Employee and Employer Contributions
Most 401(k) plans include employee deferrals and employer matches or profit-sharing contributions. In your QDRO, it’s critical to clarify whether the alternate payee (typically the non-employee spouse) will receive a share of:
- Just the employee’s contributions
- Both employee and employer contributions
Because this is a profit-sharing plan, employer contributions may vary from year to year—another reason to specify the treatment in the QDRO clearly. If the employer contributions are subject to vesting, the QDRO must account for that too, which brings us to…

