Does Employer 401k Match Show on Your W-2? Box 12 and Box 14

No, an employer’s 401(k) matching contribution does not show on your W-2. The IRS treats matching dollars as tax-deferred contributions paid straight into the plan trust rather than wages paid to you, so they are excluded from Box 1, Box 3, and Box 5, and they are not reported in Box 12 either.¹ To see what your employer put in, you need your year-end plan statement, not your W-2.

Why the Match Is Left Off the Form

The matching money never runs through your paycheck. It moves from the employer directly into the 401(k) trust, and you cannot touch it until you take a distribution. Because it isn’t current compensation, it doesn’t count as federally taxable wages, Social Security wages, or Medicare wages, and no federal income tax, Social Security tax, or Medicare tax is withheld at the time it’s contributed.¹

Box 12 doesn’t capture the match either. The IRS W-2 instructions explicitly list employer matching contributions among items that are “not elective deferrals” and therefore should not appear in Box 12.² Box 12 is reserved for tracking your own deferrals against the annual limit, so mixing employer dollars in would break what the box is for.

Vesting doesn’t change any of this. Even if you’re fully vested in the match on day one, the money still stays off your W-2. Vesting controls when you have a non-forfeitable right to the funds; taxation waits until you actually take a distribution.

Check Box 14 Just in Case

Some employers voluntarily report the match in Box 14 (“Other”), which is an informational catch-all with no tax calculation attached. The IRS does not require this.¹ If you see a line labeled something like “ER Match” or “401k Match” in Box 14 with a dollar figure, that’s your employer being helpful. If Box 14 is blank or shows unrelated items, that’s normal too, and it doesn’t mean the match didn’t happen.

What the W-2 Does Show About Your 401(k)

Your own salary deferrals are the 401(k) piece that does land on the W-2, and they go in Box 12 with specific letter codes:

If you split contributions between pre-tax and Roth during the year, both codes appear, each showing its own amount. Neither figure includes anything the employer put in. The W-2 is only designed to report the employee’s slice, because that’s what the IRS uses to police the annual deferral limit.

Box 13 has a “Retirement plan” checkbox that your employer marks if you were an active participant in a qualified plan at any point during the year, including a 401(k).³ Being “active” generally means contributions or forfeitures were credited to your account. The checkbox doesn’t change tax on your wages, but it can limit your ability to deduct a traditional IRA contribution once your modified adjusted gross income crosses certain thresholds.

Why Box 1 Looks Smaller Than Boxes 3 and 5

Pre-tax deferrals reduce Box 1 because they lower your federally taxable wages. Earn $80,000 and defer $10,000 pre-tax, and Box 1 shows $70,000. But those pre-tax deferrals do not reduce Box 3 or Box 5, because Social Security and Medicare taxes apply to all employee elective deferrals whether they’re pre-tax or Roth.¹ Boxes 3 and 5 stay at the full $80,000.

Roth deferrals don’t reduce any of those three boxes, since you’ve already opted to pay federal income tax on those dollars and FICA applies either way.¹

So if you make pre-tax contributions, expect Box 1 to be lower than Boxes 3 and 5. The gap is the deferral working as designed.

One Exception Worth Knowing: A Roth Employer Match

Under the SECURE 2.0 Act, plans can allow employees to designate employer matching contributions as Roth. If you elect this, the match is taxable to you in the year it’s contributed, but it still doesn’t show up on your W-2. Your plan administrator reports the Roth match on a Form 1099-R for the year, using code G in Box 7.⁴ No federal income tax, Social Security, or Medicare withholding applies despite the Roth treatment.⁵ If your plan offers a Roth match option and you took it, look for the 1099-R and make sure the amount hits your return for that year.

Where to See the Employer Match

Since the W-2 deliberately leaves the match out, your year-end plan statement from the 401(k) administrator is the reliable source. It itemizes your elective deferrals, employer matching contributions, and any non-elective or profit-sharing contributions separately. Most administrators post the same breakdown in their online portal, which is usually the fastest place to check.

Cross-check the statement against your W-2 each year. The employee deferral total on the statement should equal the sum of Code D and Code AA in Box 12. When those numbers don’t match, something went wrong in payroll, and it’s easier to fix early. Employers can issue a corrected W-2 (Form W-2c) when deferrals were misclassified between pre-tax and Roth accounts or when the amounts were wrong.⁶ If you don’t use the plan portal, HR or payroll can produce a year-end summary that separates your gross compensation from employer contributions.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan FAQs Regarding Contributions – Are Retirement Plan Contributions Subject to Withholding for FICA, Medicare or Federal Income Tax
2
Internal Revenue Service. 2026 General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3
3
Internal Revenue Service. Common Errors on Form W-2 Codes for Retirement Plans
4
Internal Revenue Service. SECURE 2.0 Act Changes Affect How Businesses Complete Forms W-2
5
Internal Revenue Service. SECURE 2.0 Act Impacts How Businesses Complete Forms W-2
6
Internal Revenue Service. Correction Methods for 401(k) Failures