Facts about OregonSaves
Overview
Oregon’s auto-IRA program requires employers without a retirement plan to automatically enroll their workers, who are allowed to opt out. Oregon was the first state to go “live” with its program, in July 2017.
To date, Oregon has 8,124 employers submitting payroll deductions and 134,165 workers with funded accounts (see Table 1).
Table 1. Overview of OregonSaves
| Design | Rollout | Status (as of April 30, 2025) |
| Mandated for all employers without a retirement plan | Rollout to employers in progress | 8,124 employers submitting payroll deductions in the last 90 days |
| 5% default contribution rate, with auto-escalation of 1 ppt per year up to 10% | Rollout to workers in progress | 134,165 workers with a funded account |
| Annual penalty of $100 per eligible employee, up to $5,000 | Registration deadline has passed for all firms. Rollout is ongoing. | $347.4 million in assets |
Source: Oregon Retirement Savings Board (2025).
Employers
As of April 30 2025, 8,124 employers in Oregon were submitting payroll deductions to OregonSaves in the last 90 days (see Table 2). Among firms that have registered, not all have completed setting up their payroll systems. All employers with at least one employee that do not offer a plan in Oregon are required to participate.
Table 2. Number of OregonSaves Employers with Payroll Deductions in the Last 90 Days
| Period | Employers |
| 2024-Q3 | 8,017 |
| 2024-Q4 | 8,293 |
| 2025-Q1 | 8,130 |
| 2025-April | 8,124 |
Source: Oregon Retirement Savings Board (2025).
Employers subject to the mandate that do not comply must pay an annual fine of $100 per eligible employee, up to a maximum of $5,000. Beyond employers subject to the mandate, Oregon is also encouraging self-employed workers to sign up for OregonSaves.
Employees
As of February 28, the number of employees with assets in OregonSaves is 134,165. Given the longer period that the program has been in existence, account balances are higher than in California and Illinois. The first $1,000 in contributions is defaulted into a money market fund; contributions above this amount are defaulted into a target date fund. As of the most recent reported month, 27 percent of eligible workers had chosen to opt out of participating (see Table 3).
Table 3. Selected OregonSaves Employee Outcomes
| Period | Number of accounts (with balances) | Average account balance | Reported opt-out ratea,b |
| 2024-Q3 | 130,791 | $2,473 | – |
| 2024-Q4 | 133,044 | 2,475 | 27% |
| 2025-Q1 | 134,515 | 2,537 | 27 |
| 2025-April | 134,165 | 2,590 | 27 |
a The participation rate is not necessarily equal to one minus the opt-out rate. See Quinby et al. (2019).
b Oregon last reported its “opt-out action rate” on December 31, 2023. On December 31, 2024, Oregon began reporting an opt-out rate of the number of accounts that have opted out in the first 30 days by the number of unique savers since inception of the program. This metric differs from California and Illinois, who report the “effective opt-out rate.”
Source: Oregon Retirement Savings Board (2025).
Assets
The program, which is intended to eventually become financially self-sufficient, had assets under management of $347.4 million by the end of April 2025 (see Table 4). To pay for its operating costs, OregonSaves charges a fixed annual fee of $16 and an asset-based fee of approximately 0.5 percent.
Table 4. Assets in OregonSaves
| Period | Assets (in millions) |
| 2024-Q3 | $323.4 |
| 2024-Q4 | 329.2 |
| 2025-Q1 | 341.3 |
| 2025-April | 347.4 |
Source: Oregon Retirement Savings Board (2025).