Title 29 › Chapter 18— EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY PROGRAM › Subchapter I— PROTECTION OF EMPLOYEE BENEFIT RIGHTS › Subtitle Subtitle B— Regulatory Provisions › Part 2— participation and vesting › § 1051
Applies to most employee benefit plans described earlier in the law, unless those plans are already exempt. It does not cover eight specific kinds of plans. Those excluded are: welfare-type benefit plans (like health or similar programs); unfunded plans kept by an employer mainly to give deferred pay to a small group of managers or highly paid employees; plans run by certain societies, orders, or associations, or by a specific kind of trust, when employers do not make any contributions; union plans that never got employer contributions after September 2, 1974; agreements that pay a retired partner or a deceased partner’s successor under section 736; individual retirement accounts or annuities and certain retirement bonds as described in the tax code (with the retirement bond rule applying to obligations issued before January 1, 1984); excess benefit plans; and unfunded arrangements by an employer wholly owned by employees that promise to restore benefits forfeited under a former employer’s pension plan before that pension plan became covered.
Full Legal Text
Labor — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
29 U.S.C. § 1051
Title 29 — Labor
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60