IRS Provides Update on Opinion Letters for DC Qualified Pre-approved Plans
On August 5, 2026, the IRS announced that it expected to begin issuing new opinion letters for certain defined contribution (DC) qualified pre-approved plans. In Announcement 2026-15 (published in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2026-35), the federal agency said it planned to send the letters on August 31, 2026, or as soon as possible thereafter.
The letters apply to DC qualified pre-approved plans that were updated to reflect changes in the plan qualification requirements listed in the 2023 Cumulative List (Notice 2024-3) and filed during the fourth remedial amendment cycle (Cycle 4) under Rev. Proc. 2023-37. Cycle 4 is the fourth recurring IRS review cycle for these documents, and the Cumulative List identifies the qualification changes covered by that review.
IRS opinion letters provide assurance to plan sponsors that the form of the pre-approved plans they adopt meets applicable plan qualification requirements for that restatement cycle. An opinion letter addresses the form of the plan document, not how the plan is operated. Providers of DC qualified pre-approved plans submitted applications for Cycle 4 opinion letters during the IRS submission period, which ran from February 1, 2024, through January 31, 2025. Providers may also apply outside that window.
Who Does This Impact?
Pre-approved plan documents are generally created and maintained by financial institutions, practitioners, and other document providers. These arrangements, often still called prototype plans — though the IRS consolidated master and prototype and volume submitter documents into a single "pre-approved plan" category, standardized or non-standardized, beginning with Rev. Proc. 2017-41 —, allow employers to adopt standard plan terms and select permitted options through an adoption agreement. The providers submit these plan documents to the IRS for review and obtain an opinion letter stating that the form of the plan satisfies applicable qualification requirements. Employers can then adopt an approved plan and generally rely on the IRS opinion letter rather than seek an individual determination letter for the plan.
Announcement 2026-15 sets September 30, 2028, as the deadline for employers intending to maintain a Cycle 4 DC qualified pre-approved plan to adopt the updated plan. In addition, an employer adopting a newly approved Cycle 4 plan may, if otherwise eligible, apply for an individual determination letter during the period beginning October 1, 2026, and ending September 30, 2028. Eligibility and filing requirements are set out in Rev. Proc. 2026-4.
For employers currently sponsoring a defined contribution plan using a pre-approved Cycle 3 document, this means that, to continue maintaining the plan as a pre-approved plan, the employer generally must adopt the document provider’s new “Cycle 4” plan document by September 30, 2028. The “Cycle 4” documents are designed to comply with the IRS’s 2023 Cumulative List of Changes in Plan Qualification Requirements for Defined Contribution Qualified Pre-approved Plans.
Although the adoption deadline is two years away, the near-term step for most plan sponsors is to confirm which plan document they are currently using and who will handle the restatement. Sponsors using a pre-approved plan may also want to ask their document provider whether it has obtained a Cycle 4 opinion letter and when the updated document will be ready for adoption.
Sources:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-26-15.pdf
https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/benefits-alert-irs-cycle-4-dc-pre-approved-opinion
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