We often get asked a version of the same question:
What is the right QSEHRA allowance to offer employees?
Employers want to help, but they also want context. They want to know how similar companies actually structure their QSEHRAs and how much they typically make available. To make that decision easier, we looked at all the QSEHRAs on our platform and summarized our findings in a way that is easy to benchmark.
How Employers Set QSEHRA Allowances
There are four common ways employers structure a QSEHRA. They can give every employee the same allowance, vary the allowance by family size, vary it by age, or vary it by both family size and age. In practice, most employers choose the simplest approach: one allowance for everyone. Family-size designs are the next most common, while age-based designs are relatively rare.
Same Amount for All Employees
The most common setup gives every eligible employee the same allowance, regardless of age or family status. That simplicity makes the plan easier to explain, budget, and administer.
QSEHRA allowances are also subject to an IRS cap. For 2026, the maximum permitted benefit is $6,450 annually for self-only coverage, or $537.50 per month, and $13,100 annually for family coverage, or $1,091.67 per month. In this group, 15.5% of employees are at the annual maximum.
Varies by Family Size
On our platform, family-size QSEHRAs are built with three inputs: Self, First Dependent, and Each Additional Dependent. Employers can use those inputs in two distinct ways.
A self/family design sets a self amount, adds a first-dependent amount, and sets Each Additional Dependent to $0, so anyone with one or more dependents lands on the same family allowance. A true family-size design assigns a non-zero amount to Each Additional Dependent, so the allowance steps up as more dependents are added, subject to the family cap.
Self / Family
Most family-size QSEHRAs are effectively self/family designs. In these plans, the allowance changes once when an employee adds a dependent, then stays flat for larger families because Each Additional Dependent is set to $0. In this group, 43.3% of plans set the family amount at the maximum.
Actually Varies by Family Size
A smaller share of family-size QSEHRAs truly scale with dependent count. In these plans, employers assign a non-zero amount to Each Additional Dependent, so the allowance increases as family size grows. In this group, 35.3% of employees hit the family maximum
A Note on Age-Based QSEHRAs
Age-based QSEHRAs account for 3.9% of employees in this dataset. They are included in the setup mix above, but not in the allowance benchmark tables here because this export does not store a single fixed-dollar amount for those designs.
Bottom Line
Most employers keep their QSEHRA simple. About 74.9% of employees are in a single-allowance design, and about 17.8% are in a self/family design
