DOL Pulled Its ERISA Bulletins: What Applies Now
See the primary source.
The Department of Labor removed three obsolete interpretive bulletins under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 from 29 CFR Part 2509, in a direct final rule cited as 90 FR 28004. The rule is effective September 2, 2025 and binds employee benefit plans, plan sponsors, and fiduciaries who had been citing those bulletins in a process document. Removing the bulletins does not change the statutory duties of prudence and loyalty.
This brief sits in a sealed set of 1086 rules from 11 federal agencies covering September 1, 2023 – September 1, 2026. It is a point-in-time index, not a rolling ERISA library.
Source: Federal Register / eCFR.
Who has to comply?
The direct final rule amends 29 CFR Part 2509, the part that collected interpretive bulletins relating to ERISA. The Labor Department, through the Employee Benefits Security Administration, published it on July 1, 2025 at 90 FR 28004, RIN 1210-AC32.
The reader this brief is written for is a retirement-plan fiduciary or an insurance-agency adviser who cited the bulletins in an investment policy, a prohibited-transaction checklist, or a plan-procedure manual. The notice is a removal of obsolete sub-regulatory text, not a new prohibited-transaction regulation and not a rewrite of ERISA's prudence and loyalty standards.
Comments on the direct final rule were due by July 31, 2025. The dates text stated that the final rule is effective September 2, 2025 unless significant adverse comments were received by that comment date. This page does not invent a later withdrawal notice; a fiduciary who needs current status should read the Federal Register record.
The rule does not say every remaining bulletin in Part 2509 is withdrawn. It removes three sections. Bulletins that the amending instruction does not list stay on the books until a later action says otherwise.
What is now permitted?
What is now permitted is that a fiduciary no longer has to treat Interpretive Bulletins 75-2, 75-6, and 75-10 as current DOL interpretations sitting in 29 CFR Part 2509. The notice removes those three bulletins prospectively as of the effective date and states that the action has no effect on their legal effectiveness prior to that date.
Interpretive Bulletin 75-2, previously at 29 CFR Part 2509, stated the Department's views on whether a party in interest has engaged in a prohibited transaction with an employee benefit plan where the party in interest has engaged in a transaction with an entity in which the plan has invested. The notice removes it because later sub-regulatory guidance, in the Department's view, already occupies that prohibited-transaction ground.
Interpretive Bulletin 75-6, previously at 29 CFR Part 2509, addressed whether a plan could make an advance to a fiduciary to cover expenses to be properly and actually incurred in performing duties with respect to the plan, in connection with ERISA section the prohibited-transaction exemption(c)(2). The notice removes it because a 1977 final regulation at 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2 replaced that bulletin. The regulation that occupies the ground is 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2, not a blank space.
Interpretive Bulletin 75-10, previously at 29 CFR Part 2509, addressed overlapping DOL and IRS jurisdiction over parallel Title I and Code provisions by cross-referencing IRS guidance and stating that plans complying with those IRS documents would be considered by the Department as satisfying the parallel Title I provisions. The notice removes it because Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978 generally assigned that interpretive jurisdiction to one agency or the other.
| Removed bulletin | Former CFR section | Subject named in 90 FR 28004 | What occupies the ground after September 2, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interpretive Bulletin 75-2 | 29 CFR Part 2509 | Party-in-interest transactions with an entity in which the plan has invested | Later DOL sub-regulatory prohibited-transaction guidance; the statutory prohibited-transaction restrictions remain |
| Interpretive Bulletin 75-6 | 29 CFR Part 2509 | Advances to a fiduciary for properly and actually incurred plan expenses under ERISA section the prohibited-transaction exemption(c)(2) | 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2, which the notice states replaced the bulletin in 1977 |
| Interpretive Bulletin 75-10 | 29 CFR Part 2509 | Parallel Title I and Code qualification provisions and joint DOL/IRS interpretive jurisdiction | Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978 and the agency assignment it made |
| Statutory prudence and loyalty | Not a bulletin | Not removed | ERISA's statutory fiduciary duties continue; the rule does not say they are lighter |
That table is the differentiator. A process document that still cites the applicable section-2, the applicable section-6, or the applicable section-10 as current interpretive text is citing sections the rule removed. A process document that treats the removal as a repeal of ERISA's prudence and loyalty duties is reading a bulletin deletion as a statute deletion. The rule does not say the statute moved.
The notice does not remove Interpretive Bulletin ninety-four-2 or Interpretive Bulletin 95-1. Those names are common search terms around proxy voting and annuity selection; they are not the sections this amending instruction deletes. If a fiduciary's procedure cites ninety-four-2 or 95-1, this page is not authority to archive those citations. The rule does not say they are gone.
What cost or time does the removal save?
The rule does not assign a dollar figure this page may repeat as a plan-level saving. What an insurance agency or plan fiduciary no longer has to do, in general terms, is maintain a compliance checklist that treats Interpretive Bulletins 75-2, 75-6, and 75-10 as live Part 2509 text, or spend time reconciling those bulletins against later regulations that already replaced them.
That is a real operational change. A procedure that told a reviewer to read the applicable section-6 and 2550.408c-2 side by side for the same advance-to-fiduciary question was, in the Department's stated view, asking the public to compare identical standards in two places. After September 2, 2025, the 75-6 row can leave the checklist.
What the fiduciary still has to do is not optional cleanup. Prohibited-transaction restrictions remain. The expense-reimbursement regulation at 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2 remains. Prudence and loyalty remain. A fiduciary who stops documenting a party-in-interest analysis because "the bulletin is gone" has not captured a saving; it has dropped a statutory duty the bulletin never was. See the primary source.
Time saved, if any, is the time that used to go into deciding whether an obsolete bulletin still controlled. Time not saved is the time that still goes into the statute, the remaining regulations, and any later DOL guidance that occupies the same subject. The rule does not say those remaining items got lighter.
What still applies after September 2, 2025?
The final rule is effective September 2, 2025. From that date a process document should not present the applicable section-2, the applicable section-6, or the applicable section-10 as current CFR text.
ERISA's statutory standards of conduct for fiduciaries, including prudence and loyalty, are not in the removed set. The notice describes those standards in the background section as part of Title I; it does not repeal them. Removing sub-regulatory guidance does not change those statutory duties.
Prohibited-transaction restrictions remain. The notice removes a 1975 bulletin about party-in-interest transactions with an entity in which the plan invested; it does not delete ERISA section 406. A fiduciary who needs the current prohibited-transaction analysis should use the statute and the later guidance the Department says already occupies that ground, not a deleted bulletin and not silence.
Expense advances to a fiduciary remain governed by 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2. The notice is explicit that the 1977 regulation replaced Interpretive Bulletin 75-6. A procedure that cited only 75-6 should now cite the regulation.
Joint-jurisdiction confusion is not a reason to ignore qualification rules. Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978 is what the notice says resolved that overlap. A plan's tax-qualification file and its Title I fiduciary file still have owners.
Other interpretive bulletins in 29 CFR Part 2509 are not in the removed list. The amending instruction removes §the applicable section-2, the applicable section-6, and the applicable section-10. The rule does not say the rest of the part is empty.
Adjacent reading that is already live, and that this page does not restate, includes the catch-up contributions accounting brief, the index-linked annuity registration brief, and the insurance policy-renewal workflow guide.
How should an agency adopt the change without tripping remaining rules?
Adopting the removal compliantly means taking the three bulletins out of the documents that still govern the book of business, and leaving every surviving statute and regulation in place. A one-line memo that says "DOL pulled the ERISA bulletins" is not an adoption.
Search every investment policy, prohibited-transaction checklist, fiduciary handbook, and vendor memo for citations to the applicable section-2, the applicable section-6, the applicable section-10, IB 75-2, IB 75-6, and IB 75-10.
For each hit, replace the citation with the occupying text: later prohibited-transaction guidance and the statute for 75-2; 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2 for 75-6; the Reorganization Plan assignment for 75-10.
Add a sentence that ERISA's prudence and loyalty duties are unchanged by 90 FR 28004.
Leave every other Part 2509 citation in place unless a later action removes it. Do not archive ninety-four-2 or 95-1 on the strength of this rule.
Date the revised procedure September 2, 2025 or later, and keep the pre-effective version for the period the notice says the removal does not reach.
Route any citation whose replacement text is unclear to the plan administrator or a qualified professional. The rule does not map a particular plan's investment menu.
| Step | Owner | Evidence a reviewer would want | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Search for the three bulletins | Compliance owner | Hit list from policies and vendor memos | Every 75-2, 75-6, and 75-10 citation is on the list |
| 2. Replace with occupying text | Procedure owner | Revised citation next to the old one | The three sections are no longer presented as current CFR |
| 3. Restate prudence and loyalty | Fiduciary or adviser | Sentence in the revised procedure | The procedure does not treat the statute as repealed |
| 4. Leave other bulletins | Compliance owner | Unchanged citations for sections this rule did not remove | ninety-four-2 / 95-1 rows, if present, are still there |
| 5. Version the procedure | Procedure owner | Effective-date stamp | Pre-September 2, 2025 version retained |
| 6. Escalate mixed questions | Plan administrator plus qualified professional | Written question and the primary-source link | No silent assumption that "guidance is gone" |
The two products an agency already runs for this work are Fi360 and Relius. Fi360 is a fiduciary-analytics and investment-fiduciary tool many advisers use to score lineup and process. Relius is a retirement-plan document and administration system many of the same shops use to maintain plan documents and census. Neither product interprets 29 CFR Part 2509. They hold the lineup, the document, and the census a person uses when rewriting the procedure.
A third product name would turn this page into a roundup. These two are named because they are the systems an adviser already opens when a plan procedure changes.
What can be automated is the flag that a procedure still cites the applicable section-2, the applicable section-6, or the applicable section-10. What needs a human decision is which occupying statute or regulation belongs in that row, and whether a particular plan's facts still raise a prohibited-transaction or expense-reimbursement question.
How does a workflow flag plans still carrying superseded wording?
Reconcile the book of business against the change: each policy or plan maps to the notice, form, or disclosure the rule now requires and the date it is due. US Tech Automations flags policies or plans still carrying the superseded wording and routes the renewal or amendment to the producer or plan administrator.
That is flag-and-route. A queue item that says "this fiduciary handbook still cites the applicable section-6" is useful. A queue item that says "this plan is prudent" is not a determination this workflow is allowed to make.
US Tech Automations can watch the procedure library for the three removed section numbers, attach the 90 FR 28004 citation to the task, and send the file to the named producer or plan administrator. It cannot decide whether a party-in-interest transaction is prohibited, whether an expense advance fits 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2, or whether a plan document on Relius still matches the statute.
A useful configuration is one book of business, the three bulletin citations, and a count of handbooks that still presented those sections as current after September 2, 2025. US Tech Automations should sit around Fi360 process records and Relius document versions rather than inside the fiduciary determination. The citation is evidence. The duty belongs to the fiduciary.
Key Takeaways
The Labor Department direct final rule at 90 FR 28004, RIN 1210-AC32, is effective September 2, 2025 and amends 29 CFR Part 2509.
Removed: Interpretive Bulletin 75-2 (party-in-interest transactions with an entity in which the plan invested), Interpretive Bulletin 75-6 (fiduciary expense advances under ERISA section the prohibited-transaction exemption(c)(2)), and Interpretive Bulletin 75-10 (parallel Title I and Code interpretive jurisdiction).
Occupying text: later prohibited-transaction guidance and the statute; 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2; and Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1978.
Removing sub-regulatory guidance does not change the statutory duties of prudence and loyalty. The rule does not say those duties are lighter.
The rule does not remove Interpretive Bulletin ninety-four-2 or 95-1.
Frequently asked questions
Which bulletins did DOL actually remove?
The amending instruction removes 29 CFR Part 2509, the applicable section-6, and the applicable section-10 — Interpretive Bulletins 75-2, 75-6, and 75-10.
Did DOL pull the proxy-voting or annuity-selection bulletins in this rule?
The rule does not say it removes Interpretive Bulletin ninety-four-2 or Interpretive Bulletin 95-1. This page names only the three sections in the amending instruction.
Does deleting the bulletins change prudence and loyalty?
No. Removing sub-regulatory guidance does not change the statutory duties of prudence and loyalty. The notice does not repeal those duties.
What replaced Interpretive Bulletin 75-6?
The notice states that 29 CFR Part 2550.408c-2 replaced Interpretive Bulletin 75-6.
When did the removal take effect?
The dates text states that the final rule is effective September 2, 2025, unless significant adverse comments were received by July 31, 2025. The removal is prospective and has no effect on legal effectiveness prior to that date.
Does updating the handbook guarantee the plan meets ERISA?
No. This page is informational. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Consult a qualified professional and read the rule.
Disclaimer
This page is for informational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Consult a qualified professional about a particular plan, fiduciary process, or prohibited-transaction question. Read the rule.
Every date, citation, RIN, CFR reference, and figure in these posts is copied verbatim from the Federal Register and eCFR as of the snapshot date. Nothing is estimated, modeled, or extrapolated. This is not legal or tax advice.
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Last reviewed: July 1, 2025
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