The Treasury Department has automatically enrolled more than 60 million eligible American children in Trump Accounts, and the White House announced Wednesday that the total number of accounts has now reached 70 million. President Trump signed the legal framework into law through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025, and Treasury used that authority to place tens of millions of children into investment accounts without requiring families to fill out separate applications.
Every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number now has an account ready to be claimed. A parent or guardian must use the official app to verify their identity and their relationship to the child before managing the account or opening it to contributions from relatives, friends, employers, and other qualified donors. Automatic enrollment creates the account, but families still need to take that step to activate it.
Treasury estimated that a voluntary sign-up system would have reached only about half of eligible children. Automatic enrollment pushes access close to universal, and the department’s own analysis says the largest gains go to children in lower-income households. The temporary regulations implementing the program took effect September 30, and they spell out the eligibility rules, the claiming process, and the structure for contributions. You can find full details through the Trump Accounts enrollment rules, which describe how Treasury can hold automatically created accounts in a master group trust until a parent or guardian claims the child’s share, a setup that expanded participation without requiring tens of millions of separate applications or exposing private taxpayer information.
Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged investment accounts held in the child’s name, with a parent or guardian serving as custodian until the child turns 18. Families may contribute up to $5,000 per year. At 18, the child takes full control and can keep the account growing or use the funds for major expenses such as education or a home purchase, subject to the account’s tax rules.
Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, are eligible for a one-time $1,000 Treasury seed contribution once the account is claimed. That seed does not apply to every child in the broader automatic-enrollment group, so families should check the rules carefully. The long-term growth figures the program uses in its illustrations are based on historical market averages and are not guaranteed. Markets carry risk, and Trump Accounts are no exception.
The legal authority for the rollout comes from Treasury and IRS regulations published in the Federal Register, which implement the Trump Account provisions Congress enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Eligibility generally requires that the child be under 18 for the relevant calendar year and have a valid Social Security number. Parents who haven’t claimed their child’s account yet can do so through the official Trump Accounts website and app. Grandparents and other relatives can also contribute once a family claims the account, so spreading the word matters.
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