The design-based safe harbors must generally be satisfied on each day during the plan year. Plans that satisfy these safe harbors are deemed to satisfy all requirements of the matching test with regard to pretax employee and employer contributions. Even though a plan satisfies a safe harbor, however, it must still satisfy minimum coverage and other general nondiscrimination requirements. If after-tax employee contributions are allowed, these are still subject to the matching test.

The safe harbor requires that all eligible employees must be given a written explanation (intelligible to the average employee) of their rights and duties under the plan. Ordinarily the notice must be delivered before the start of the plan year.

All contributions used to satisfy the safe harbor-including employer matching contributions-must be fully and immediately vested, nonforfeitable, and generally not distributable before the earliest of separation from service, death, disability, plan termination, or attainment of age 59½. A plan must also meet at least one of the three following conditions:

1. All eligible NHCEs must receive nonelective employer contributions of at least 3% of compensation regardless of whether they elect to contribute to the plan themselves, or
2. All eligible NHCEs who elect to contribute to the plan must receive employer matching contributions equal to their own up to 3% of the employee's compensation, and equal to half their own between 3% and 5% of compensation; and the rate of matching employer contributions received by any NHCE must not be lower than the matching rate for any HCE with the same percentage of elective contributions, or
3. The rate of an employer's matching contribution does not increase as the rate of an employee's elective contributions increases, and the total employer matching contributions at each rate of elective contributions is at least equal to the amount of matching contribution that would have been made under alternative (2).

• Read Understanding Minimum Distribution...Making Your Decision With TIAA-CREF • Read TIAA-CREF Group SRA Loans • Read TIAA-CREF Retirement Plan Loans		• Read Pension Primer: Comparing 403(b) and Qualified Plans • Read Pension Primer: The Hows and Whys of Replacing a Defined Benefit Plan • Read Pension Primer: Keoghs: Retirement Plans for Self-Employed Income