Who can I get to help me roll my 401(k) into an IRA when I live overseas?
It is typically very easy to roll a 401(k) into an IRA.  Companies that provide IRA's are very experienced with it, and I would expect that they will take your calls from overseas. You will likely be able to do it over the internet without using a phone at all. Just open an IRA with any brokerage company (Scottrade, Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, Ameritrade, etc.) and follow instructions to roll your 401(k) into it.  Most likely they will need your signature, but usually a scan of a form you have filled out will do.  Be sure to have information on your 401(k) provider, including your account number there, on hand.  These companies are all very reputable and this is not a difficult transaction. There's really no downside to rolling into an IRA.  401(k) plans usually have more limited options and/or worse fee structures and are frequently harder to work with, as you have observed. This is more of a general answer about your situation than a specific answer to your question.  You might consider getting a SIP telephone number based in the US, or an even easier to use IP based phone number. That way you can use it through your Internet connection and make eaiser calls to US companies that you still have a business relationship with.
If you do not need the money in the 401k right away and are interested in avoiding penalties on the amounts accumulated, roll over the 401k monies into a Roth IRA (your contributions and growth thereof) and a Traditional IRA (company match a d growth thereof). You can choose to take out money from the Traditional IRA not as a lump sum (penalties in addition to lots of income tax in the year of taking the distribution) but as series of equal payments over your life expectancy (no penalty but US income tax is still due each year). Be aware that he who rides a tiger cannot dismount: if you opt for this method, you must take a distribution every year whether you need the money or not, and the amount of the distribution must match what the IRS wants you to take exactly; excess withdrawals lead to penalties etc.  Publication 590 says Annuity. You can receive distributions from your traditional IRA that are part of a series of substantially equal payments over your life (or your life expectancy), or over the lives (or the joint life expectancies) of you and your beneficiary, without having to pay the 10% additional tax, even if you receive such distributions before you are age 59.5. You must use an IRS-approved distribution method and you must take at least one distribution annually for this exception to apply. The “required minimum distribution method,” when used for this purpose, results in the exact amount required to be distributed, not the minimum amount. Be aware that, depending on your country of residence/citizenship, you may be required to close all foreign accounts within x months of return, and if so, this stratagem will not work. If you invest in a 401(k), the shares in that plan are yours for as long as you live, or until you pull them out. So, if the employer is offering any sort of matching and those matched funds remain yours after you leave, then definitely contribute; that's an immediate return on your money. If the employer is NOT matching funds, then usually it is better to contribute to an IRA instead; you get the same income tax benefits from the deduction, without the headaches of going through your company (or the company from 3 jobs ago or whoever bought them) to get to your money. If I were in your position, the most I personally would do after I quit the company (which I'm assuming you'd be doing if you were going back to your country of origin) would be to have the 401k shares rolled over into a traditional IRA; that way I'd have more control over it from outside the country. Just keep the bank holding your IRA apprised of your movements around the world and how they can get ahold of you (it may be wise to grant a limited power of attorney to someone who will be staying in the U.S. if you don't want the bank mailing your statements all around the world), and the money can stay in an American account while you do whatever you have to outside it. As long as you don't take the money out in cash before you're 59 1/2 years old, you don't need to pay taxes or penalties on it. If you were to need it to cover unexpected expenses (perhaps relating to the aforementioned family emergency), then that decision can be made at that time. If you think that's even remotely likely, you may consider a Roth IRA. With a Roth, you pay the income taxes on your contributions, but the money is then yours; you can withdraw anything up to the total amount of your contributions without any additional taxes or penalties, and once you hit 59 and a half the interest also becomes available, also tax- and penalty- free. So if you had to leave the country and take a lot of cash with you, you could get out everything you actually put into a Roth with only minor if any transaction fees, and the interest will still be there compounding. Once upon a time, money rolled over from a 401k or 403b plan into an IRA could not be rolled into another 401k or 403b unless the IRA account was properly titled as a Rollover IRA (instead of Traditional IRA - Roth IRAs were still in the future) and the money kept separate (not commingled) with contributions to Traditional IRAs. Much of that has fallen by the way side as the rules have become more relaxed.  Also the desire to roll over  money into a 401k plan at one's new job has decreased too --  far too many employer-sponsored retirement plans have large management fees and the investments are rarely the best available: one can generally do better  keeping ex-401k money outside a new 401k, though of course new  contributions from salary earned at the new employer perforce must be put into the employer's 401k. While consolidating one's IRA accounts at one brokerage or one fund family certainly saves on the paperwork, it is worth keeping in mind that putting all one's eggs in one basket might not be the best idea, especially for those concerned that an employee might, like Matilda, take me money and run Venezuela. Another issue is that while one may have diversified investments at the brokerage or fund family, the entire IRA must have the same set of beneficiaries: one cannot leave the money invested in GM stock (or Fund A) to one person and the money invested in Ford stock (or Fund B) to  another if one so desires.  Thinking far ahead into the future, if one is interested in making charitable bequests, it is the best strategy tax-wise to make these bequests from tax-deferred monies rather than from post-tax money. Since IRAs pass outside the will, one can keep separate IRA accounts with different companies, with, say, the Vanguard IRA having primary beneficiary United Way and the Fidelity IRA having primary beneficiary the American Cancer Society, etc. to achieve the appropriate charitable bequests. You should be able to take a loan out on the 401(k).  You can't do a roll-over unless you leave your job.  If your 401(k) is that bad, you should consider maxing out your IRA contributions first and putting the rest into your 401(k) - so if you're putting away about 7k a year, lower your withholding to 1500 and put 5500 into an IRA. Okay thanks, let's hope it's a relatively painless process to correct my mistake!   Really odd that my 401(k)s are traditional, I was so sure they weren't.  Maybe it's better then to open up a traditional IRA alongside the Roth, use that for rollovers, and just kick a few bucks into the Roth on occasion? There is a process called a backdoor IRA.   You now have effectively made a Roth IRA contribution in a year where technically you aren't eligible.  You do not have to pay taxes on earnings with a Roth IRA.  You are limited to the normal annual contribution to the IRA (Roth or traditional).   If you don't convert your traditional IRA contribution to a Roth IRA, then you are right.  That gains nothing except enhanced protection in bankruptcy.  Only do this if you are taking advantage of the Roth rollover.   I'm ignoring rolling over a 401k into an IRA, as that doesn't increase the amount you can contribute.  This does.  You can contribute the full $18,000 to the 401k and still make a full contribution to the backdoor IRA.   This is the tax advantaged form of an IRA.  This avoids double taxation.  Let's assume that your investment can go into something with a 5% annual return and you pay a 25% tax rate (doesn't matter as it drops out).  You are going to invest for thirty years and then withdraw.  You initially have $1000 before taxes.   With a regular investment:   You now have $2867.74.   With a pre-tax IRA.   You now have $3241.45 (it is not an accident that this is almost the same as the amount before the capital gains tax in the example without an IRA).   You avoided the $373.72 capital gains tax.  Even though you paid a lot more tax, you paid it out of the gains from investing the original $250 that you would have paid in tax.   This helps you even more if the capital gains tax goes up in the future.  Or if your tax bracket changes.  If you currently are in the 25% bracket but retire in the 15% bracket, these numbers will get even better in your favor.   If you currently are in the 15% bracket and worry that you might retire in the 25% bracket, consider a Roth instead.  It also avoids double taxation but its single taxation is at your current rate rather than your future rate. I rolled mine over from the company I was at into my own brokerage house.  You can't roll them into a Roth IRA, so I needed to setup a traditional IRA. There is paperwork your old jobs can provide you.  I had to put in some mailing addresses, some account numbers and turn them in.  My broker received it, I chose what I wanted to invest it in and that was that.  No tax penalty or early withdrawal penalty.  The key to avoiding penalties is to have your past employers send the money directly to another retirement fund, not send a check to you. "Unless your 401(k) plan is particularly good (i.e. good fund choices with low fees), you probably want to contribute enough to get the maximum match from your employer, then contribute to an IRA through a low-cost brokerage like Vanguard or Fidelity, then contribute more to your 401(k). As JoeTaxpayer said, contributions to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn tax- and penalty-free, so they are useful for early retirement. But certainly use your 401(k) as well--the tax benefits almost certainly outweigh the difficulty in accessing your money. JB King's link listing ways to access retirement money before the traditional age is fairly exhaustive. One of the main ways you may want to consider that hasn't been highlighted yet is IRS section 72(t) i.e. substantially equal periodic payments (SEPP). With this rule you can withdraw early from retirement plans without penalties. You have a few different ways of calculating the withdrawal amount. The main risk is you have to keep withdrawing that amount for the greater of five years or until you reach age 59½. In your case this is is only 4-5 years, which isn't too bad. Finally, in addition to being able to withdraw from a Roth IRA tax- and penalty-free, you can do the same for Roth conversions, provided 5 years have passed. So after you leave a job, you can rollover 401(k) money to a traditional IRA, then convert to a Roth IRA (the caveat being you have to pay taxes on the amount as income at this point). But after 5 years you can access the money without penalty, and no taxes since they've already been paid. This is commonly called a ""Roth conversion ladder""." "You don't want to do that. DON'T LIE TO THE IRS!!! We live overseas as well and have researched this extensively. You cannot make $50k overseas and then say you only made $45k to put $5k into retirement.  I have heard from some accountants and tax attorneys who interpret the law as saying that the IRS considers Foreign Earned Income as NOT being compensation when computing IRA contribution limits, regardless of whether or not you exclude it. Publication 590-A What is Compensation (scroll down a little to the ""What Is Not Compensation"" section). Those professionals say that any amounts you CAN exclude, not just ones you actually do exclude. Then there are others that say the 'can' is not implied. So be careful trying to use any foreign-earned income to qualify for retirement contributions. I haven't ran across anyone yet who has gotten caught doing it and paid the price, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. AN ALTERNATIVE IN CERTAIN CASES: There are two things you can do that we have found to have some sort of taxable income that is preferably not foreign so that you can contribute to a retirement account. We do this by using capital gains from investments as income. Since our AGI is always zero, we pay no short or long term capital gains taxes (as long as we keep short term capital gains lower than $45k)  Another way to contribute to a Roth IRA when you have no income is to do an IRA Rollover. Of course, you need money in a tax-deferred account to do this, but this is how it works: I always recommend those who have tax-deferred IRA's and no AGI due to the FEIE to roll over as much as they can every year to a Roth IRA. That really is tax free money. The only tax you'll pay on that money is sales tax when you SPEND IT!! =)" If you're thinking of going back to your home country, you need to check whether you're allowed to keep foreign accounts once back there. In some countries having a foreign account may be illegal. In this case - don't contribute to 401K as you'll have to withdraw, and pay the penalty. If, however, your country of origin doesn't care about you having an account in the US - keep it, and contribute, because then you'll achieve these nice things: "If you are the sole owner (or just you and your spouse) and expect to be that way for a few years, consider the benefits of an individual 401(k). The contribution limits are higher than an IRA, and there are usually no fees involved. You can google ""Individual 401k"" and any of the major investment firms (Fidelity, Schwab, etc) will set one up free of charge. This option gives you a lot of freedom to decide how much money to put away without any plan management fees. The IRS site has all the details in an article titled One-Participant 401(k) Plans. Once you have employees, if you want to set up a retirement plan for them, you'll need to switch to a traditional, employer-sponsored 401k, which will involve some fees on your part. I seem to recall $2k/yr in fees when I had a sponsored 401(k) for my company, and I'm sure this varies widely.  If you have employees and don't feel a need to have a company-wide retirement plan, you can set up your own personal IRA and simply not offer a company plan to your employees. The IRA contribution limits are lower than an individual 401(k), but setting it up is easy and fee-free. So basically, if you want to spend $0 on plan management fees, get an individual 401(k) if you are self-employed, or an IRA for yourself if you have employees." The simplest way to consolidate the funds your old 401(k) plans is by doing what's called a Direct Rollover (whereby the funds go directly into the new plan and skips you completely) from each of the old plans into either an IRA that you establish with a provider of your choice or even into your current employer's 401(k) plan if that is available. That way, the funds are in one central account and available to invest. Plus it eliminates the mandatory 20% withholding if the rollover is indirect and is sent to you first before the deposit into the new plan. It is important to bear in mind that you have 60 calendar days from the date of distribution to get the full amount into the new plan and a rollover is considered a tax reportable, but not necessarily a taxable event provided you deposit the funds within the time frame allotted. "You're confusing between ""individual"" 401k (they're called ""Solo-401k"" and are intended for self-employed), and Individual Retirement Account (IRA). You can't open a solo-401k without being self employed. You can open an IRA and roll over money from your old 401k to it. You cannot get a loan from IRA. You can ask the 401k plan manager to reissue the checks to the new trust, shouldn't be a problem. Make sure the checks are issued to the trust, not to you, to avoid withholding and tax complications. This is what is called a ""direct"" rollover. You might be able to roll the money over to the 401k of your new employer, it is not always allowed and you should check. You can probably then take a loan from that 401k. However, it diminishes the value of your retirement savings and you should only do it if you have no other choice (being evicted from your home, your children are starving, can't pay for your chemo, etc... this kind of disasters). Otherwise, I'd suggest rolling over to IRA, investing in funds with significantly lower fees (Vanguard target retirements funds for example, or index funds/ETF's), and reassessing your spending and budgeting habits so that you won't need loans from your 401k. Re companies - ETrade is nice, consider also Scottrade, TDAmeriTrade, Vanguard, Fidelity, Sharebuilder, and may be others. These are all discount brokers with relatively low fees, but each has its own set of ""no-fee"" funds." It depends how you do it.  If you roll it from your 401k directly to a Roth then you will have to pay the taxes.  The contributions to the 401k are tax deferred.  Meaning you do not owe taxes on the money until you collect it.  Roth contributions are post tax but the gains are not taxed so long as they are disbursed under acceptable conditions according to the regulations. If you roll it directly from the 401k to a regular tax deferred IRA you should be able to do that with out penalties or taxes.  You will still have to pay the taxes at disbursement. If you have the money disbursed to you directly then you will have to pay the penalties, fees, and taxes.  Your contributions to an IRA will then be subject to limitations based on the IRA.  It will literally be exactly like you are taking money from your pocket to invest in the IRA.   Your company should give you the option of a rollover check.  This check will be made out to you but it will not be able to be deposited in a regular account or cashed.  It will only be redeemable for deposit into a retirement account that meets the regulatory requirements of the 401k rollover criteria.  I believe the check I received a few years ago was only good for 60 days.  I recall that after 60 days that check was void and I would receive a standard disbursement and would be subject to fees and penalties.  I am not sure if that was the policy of T.Rowe Price or if that is part of the regulation. "You have a few options: Option #1 - Leave the money where it is If your balance is over $5k - you should be able to leave the money in your former-employer's 401(k). The money will stay there and continue to be invested in the funds that you elect to invest in. You should at the very least be receiving quarterly statements for the account. Even better - you should have access to some type of an online account where you can transfer your investments, rebalance your account, conform to target, etc. If you do not have online account access than I'm sure you can still transfer investments and make trades via a paper form. Just reach out to the 401(k) TPA or Recordkeeper that administers your plan. Their contact info is on the quarterly statements you should be receiving. Option #2 - Rollover the money into your current employer's 401(k) plan. This is the option that I tend to recommend the most. Roll the money over into your current employer's 401(k) plan - this way all the money is in the same place and is invested in the funds that you elect. Let's say you wanted to transfer your investments to a new fund lineup. Right now - you have to fill out the paperwork or go through the online process twice (for both accounts). Moving the money to your current-employer's plan and having all the money in the same place eliminates this redundancy, and allows you to make one simple transfer of all your assets. Option #3 - Roll the money from your former-employer's plan into an IRA. This is a cool option, because now you have a new IRA with a new set of dollar limits. You can roll the money into a separate IRA - and contribute an additional $5,500 (or $6,500 if you are 50+ years of age). So this is cool because it gives you a chance to save even more for retirement. Many IRA companies give you a ""sign on bonus"" where if you rollover your former-employers 401(k)...they will give you a bonus (typically a few hundred bucks - but hey its free money!). Other things to note: Take a look at your plan document from your former-employer's 401(k) plan. Take a look at the fees. Compare the fees to your current-employer's plan. There could be a chance that the fees from your former-employer's plan are much higher than your current-employer. So this would just be yet another reason to move the money to your current-employer's plan. Don't forget you most likely have a financial advisor that oversees your current-employer's 401(k) plan. This financial advisor also probably takes fees from your account. So use his services! You are probably already paying for it! Talk to your HR at your employer and ask who the investment advisor is. Call the advisor and set up an appointment to talk about your retirement and financial goals. Ask him for his advice - its always nice talking to someone with experience face to face. Good luck with everything!"