clarify the fiduciary process for offering target-date funds containing alternative assets such as private equity, real estate, and digital assets. In March 2026, the DOL published a proposed rule creating a process-oriented safe harbor for fiduciaries who follow documented procedures when picking designated investment alternatives that include such assets. That proposal was still in its public comment period as of mid-2026. If the rule is finalized, expect more lifetime funds to hold alternative assets alongside conventional stocks and bonds.
One long-pending disclosure item is worth flagging. The SEC has proposed rules that would require target-date funds to disclose their asset allocation at the target date prominently in marketing materials and include a chart showing how the allocation changes over time. Those proposals have remained in proposed form since they were first introduced in 2010 and re-proposed in 2014.
If You’re a Federal Employee: The TSP Lifecycle Funds
The federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan runs its own version of lifetime funds through the L (Lifecycle) Fund series. The TSP offers 11 L Funds spanning L Income through L 2075, each built from five core TSP funds covering government bonds, investment-grade bonds, large-cap U.S. stocks, small- and mid-cap U.S. stocks, and international stocks. Allocations are adjusted quarterly and rebalanced daily. When an L Fund reaches its target date, it rolls automatically into the L Income Fund.
Costs are the standout feature. Total expense ratios range from 0.035% for the L Income Fund to 0.041% for the longer-dated funds, far below the private-sector average. The L Income Fund held $39.3 billion at the end of 2025 and returned an annualized 5.34% over the prior decade. The newest additions are the L 2070 Fund, launched in July 2024, and the L 2075 Fund, launched in June 2025.
What to Check Before You Rely on One
The name of a lifetime fund tells you the target retirement year and nothing else. Before leaving your balance in one, look at four things: the expense ratio, whether the glide path is “to” or “through” retirement and what the allocation actually looks like at and past the target date, whether an insurance or annuity component is embedded, and how the fund has performed against a benchmark of similar target-date products. Two funds with the same year on the label can produce very different retirements.