This proposed rule sets forth a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to use electronic media (e.g., email or web portal) to furnish documents and information to participants and beneficiaries of plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). This proposal, if finalized, would allow plan administrators who satisfy specified conditions to provide participants and beneficiaries with a notice that certain disclosures will be made available electronically on a website. Individuals who prefer to receive these disclosures on paper will be able to request paper copies and to opt out of electronic delivery entirely. The Department expects that the proposal, if finalized, would improve the effectiveness of the disclosures and significantly reduce the costs and burden to group health plans associated with furnishing many of the recurring disclosures.
Comments close Sep 21, 2026
This document contains proposed rules that would amend the regulations regarding excepted benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the Internal Revenue Code, and the Public Health Service Act to establish certain fertility benefits as a new category of limited excepted benefits. Excepted benefits are generally exempt from the market requirements that were added to those laws by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the No Surprises Act, and certain other Federal laws specifically related to group health plans and group and individual health insurance coverage.
Comments close Jul 13, 2026
This document contains a proposed regulation that clarifies, and provides a safe harbor for, a fiduciary's duty of prudence under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) in connection with selecting designated investment alternatives for a participant-directed individual account plan, including asset allocation funds that include alternative assets. This proposal implements section 3(c) of President Trump's Executive Order 14330, Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors.
Comments close Jun 1, 2026
This document extends the comment period on the Department's Improving Transparency Into Pharmacy Benefit Manager Fee Disclosure proposed rule. The proposed rule would require providers of pharmacy benefit management services and affiliated providers of brokerage and consulting services to disclose information about their compensation to fiduciaries of self-insured group health plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), for purposes of ERISA's statutory prohibited transaction exemption for services arrangements. The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on January 30, 2026, with a comment deadline of March 31, 2026. On February 3, 2026, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 amended ERISA to add several provisions relating to providers of pharmacy benefit management services. Consequently, the Department is extending the comment period for an additional 15 days, to April 15, 2026, to allow interested persons to address whether the rule should be adjusted due to these new statutory provisions.
Comments close Apr 15, 2026
This document extends the comment period for the proposed rule that appeared in the Federal Register on December 23, 2025, titled "Transparency in Coverage". The comment period for the proposed rule, which would end on February 23, 2026, is extended until March 2, 2026.
Comments close Mar 2, 2026
The Department of Labor (Department) is proposing narrow amendments to two separate electronic disclosure safe harbors for purposes of implementing section 338 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0). Taken together, the two existing safe harbors permit the broad use of electronic disclosure under prescribed conditions for the furnishing of required disclosures under Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Section 338 of SECURE 2.0 amended section 105(a)(2) of ERISA to require retirement plans to provide paper benefit statements in certain cases. Section 338 also instructed the Department to update its electronic disclosure safe harbors in connection with the statutory changes. The proposed amendments would implement these Congressional mandates.
Comments close Apr 27, 2026
The Department is proposing a regulation that would require providers of pharmacy benefit management services and affiliated providers of brokerage and consulting services to disclose information about their compensation to fiduciaries of self-insured group health plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). These disclosures are needed so that fiduciaries can assess the reasonableness of the contracts or arrangements with these service providers, including the reasonableness of the service providers' compensation. These disclosure requirements would apply for purposes of ERISA's statutory prohibited transaction exemption for services arrangements. This proposal implements section 12 of President Trump's Executive Order 14273, Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First, which instructs the Department to propose regulations to improve employer health plan transparency into the direct and indirect compensation received by pharmacy benefit managers. If finalized, this regulation would affect sponsors and other fiduciaries of self-insured group health plans and certain service providers to such plans.
Comments close Mar 31, 2026
These proposed rules set forth proposed requirements that would amend the regulations under the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code regarding price transparency reporting requirements for non-grandfathered group health plans and health insurance issuers offering non-grandfathered group and individual health insurance coverage. Specifically, these proposed rules would improve the standardization, accuracy, and accessibility of public pricing disclosures in line with the goals of the Executive Order 14221. With respect to the in-network rate and out-of-network allowed amount machine-readable files, these proposed rules would achieve these goals by adding new contextual files and additional data elements like product type, network name, and enrollment counts; changing the reporting level for aggregation of data; removing in-network rates for unlikely provider-to-service mappings; increasing the reporting period and lowering the claims threshold for out-of-network historical data; and reducing the reporting cadence. These proposed rules would also improve the findability of all of the publicly disclosed machine- readable files required under the Transparency in Coverage rules, including the prescription drug file, by requiring a text file and footer with website URLs and contact information for the files. These proposed rules would also require pricing information that is made available through an online consumer tool and paper (upon request), to also be made available by phone, and establish that the satisfaction of such requirement also satisfies the requirements of section 114 of the No Surprises Act (including for grandfathered group health plans and health insurance issuers offering grandfathered group and individual health insurance coverage that are not otherwise subject to these proposed rules).
Comments close Feb 23, 2026
This document contains limited interpretive guidance to help small employers select high-quality, low-cost "pooled employer plans" or "PEPs." This document also solicits information about prevailing pooled employer plan market practices. The Department will consider the responses as part of a process aimed at developing a potential regulatory safe harbor or safe harbors that comprehensively encourage market participants to offer and employers to join such plans. These efforts, taken pursuant to President Trump's January 20, 2025, Memorandum titled "Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis," are designed to reduce investment costs for workers saving for their retirement, thereby improving their lives. These efforts also will help small employers provide more attractive benefits to potential hires, drawing discouraged workers into the labor force.
Comments close Sep 29, 2025
This DFR removes 29 CFR 2550.401c-1 from the Code of Federal Regulations, which the Department of Labor (DOL) believes is obsolete. The regulation applies only to certain insurance policies or contracts issued to (or on behalf of) employee benefit plans on or before December 31, 1998. Given the unlikelihood that any of these policies or contracts remain in effect, the DOL believes the regulation is no longer needed and, if left on the books, could add confusion and unnecessary complexity. Removing obsolete regulations eliminates the burden on the public of having to determine whether they need to comply with the regulations. This action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order 14192, titled Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.\1\ This action improves the daily lives of the American people by reducing unnecessary, burdensome, and costly Federal regulations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments close Jul 31, 2025
This direct final rule (DFR) removes 29 CFR 2550.404a-4 from the Code of Federal Regulations, which is a regulation published in 2008 that provides a fiduciary safe harbor for the selection of annuity providers for the purpose of benefit distributions from individual account retirement plans covered by title I of the Employee Retirement Income Act of 1974 (ERISA). The regulatory safe harbor became unnecessary in 2019 when Congress amended ERISA to add a more streamlined fiduciary safe harbor covering the same activity. Although the statutory safe harbor did not technically nullify or repeal the regulatory safe harbor, its existence offers an unnecessary and inefficient alternative and may inadvertently be a trap for the unwary. This action improves the daily lives of the American people by reducing unnecessary, burdensome, and costly Federal regulations.
Comments close Jul 31, 2025
This DFR removes from the Code of Federal Regulations prospectively certain interpretive bulletins under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 that the Department of Labor (DOL) believes are obsolete. The obsolete interpretive bulletins were published shortly after ERISA's enactment in 1974 to provide compliance assistance for employee benefit plans, plan sponsors and fiduciaries. Because of subsequent guidance issued by the DOL, and the effect of Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978, the DOL believes the interpretive bulletins are no longer needed, and if left on the books, add potential confusion and unnecessary complexity. Removing obsolete regulations eliminates the burden on the public of having to determine whether they need to comply with the regulations. This action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order 14192, titled Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation (90 FR 9065, Feb. 6, 2025). This action improves the daily lives of the American people by reducing unnecessary, burdensome, and costly Federal regulations.
Comments close Jul 31, 2025
This document is a request for information (RFI) regarding the prescription drug machine-readable file disclosure requirements in the Transparency in Coverage final rules. The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury (the Departments) are issuing this RFI to gather input regarding implementation of the prescription drug machine-readable file disclosure requirements under the Transparency in Coverage final rules, including what modifications to the disclosure requirements or additional technical implementation guidance might be necessary to better ensure the accurate and timely completion of the prescription drug file.
Comments close Jul 2, 2025
This document sets forth these final rules related to certain provisions of the No Surprises Act regarding the Federal independent dispute resolution (IDR) process, which was established as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA). These rules finalize new requirements relating to the disclosure of information that group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage must include along with the initial payment or notice of denial of payment for certain items and services subject to the surprise billing protections in the No Surprises Act. These final rules also require plans and issuers to communicate information by using claim adjustment reason codes (CARCs) and remittance advice remark codes (RARCs), as specified in guidance, when providing any paper or electronic remittance advice (ERA) to an entity that does not have a contractual relationship with the plan or issuer. This document also finalizes amendments to certain requirements related to the open negotiation period preceding the Federal IDR process, the initiation of the Federal IDR process, the Federal IDR dispute eligibility review process, and the payment and collection of administrative fees and certified IDR entity fees. This document also finalizes the definition of bundled payment arrangements, amends requirements related to batched items and services and amends the rules for extensions of timeframes due to extenuating circumstances. Additionally, this document finalizes provisions that require plans and issuers to register in the Federal IDR portal. In accordance with Federal law, a summary of these rules may be found at https://www.regulations.gov/.
This document implements the judicial vacatur of the Department's 2024 final rule defining who is a "fiduciary" under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. This document also reflects the judicial vacatur of the Department's 2024 amendments to Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02 (PTE 2020-02) and the judicial vacatur of portions of the preamble to PTE 2020-02; and republishes in full the operative text of PTE 2020-02 (as originally published on December 18, 2020).
Due to the receipt of significant adverse comments, the Department of Labor (Department) is withdrawing the July 1, 2025 direct final rule (DFR) published at 90 FR 28009.
Due to the receipt of significant adverse comments, the Department of Labor (Department) is withdrawing the July 1, 2025 direct final rule (DFR) published at 90 FR 28007.
This document withdraws a notice of proposed rulemaking that appeared in the Federal Register on October 28, 2024, regarding coverage of certain preventive services under the Affordable Care Act.
This document amends Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2002-51, an exemption for certain transactions identified in the Department of Labor's Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFC Program or Program). The VFC Program is designed to encourage correction of fiduciary breaches and compliance with the law by permitting persons to avoid potential Department of Labor civil enforcement actions and civil penalties if they voluntarily correct eligible transactions in a manner that meets the requirements of the Program. PTE 2002-51 is a related class exemption that allows excise tax relief from excise taxes imposed by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, for certain eligible transactions corrected pursuant to the VFC Program. This amendment to PTE 2002-51 is being finalized in connection with the Department's amendment and restatement of the VFC Program, published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register (2025 VFC Program). These amendments simplify and expand the VFC Program and exemptive relief to make the Program and exemption easier to use and more useful for employers and others who wish to avail themselves of the relief provided. The amendment to PTE 2002-51 affects plans, participants and beneficiaries of such plans, and certain other persons engaging in such transactions.
This document contains an amended and restated Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFC Program or Program) under title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA). The VFC Program is designed to encourage correction of fiduciary breaches and compliance with the law by permitting persons to avoid potential Department of Labor civil enforcement actions and civil penalties if they voluntarily correct eligible transactions in a manner that meets the requirements of the Program. The amendments to the Program simplify and expand the VFC Program to make the Program easier to use and more useful for employers and others who wish to avail themselves of the relief provided. Specifically, the Program amendments add a self-correction feature for delinquent transmittal of participant contributions and loan repayments to a pension plan under certain circumstances; clarify some existing transactions eligible for correction under the Program; expand the scope of other transactions currently eligible for correction; and simplify certain administrative or procedural requirements for participation in and correction of transactions under the VFC Program. In addition, the amendments implement section 305(b)(2) and (3) of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0 Act) by adding a self-correction feature for certain participant loan failures self-corrected under the Internal Revenue Service's Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (as described in Rev. Proc. 2021-30, or any successor guidance) (IRS's EPCRS).
