Most private defined-contribution retirement plans, including most 401(k)s, do not require a married participant to obtain a spouse’s consent before taking a loan, withdrawal or distribution, the Government Accountability Office found.
Federal law generally protects a spouse as the default beneficiary and often requires consent to name someone else, but rules for actively removing money differ by plan design.
Money-purchase and target-benefit plans require consent for active fund removal, yet together they represented less than 1% of private-sector defined-contribution plans in 2022, GAO reported.
Using the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, auditors estimated that about one in 10 married households with a 401(k)-type account removed funds in 2021. Those households typically took less than 10% of their total retirement balance.
The survey does not show whether a spouse knew about or agreed to a withdrawal. GAO said there are no nationally representative data measuring removals made without spousal knowledge.
Stakeholders told auditors such undisclosed withdrawals were likely uncommon, but the documented cases could cause severe losses, marital conflict and less time to rebuild savings before retirement.
Requiring consent across more plans could stop unilateral withdrawals, including during a divorce, but plan sponsors and record keepers said it could also raise administrative costs and delay emergency access to money.
Alternatives include notifying spouses, requiring consent only above a threshold or creating exceptions for circumstances such as domestic violence. GAO presented trade-offs rather than recommending one universal design.
For households, the immediate takeaway is structural rather than personal financial advice: beneficiary protections do not necessarily prevent money from leaving a 401(k), and the applicable rule depends on the plan.