Dividing Employee and Employer Contributions
The participant may have both employee contributions (which are always fully vested) and employer contributions (which may be subject to a vesting schedule). When drafting your QDRO, it’s important to determine how much of the employer match or profit sharing the participant has earned at the time of division.
- Employee contributions — These are always 100% vested and can be divided immediately.
- Employer contributions — Check the plan’s vesting schedule (e.g., 3-year cliff or 6-year graded) to see if the participant has earned those benefits. If contributions are unvested, they may not be available for division.

