The HR director of a 110-person logistics-software company in Manchester is building three offers at once: a VP of Engineering in Austin, an operations lead in Melbourne and a finance manager in Istanbul.
The Austin candidate compares 401(k) matches the way others compare salaries and asks about vesting. The Melbourne candidate asks whether payroll is ready for Payday Super. The Istanbul candidate already has an employer-funded BES plan and wants to know if she would lose it. At home, the board asks whether the salary-sacrifice scheme everyone loves will still save money after 2029.
Four countries, four retirement systems — and in each one the pension is part of the offer that wins or loses the right person.
Retirement benefits are where law, tax and provider choice collide. In Australia the employer contribution is fixed by law at 12% of earnings; in the US there is no mandate at all, yet the match is a headline item in every offer; in Türkiye the state runs auto-enrolment, and employers who add their own money stand out.
This guide sets out the rules that matter in 2026, employer contribution norms by country, and the providers employers actually use — with cards for the UK, US, Australia and Türkiye, where employers choose a provider directly, and a comparison table for the rest. It belongs to the Finding the Right Person hub; for the wider package, start with our country map of employee benefits.
- Separate three layers: statutory social security, mandatory or quasi-mandatory workplace schemes, and voluntary employer extras such as matches and top-ups — the layer that differentiates.
- Mandatory employer contributions into funded pensions range from zero (US, Türkiye today) through 3% (UK minimum) to 10–12% (Nigeria, India, Australia).
- Changes to plan around: Payday Super, the Dutch Wtp switch, Germany’s BRSG II, Colombia’s reform, Türkiye’s planned TES and the UK’s 2029 salary-sacrifice cap.
- Provider choice matters most in UK master trusts, US 401(k) recordkeepers, Australian default funds and Turkish pension companies.
Statutory, occupational, voluntary: the three layers
Every pension offer sits on three layers; candidates compare only two.
Statutory social security — the German statutory pension, Brazil’s INSS, Türkiye’s SGK, US Social Security — is paid through payroll at rates set by law. You cannot choose the provider and candidates do not credit you for it.
Workplace schemes required by law are where it gets interesting. In the UK, Australia, Nigeria, Mexico, Colombia, India and Poland, the employer must pay into a funded account run by a licensed provider. The legal rate is the floor; the provider you pick, or the default you accept, shapes what the employee ends up with.
Voluntary extras — a 401(k) match, employer-paid BES, a German bAV top-up, contributions above Australia’s 12% — are the differentiators. In the table below we mark the layers with the same chips used across our regional benefits guides.
Employer contribution norms at a glance
The chart shows only what the law makes the employer pay into funded or workplace savings — not social security, not voluntary extras. Read it as the floor candidates assume you meet.
Where the floor is high (Australia, India, Nigeria), differentiation comes from provider quality, extra contributions and paying on time. Where the floor is zero (the US, Türkiye today), the voluntary match is the benefit, and candidates price it like salary.
United Kingdom: auto-enrolment, master trusts and the 2029 change
Under auto-enrolment, employers must enrol eligible workers and pay at least 3% of qualifying earnings, with a total minimum of 8%. The earnings trigger and qualifying band have been frozen for several years (a £10,000 trigger and a band of £6,240 to £50,270 at the time of writing; check the annual review). Most employers use a master trust; larger ones often use group personal pensions from Aviva, Legal & General or Royal London.
The change to plan for now is salary sacrifice. The November 2025 Budget announced that from April 2029 only the first £2,000 a year of pension contributions made through salary sacrifice will stay free of National Insurance; above that, employee and employer NICs apply. For higher earners that erodes a long-standing saving, so review scheme design and offer wording.
Listings are editorial and independent; no provider paid to be included. Check current terms directly with each provider.
Set up by government with a duty to accept any employer, NEST has one of the UK’s largest memberships. Its strength is low cost and simplicity, not design flexibility.
Run by People’s Partnership, which has no shareholders, it is one of the largest UK master trusts and says it helps around one in five UK workers save. Check the set-up fee, default-fund risk profile and salary-sacrifice handling.
A defined contribution master trust supervised by The Pensions Regulator, with salary sacrifice as standard and payroll integration built in. It says around 100,000 employers use it and lists investors including J.P. Morgan, DWS and MUFG.
United States: 401(k) plans, SECURE 2.0 and state auto-IRAs
No federal law requires a private retirement plan, but SECURE 2.0 changed the defaults. New 401(k) and 403(b) plans must auto-enrol employees (with exemptions for very small and new businesses), and tax credits offset start-up costs for small employers. For 2026 the IRS set the employee deferral limit at $24,500, the age-50 catch-up at $8,000 and the age-60-to-63 catch-up at $11,250; employees whose prior-year FICA wages exceeded $150,000 must now make catch-up contributions as Roth.
States fill the gap for employers with no plan. Auto-IRA programmes such as CalSavers, OregonSaves and Illinois Secure Choice require employers without a plan to register and run payroll deductions; Georgetown University’s Center for Retirement Initiatives reported more than $3 billion across over 1.2 million funded accounts in May 2026. Offering your own 401(k) exempts you, and a safe-harbor match (commonly 100% of the first 3% plus 50% of the next 2%) is what candidates recognise. Large plans go to Fidelity, Empower, Vanguard or Principal; small ones to payroll-linked providers.
Grown through acquisitions including the retirement businesses of MassMutual and Prudential, Empower reports about 96,000 plans and $2.3 trillion in assets under administration (September 2026). Strong for larger plans; compare fee proposals carefully.
Built a low-cost automated 401(k) for small employers and agreed in 2025 to be acquired by Gusto. On another payroll system, confirm integration and long-term support first.
Handles administration, compliance testing and filings; says it integrates with 600-plus payroll providers and serves over 47,000 businesses. Disclosures list a 0.05% recordkeeping and custody fee alongside monthly fees.
Australia: 12% super and the Payday Super switch
The superannuation guarantee reached 12% on 1 July 2025. From 1 July 2026, Payday Super requires contributions to reach the employee’s fund within seven business days of each payday, calculated on ‘qualifying earnings’, and the ATO now assesses the super guarantee charge directly when payments are late. The free Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed on 30 June 2026, so small employers need payroll software or a fund clearing house.
Employees can pick their own fund, and under ‘stapling’ a new hire’s existing fund follows them, so your default applies only to people without one. Paying above 12% is a recognised differentiator for senior hires.
Describes itself as Australia’s largest super fund, citing APRA statistics, and says over 500,000 businesses use it. Employer portal and clearing-house tools support Payday Super.
Formed from the merger of Sunsuper and QSuper; says over 195,000 employers use it, with a clearing house and stapling tools.
Türkiye: BES auto-enrolment, employer-paid plans and the TES plan
Since 2017, employers must enrol employees under 45 in the private pension system (OKS) with a 3% employee contribution; employees may opt out within a set window, and the state adds a top-up. Employers pay nothing into OKS, so white-collar candidates notice employer-paid group BES plans, which get limited income-tax and SGK relief — model the net cost with your payroll adviser.
The next change is the planned Complementary Pension System (TES). The 2026 Presidential Annual Programme said OKS will become a second-tier system, targeted for 2026; reported designs have all employees enrolled with roughly 3% from the employee, an employer contribution of about 1–2% and a state top-up. Check whether the law has passed before you budget, and treat an employer-funded BES as a head start, not a duplicate.
Part of the İş Bankası group and consistently among the largest private-pension providers, it publishes employer guidance on auto-enrolment obligations and payroll integration alongside group pension and life products.
A Sabancı group company partly listed on Borsa Istanbul, AgeSA offers auto-enrolment, an employer group pension plan, group life and group personal accident cover, with a corporate service centre.
Garanti BBVA’s pension arm runs individual and auto-enrolment plans plus a corporate offer. Compare fund ranges and fees before defaulting to your house bank.
Germany, the Netherlands and Poland: three systems in transition
Germany. Employees have a legal right to convert pay into a company pension (bAV), and employers must add 15% of the deferred amount where they save social charges. Contributions are tax-free up to 8% of the pension contribution ceiling and free of social charges up to 4%. The second Company Pensions Strengthening Act (BRSG II), passed in December 2025 and phased in from 2026, eases opt-out auto-enrolment where no collective agreement applies and opens social-partner schemes to more employers. Candidates read an employer-funded bAV as the real benefit.
The Netherlands. Most employees are in sector pension funds that are mandatory for their industry. The Future Pensions Act (Wtp) moves every scheme to defined contribution with a flat-rate premium; on 1 January 2026, about 30 funds covering roughly 10 million participants switched, including PFZW, and all schemes must comply by 1 January 2028. Employers with insured schemes must renegotiate contracts now.
Poland. Every employer must offer an Employee Capital Plan (PPK): the employer pays a basic 1.5% of pay (up to 2.5% extra) and the employee 2%, with a state welcome payment and annual top-ups. Staff who opt out are re-enrolled every four years. An employer-run PPE plan with a contribution of at least 3.5% exempts you from PPK and reads as a premium benefit.
Funded systems from Lagos to Bogotá: the rest of the map
Elsewhere the law usually requires a funded account. India: EPF takes 12% of basic wages from each side, part of the employer share going to a pension scheme on a capped wage. The Labour Codes, in force since 21 November 2025, add allowances above half of pay back into wages, which can raise the EPF base. Corporate NPS with an employer contribution is a recognised differentiator. Nigeria: the Contributory Pension Scheme requires at least 18% of monthly emoluments (10% employer, 8% employee) for employers with three or more staff, plus group life cover; PenCom’s higher capital rules for administrators are driving mergers. South Africa: no statutory employer pension, but formal employers usually provide a retirement fund, often an umbrella fund; two-pot rules split new contributions one-third savings, two-thirds retirement.
UAE: expatriates earn an end-of-service gratuity rather than a pension; a voluntary federal savings scheme lets employers fund it monthly (5.83% of basic salary for the first five years, 8.33% after) through approved funds, while DIFC’s DEWS is mandatory there. Mexico: the 2020 reform raises employer Afore contributions each year to 2030; in 2026 the employer’s old-age contribution runs from 3.15% to 7.51% by wage band, on top of 2% for retirement and 5% for housing. Brazil: FGTS (8% of pay) is a severance fund, so private previdência plans stand out. Colombia: the Constitutional Court largely upheld the 2024 reform in August 2026, with a 1 April 2027 start: contributions up to 2.3 minimum wages go to Colpensiones and the rest to a private fund. See our Americas and Middle East and Africa guides.
Before you choose a pension provider or match: the question set
Making the pension part of the offer
Back in Manchester, the answers were specific. Austin got a safe-harbor 401(k) with immediate vesting. Melbourne’s offer stated 12% super paid every payday plus a 2% top-up after a year. Istanbul was offered employer-paid group BES with three-year vesting, so the candidate kept what she had. The UK board kept salary sacrifice.
State the pension as a number and a promise: ‘Employer pays 6% of salary, monthly, into your chosen fund’ beats ‘competitive pension’ every time. Our playbooks for the United States, Australia and Türkiye cover the wider offer, and our guides to setting the pay band, total rewards strategy and the final hiring decision show where it fits; pair it with group health cover.
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