Employee and Employer Contributions
401(k) plans usually include the participant’s own contributions (the employee’s pre-tax or Roth deferrals) and employer contributions. While employee contributions are always 100% vested, employer contributions often are not—and this is where mistakes frequently happen.
- QDROs can only assign whatever is vested as of the agreed-upon valuation date (often the date of divorce or separation).
- Any unvested employer contributions as of that date may be forfeited and cannot be divided.
Your QDRO should make this distinction crystal clear, or the plan administrator may reject it—or worse, process it in an imprecise way that causes later conflict.

