How to Open a Trump Account for Your Child in 2026

The government will put $1,000 into an investment account for an eligible child, and since July 4, 2026 families have been able to add to it. Claiming the seed is close to a formality. The parts worth your attention are the two levers almost no coverage mentions: where a second stream of free money hides, and a small recordkeeping habit that decides whether your own contributions get taxed once or twice. Understanding how to open a Trump Account properly from the start ensures you capture both funding sources and avoid the tax duplication trap.

This is the mechanics guide. If you are still deciding whether a Trump Account is the right home for your savings at all, start with our comparison of Trump Accounts against 529s and custodial Roth IRAs, then come back here to open one. For the full eligibility and rulebook, see who qualifies and the contribution rules.

What a Trump Account is, in one paragraph

A Trump Account is a tax-deferred investment account for a child under 18, created by the 2025 tax law (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act). Money inside it has to sit in a low-cost fund tracking the S&P 500 or a similar index of mostly American stocks, and it is locked until the year the child turns 18. After that, it behaves like a traditional IRA. The headline feature is the one-time $1,000 federal seed for eligible newborns. The quiet feature is that anyone, including an employer, can add up to $5,000 a year.

Before you start: confirm your child qualifies for the seed

The $1,000 is not deposited automatically. You request it, and only children who are US citizens with a Social Security number, born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028, are eligible for it. You can open a Trump Account for a child born outside that window, but there is no seed in that case, which changes the math considerably. The full eligibility rules cover the edge cases.

How to open and fund one, step by step

The program has been live since July 2026. These steps reflect the process as of October 1, 2026; check IRS.gov and trumpaccounts.gov for changes before you act.

1. Get the child a Social Security number first. No SSN, no seed and no account. For a newborn, request the SSN through the hospital birth-registration process so it arrives before you enroll.
2. Make the election. File IRS Form 4547, either with your tax return or on its own, or use the online tool at trumpaccounts.gov. Check the box to request the $1,000 pilot contribution. It is a claim you make, tied to the child's SSN and birth date, not a benefit that shows up on its own.
3. Activate the account in the official app. Every Trump Account starts at Robinhood, the program's initial trustee, working with BNY as Treasury's financial agent. Once the IRS processes your election, you get an invitation to activate the account in the Trump Accounts app. You cannot open a first Trump Account at your own bank or brokerage.
4. Fund it, if you choose to. You can add up to $5,000 a year. You do not have to add anything to keep the seed; the $1,000 can sit and compound on its own.
5. Check how it is invested. New money goes into a default S&P 500 index ETF chosen by Treasury, so it is invested from the start. Treasury has named a few alternate index ETFs that families are expected to be able to choose later.

Later, you can move the account to another bank or brokerage that offers Trump Accounts, but only by transferring the entire balance directly from one trustee to the other. Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard have said they plan to accept these transfers once Treasury's process allows it. See our provider guide for where that stands.

The free money most parents miss: employer contributions

Here is the lever that rarely makes the summaries. A new provision, Section 128, lets your employer contribute up to $2,500 a year into your child's Trump Account, and that money is excluded from your taxable wages. It counts inside the $5,000 annual cap rather than on top of it, but it is still someone else funding your child's account with pre-tax dollars.

The catch is administrative, not legal: most employers have not built this into their benefits yet. A short email to HR asking whether the company plans to offer Section 128 Trump Account contributions costs you nothing and can be worth real money. At $2,500 a year, invested for 18 years at a 7% return, an employer's contributions alone compound to about $85,000, none of it out of your paycheck. One catch: employer money is not basis, so all of it is taxed as ordinary income when your child eventually withdraws it. Even so, a partial match is found money.

The recordkeeping habit that keeps your money from being taxed twice

This is the part to slow down on. A Trump Account splits into two kinds of money for tax purposes, and they are treated very differently on the way out:

• Your contributions go in after tax. They come back out tax-free, because you already paid tax on those dollars.
• The earnings, the government seed, and any employer money grow tax-deferred and are taxed as ordinary income when withdrawn, the same as wages.

The account works like a nondeductible traditional IRA, where your after-tax deposits create what the IRS calls basis. Each withdrawal is treated as part basis and part taxable money, in proportion to the account's balance. The law requires the trustee to report the account's basis and where contributions came from while your child is under 18, which helps. But accounts move between trustees, records get lost, and once your child is an adult the basis number has to be carried on their own tax returns. If nobody can prove it, money you already paid tax on can end up taxed again as income.

Put a number on it. Max the account at $5,000 a year for 18 years and you contribute $90,000 of your own after-tax money. Lose track of it and, at a 22% ordinary-income rate, you would be exposing that $90,000 to roughly $19,800 of tax it should never owe. The fix is boring and free: keep your own annual record of every contribution, save each year's trustee statement, and hand both to whoever files the taxes when withdrawals begin.

What to actually put in it

There is almost nothing to decide. By law, the money has to be in a mutual fund or ETF that tracks the S&P 500 or another index of primarily American stocks, uses no leverage, and charges less than 0.1% a year. In the initial account, Treasury made the State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) the default fund and named iShares, Vanguard, and State Street total-market and S&P 500 ETFs as alternates, all with expense ratios around 0.02% to 0.03%, according to news reports of Treasury's July 2026 announcement. There is no glide path that shifts toward bonds as your child approaches 18, which is a real difference from a 529 and something to plan around as the unlock date nears. For an 18-year horizon a broad US index fund is a reasonable default anyway, so the default fund is fine to leave alone.

Should you add your own money?

Claiming the seed is close to automatic in its logic: it is free, it compounds, and the only cost is enrollment. Whether to route your own savings here is the harder question, and it turns on the ordinary-income tax treatment above. For most families, a custodial Roth IRA or a 529 keeps more of your own money after tax, and our Research Desk walks through why the free seed does not mean the account is the best home for everything. Take the gift first. Decide about your own dollars second.

Quick answers

Is the $1,000 automatic? No. You request it on Form 4547 or at trumpaccounts.gov, and only eligible children born 2025 through 2028 receive it. Even an account Treasury opened automatically needs this election to get the seed.

Can I open one for a child born before 2025? Yes, but there is no $1,000 seed. Without the seed, compare a 529 or custodial Roth first, because the Trump Account's tax treatment is its weakest feature for your own contributions.

Where should I open it? Every first Trump Account opens at Robinhood, the program's initial trustee, through the official Trump Accounts app. Later you can transfer the whole account to another bank or brokerage that offers Trump Accounts.

Sources

• IRS and Treasury guidance on Trump Accounts, Notice 2025-68: IRS.gov newsroom
• IRS, Instructions for Form 4547, Trump Account Election(s): IRS.gov
• Treasury, BNY designated as financial agent for Trump Accounts (April 6, 2026): Treasury.gov
• Treasury temporary regulations on Trump Accounts, including automatic account opening (September 30, 2026): GovInfo
• Congressional Research Service, Trump Accounts overview and rules: Congress.gov R48910

Figures reviewed October 1, 2026. Growth numbers assume a 7% annual return and are illustrative, not guaranteed. This is educational information, not tax or investment advice; some details await final IRS regulations, so verify current rules at IRS.gov or with a tax professional.