Your plan’s vesting schedule is used to determine the percentage of your employer contributions you will be able to take if you leave your employer or otherwise become eligible for a distribution.
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Graded vesting is a type of vesting where you gradually become vested in your employer contributions after being with your company for a certain number of years (known as vesting service). For instance, if your company implements 2-year graded vesting, you would become vested in 50% of the contributions after 1 year of employment and hit 100% at your 2-year mark.
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For plans at Guideline, you earn a year of vesting service on the anniversary of your date of hire. For 401(k) plans, a graded vesting schedule can never be longer than 6 years.
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​The chart below shows how graded vesting works:

You are always 100% vested and entitled to your own salary contributions, safe harbor contributions, and rollover balances from other retirement accounts. To find your company’s vesting schedule, you can access the Plan Details page of your Guideline dashboard.
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Learn about what happens to non-vested account balances here.