DFVCP eligibility — only available before the DOL contacts you
The Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program is the DOL's self-correction path for late Form 5500 filings. It caps the penalty at $750–$4,000 per plan instead of $2,739/day uncapped under ERISA §502(c)(2). The program is only available before the DOL has notified the sponsor of the missed filing — once a contact letter arrives, the program closes.
The eligibility constraint that drives everything
DFVCP is only available before the DOL has notified the sponsor of the missed filing. The notification can come as a request letter from EBSA, a participant complaint forwarded by the Department, or any other written DOL contact about the delinquency. Once the notification has issued, the program closes for that plan year and the standard statutory regime applies.
This is the single most important fact about the program. A sponsor who learns about a missed filing, calls counsel, files under DFVCP, and pays the capped penalty pays $750–$4,000 per plan. A sponsor who waits, gets the DOL letter, and only then starts the cure pays the uncapped statutory exposure — $2,739 per day for every day the filing was late.
The DFVCP rate sheet
DFVCP's base rate is $10 per day, capped multiple ways:
- Single late annual report: $750 cap for small plans (under 100 participants), $2,000 cap for large plans (100+).
- Multiple delinquent years on the same plan (submission cap): $1,500 small / $4,000 large, regardless of how many years are included in the submission.
- 501(c)(3) tax-exempt small-plan sponsor:special $750 cap on the entire submission, regardless of how many years.
The IRS automatically waives the IRC §6652(e) penalty under Rev. Proc. 2015-32 when DFVCP requirements are met. So a successful DFVCP submission resolves both the DOL exposure (capped) and the IRS exposure (waived) for the late filing.
Single missed plan year — exposure side by side.
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Numbers reflect the single-report cap. A multi-year DFVCP submission is capped at $1,500 (small plan) or $4,000 (large plan) across all delinquent years on the same plan, regardless of how many years are included. The DOL publishes the authoritative calculator at askebsa.dol.gov/dfvcepay.
Real DFVCP submission needs ERISA counsel
DFVCP isn't a self-service form. The submission requires preparation of the actual missing Form 5500 (which the late plan never filed), calculation of the DFVCP cost, electronic submission through the EFAST2 system, and payment of the capped penalty through the DFVCP payment portal at askebsa.dol.gov/dfvcepay.
Most sponsors engage an ERISA attorney to manage the submission end-to-end. Counsel cost is typically $2,500–$10,000 depending on complexity. That investment is small relative to the statutory exposure being cured, but it's a real cost on top of the DFVCP penalty itself.
What the cure timeline looks like
A typical DFVCP submission runs four to eight weeks from counsel engagement to closed file:
- Counsel engagement and confirmation that no DOL contact has issued (eligibility check).
- Reconstruction of the missing Form 5500 — pulling Schedule A from the carrier, Schedule C from service providers, financial statements, audit opinion if required.
- Electronic filing of the late Form 5500 through EFAST2, marked as a DFVCP submission.
- Payment of the DFVCP penalty through the DOL payment portal.
- Receipt of the DFVCP acknowledgment letter from EBSA. This is the “closed” signal.
Once the acknowledgment letter is in hand, the IRS §6652(e) waiver is automatic — no separate IRS filing required.
The Late-Filing Penalty Check
BenefitsLedger runs the gap-detection logic against 2,122 sponsors and 10,620 indexed welfare Form 5500 filings across plan years 2021–2025. If your plan is in the indexed corpus, the penalty check shows your year-by-year filing record, flags any missing year as a continuity gap or trailing gap, and surfaces the side- by-side DOL exposure / DFVCP self-correction cost.
Walk your filing history for missed Form 5500s
The Late-Filing Penalty Check walks every welfare Form 5500 your sponsor filed, flags continuity gaps, and surfaces DOL, IRS, and DFVCP exposure side by side.
Open the penalty checkSources
- DOL EBSA — Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program — Authoritative DOL landing page for the DFVCP self-correction program.
- DOL DFVCP penalty calculator and payment portal — Authoritative submission and payment portal — file under DFVCP through this site.
- ERISA §502(c)(2) civil penalties — Inflation-adjusted ERISA civil penalties; current rate $2,739/day for late Form 5500.
- IRS Rev. Proc. 2015-32 — automatic relief for IRC §6652(e) penalties — IRS automatically waives the §6652(e) penalty when DFVCP requirements are met.