401(k) Loan Outstanding Rate
13% at the end of 2025, the same as a year earlier
What is the current 401(k) Loan Outstanding Rate reading?
Vanguard's How America Saves puts the share of participants with a 401(k) loan outstanding at 13% at year-end 2025. That is the same as at the end of 2024. It covers participants in the plans Vanguard administers that offer loans, including people who have left the employer, so it is not a rate for all U.S. workers. Source: Vanguard How America Saves.
Measurement basis: Share of participants in Vanguard-recordkept defined contribution plans with a loan outstanding against their account at year end, from Vanguard's How America Saves. It covers the plans Vanguard administers, not all U.S. 401(k) participants.
At the end of 2025, 13% of participants in Vanguard-administered 401(k) plans that offer loans had borrowed against their account and not yet paid it back.
Vanguard's annual How America Saves report counts the participants in the plans it administers who have a loan outstanding on December 31. For year-end 2025 that share was 13%. That is the same as at the end of 2024. The share has matched the year before for two years in a row.
The figure is a snapshot, not a count of new loans: it includes loans taken in earlier years that are still being repaid. It also counts people who have left the employer but still have an account, who usually cannot take a new loan. Vanguard has said the share would be about 5 to 6 percentage points higher if it counted only active employees.
A 401(k) loan is money borrowed from a retirement account and repaid under the plan's terms, usually through payroll. If you leave the job with a balance unpaid, the plan may offset it against the account; the questions below cover how that is taxed.
Loans are a different thing from hardship withdrawals, which are not repaid. Vanguard reports those in the same report, and they are tracked in the hardship withdrawal rate. Vanguard's universe also changes each year as plans join and leave, so a year-to-year change is not the same group of savers.
Explore Further
Is this happening to you?
Have you borrowed against your 401(k) or thought about it?
401(k) Loan Outstanding Rate over time: what has changed?
Counties with the highest safety net and buffer scores
These are safety net and buffer scores from our County Distress Index, not county readings of 401(k) Loan Outstanding Rate.
Explore all 3,144 counties →| Period | Value | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 13% | 0 pp |
| 2024 | 13% | 0 pp |
| 2023 | 13% | +1 pp |
| 2022 | 12% | -1 pp |
| 2021 | 13% | 0 pp |
| 2020 | 13% | 0 pp |
| 2019 | 13% | 0 pp |
| 2018 | 13% | — |
Frequently Asked Questions
What share of 401(k) participants have a loan outstanding?
In plans that Vanguard administers and that offer loans, 13% of participants owed money on a plan loan at the end of 2025. That is Vanguard's client base, close to 5 million participants, not every 401(k) saver in the country.
Is 401(k) loan use going up?
Vanguard publishes one year-end figure a year, rounded to a whole percent. At the end of 2025 it was 13%. That is the same as at the end of 2024. Because the numbers are rounded and the plans Vanguard administers change each year, a one-point move is within the rounding.
What happens to a 401(k) loan if you lose your job?
After you leave the employer, plan terms may cause an unpaid balance to be offset against the account. Under IRS plan-loan-offset guidance, a qualified plan loan offset can be rolled over until the tax return due date for that year, including extensions. An amount not rolled over is generally taxable, and an additional 10% tax may apply unless an exception applies.
Where does the data come from?
Vanguard's How America Saves, an annual report built from Vanguard's own recordkeeping data for the retirement plans it administers. Each edition reports December 31 of the year before: the 2026 edition covers year-end 2025. Recent editions have come out in June; Vanguard publishes no release calendar.
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