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Data and Research October 31, 2025
PBGC Updates 2026 Maximum Monthly Guarantee Tables
The limits will rise slightly next year, as did the insurance premiums earlier this week.
Reported by James Van Bramer
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation released its updated maximum monthly guarantee tables for 2026, outlining the highest pension benefits the agency can pay for single employer plans it administers.
According to the PBGC, which oversees insurance for private sector defined benefit plans that fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, these guarantees apply only to single-employer pension plans whose benefits the PBGC pays as a trustee, not to multiemployer plans, which follow separate rules.
The tables specify the maximum amounts the PBGC can guarantee by age, with limits determined by a federal formula tied to the Social Security index. This formula results in lower amounts for younger ages—because younger people are expected to receive more monthly pension checks over their lifetime—and higher amounts for older retirees.
For 2026, the maximum guaranteed benefit for a 65-year-old retiree receiving a straight-life annuity is $7,789.77 per month, while a joint-and-50% survivor annuity for the same age caps at $7,010.79. Those figures will increase from $7,431.82 and $6,688.64, respectively, in 2025. The guaranteed amounts rise with age, topping out at $23,680.90 for age 75 under the straight-life annuity option, up from $22,592.73 in 2025.
In 2026, it will top out at $21,312.81 for the joint-and-50% survivor annuity, up from $20,333.46 in 2025.
As the PBGC noted in its statement, most retirees in PBGC-trusteed plans receive benefits less than these limits.
Earlier this week, the PBGC updated its 2026 premiums, which will rise slightly next year.
In an update from the PBGC, the flat rate premium for single-employer plans will increase by 4.7% to $111 per participant in 2026, up from $106. Additionally, the rate for unvested benefits, fixed by Congress under Section 349 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, will remain unchanged at $52 per $1,000.
For variable rate premiums, the cap will also rise by 4.7%, reaching $751 per participant. In the realm of multiemployer plans that only deal with per-participant fees, the flat rate premium will increase to $40 from $39.