In short, no. I asked Vanguard directly about this for my own 401k, and their response was non-committal. It may be worth noting that 401ks are covered by ERISA law, so that cutting you off from managing one may contravene ERISA - I suggested as much to Vanguard, and they ignored it entirely.Anyway, the thing I wonder about most is that Vanguard never said whether 401K accounts are also affected by the removal of the legacy platform. Did any of you ever get any more information about that?
Ultimately I decided to rollover my 401k to an IRA, and then move it from there to Schwab. The reasoning is that even with trading restrictions at Schwab I'll be no worse off than at Vanguard, and potentially better since the restrictions at Schwab are down to EU/UK PRIIPs regulations rather than any invented Vanguard policy, and there's at least a chance that the UK, if no the EU, will scrap or modify PRIIPs so that US domiciled funds and ETFs become usable once again. By contrast, there's no chance Vanguard will shift its policy back to permit NRAs to manage accounts, and things like continued online access to Vanguard and W-8BEN handling are still unresolved a year later on. The complete lack of clarity - indeed, total silence - from Vanguard over the past year on this inspires no confidence whatsoever.
That all said, I'm in a slightly different position to you, in that Vanguard have also decided not to follow W-8BEN reduced (zero) treaty rate withholding on IRA withdrawals for UK (and Indian) residents, including (insanely) qualified Roth withdrawals. So even without Vanguard's added nonsense of freezing NRA accounts, personally I'm still motivated strongly to leave Vanguard and move to Schwab. Which I'm halfway through, and will complete in the next couple of weeks.
Statistics: Posted by TedSwippet — Fri Sep 19, 2025 1:30 pm — Replies 39 — Views 8423