Form 5500 Required if New Plan Has No Participants and No Assets Yet?

If a 401(k) plan has no participants and no assets, is a Form 5500 required?

The plan provides for employee deferrals only (no employer matching or other employer contributions) and no employees have enrolled in the plan to date. The plan has never held any assets. Is a Form 5500 required?

TIA!

That no participant elected a deferral is not among the reasons the Instructions’ page 3 states for not filing.

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/EBSA/employers-and-advisers/plan-administration-and-compliance/reporting-and-filing/form-5500/2021-instructions.pdf

Do you really have no participants or do you have participants with a $0 balance?

kmhaab, when you asked about a plan that has no participants, I guessed you used the word participant not for a technical or legal meaning under ERISA or the Internal Revenue Code, but the way many people use it, especially about § 401(k) arrangements, to refer to those who make an elective-deferral contribution.

ERISA § 3(7) defines participant to include an employee “who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit[.]”

The Form 5500 Instructions (hyperlink above) include in a count of a retirement plan’s participants “individuals who are eligible to elect to have the employer make payments [elective-deferral contributions] under a Code section 401(k) qualified cash or deferred arrangement.”