Must a small business without a 401(k) do anything about retirement?

"We are too small for that" was true for most of this programme's life and is not true now. The phase-in finished at the bottom of the scale, and the smallest employers were last.

The rule applies to an eligible employer that does not sponsor a retirement plan of its own. If you have a 401(k), a SEP, a SIMPLE or another qualifying plan, you are exempt and simply certify that. If you do not, you must register and facilitate payroll deductions into the state-run programme. You do not contribute, you do not select investments and you do not act as a fiduciary — the obligation is administrative.

The deadlines phased down by size: employers with more than 100 employees first, then more than 50, then five or more, and finally — under SB 1126 — employers with one or more eligible employees, by 31 December 2025. That last date is in the past. An employer with a single employee and no retirement plan is inside the mandate today.

The reason this is worth checking rather than assuming is that the exemption is about having a plan, not about being small. A two-person business with no plan is covered; a two-person business with a SEP is not. Size stopped being the question when the last tier closed.

Non-compliance is enforced with per-employee penalties that escalate the longer the failure continues, which makes this one of the cheaper things on this list to fix and one of the more pointless to ignore.