Rollovers Drive IRA Growth to $19.2 Trillion, ICI Finds

Brian Anderson

2 hours ago

New research from the Investment Company Institute illustrates just how much rollovers from workplace retirement plans to individual retirement accounts is fueling steady IRA growth in the United States.

The latest ICI study, The Role of IRAs in US Households’ Saving for Retirement, 2025, finds that by year-end 2025, IRAs held $19.2 trillion in assets, accounting for 39% of total US retirement market assets, up from 24% two decades ago.

Households transferred $670 billion from employer-sponsored retirement plans to traditional IRAs in 2022. By mid-2025 about 27 million households, or 61% of traditional IRA–owning households, had traditional IRAs that included rollover assets, and 86% of households with rollovers said their most recent rollover included the entire retirement account balance.

“IRAs are the largest and fastest growing component of the US retirement market,” said Shelly Antoniewicz, ICI Chief Economist. “They are an important saving vehicle, particularly for workers without access to a retirement plan at work. But perhaps their more important function is portability—allowing workers to take their employer plan benefits with them when they change jobs or retire.”

The study, released today, is based on ICI’s annual IRA Owners Survey, conducted from May to June 2025, which gathers information on the characteristics and activities of IRA-owning households in the United States.

Rollovers Often Consolidate Retirement Assets
Percentage of households owning traditional IRAs that include rollovers, 2025

1Multiple responses are included for all responses except for respondents who were required to take the money out of their former employer’s plan. In mid-2025, 89% of traditional IRA–owning households with rollovers had multiple reasons for rolling over.
2Figure does not include households with traditional IRAs that made their most recent or only rollover because they were required to take the money out of their former employer’s plan.
Source: Investment Company Institute IRA Owners Survey

ICI’s release today notes that rollovers are often used to consolidate retirement assets, giving households a way to bring savings from employer-sponsored plans into one place. In mid-2025, 63% of traditional IRA-owning households with rollovers said they wanted to consolidate assets, while 62% said they did not want to leave assets with a former employer. These decisions are often made with careful consideration, as 62% consulted multiple sources of information before moving money into a traditional IRA.

Other key findings

Today’s release detailing the study, “The Role of IRAs in US Households’ Saving for Retirement, 2025,” also highlighted the following findings:

• IRAs play an important role in US households’ retirement saving: In mid-2025, 44% of US households owned IRAs. Traditional IRAs were the most common type of IRA owned (33% of US households), followed by Roth IRAs (28%) and employer-sponsored IRAs (4%). IRA-owning households often also had employer-sponsored retirement plan accumulations or had defined benefit plan coverage. IRA ownership also varied by age, as households younger than 45 were more likely to own Roth IRAs than traditional IRAs, while traditional IRA ownership was higher among households aged 55 and older.

• The majority of US households have tax-advantaged retirement savings: Nearly three-quarters of US households had retirement plans through work or IRAs, while 86% of near-retiree households had retirement accumulations.

• Recent years show a slight upward trend in contribution activity, although fewer than one in five US households make contributions to IRAs: Across all US households, 17% contributed to traditional or Roth IRAs in tax year 2024. Looking at households owning traditional or Roth IRAs in mid-2025, 38% made contributions in tax year 2024.

• IRA withdrawals were infrequent and mostly retirement-related: One-third of traditional IRA-owning households in mid-2025 took withdrawals in tax year 2024, in line with recent prior years.

State auto-IRAs surpass $3 trillion

A May report from the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives revealed that state-facilitated IRA savings programs in the United States have reached another milestone: more than $3 billion in total assets.

There are also now more than 1.2 million funded saver accounts among the state-facilitated programs.

TrumpIRAs coming soon

IRAs are also expected to receive a boost from President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order, “Promoting Retirement-Savings Access for American Workers by Establishing TrumpIRA.gov,” which directs the Treasury Department to create a federal online platform that helps workers without access to employer-sponsored retirement plans identify and open low-cost, private-sector IRAs.

The Executive Order also seeks to increase awareness and utilization of the Saver’s Match, a SECURE 2.0 provision that will provide eligible lower-income savers with a federal matching contribution of up to $1,000 annually beginning in 2027.