The Treasury Department will begin automatically opening Trump Accounts for tens of millions of children as soon as Oct. 1, according to temporary regulations it issued this week. The move is designed to push the government-seeded investment program toward near-universal coverage just months after its July 4 launch.
Under the rules, which are scheduled for publication in the Federal Register, the Treasury secretary is authorized to open accounts for every child under 18 who has a Social Security number and does not already have an account. Treasury projects the change will add more than 60 million accounts this year, plus roughly two million per birth-year cohort thereafter. That would vastly accelerate adoption from the 6 million signups reported before the launch.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previewed the shift at a mid-September hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, saying that 7 to 8 million children had signed up and that Treasury anticipated reaching 70 million within a month via auto-enrollment. The department said it had processed about 5.6 million electronic Forms 4547 before July 30, less than a tenth of the roughly 73.4 million eligible children. Officials estimated an opt-in system would have stalled near 50% enrollment.
Initially, broad auto-enrollment was ruled out due to legal and operational hurdles, including the need to prevent unauthorized disclosure of return information. To work around that, the temporary regulations establish a master group trust. Each child has a separate account held for his or her benefit, but assets are pooled and invested collectively, allowing the trustee to trade without handling individual tax data. Treasury acts on the account until a parent or guardian claims it.
The auto accounts can receive only two types of deposits: contributions from governments or charities, and the $1,000 pilot payment for children born from 2025 through 2028. Because Treasury cannot make the pilot election for a family, a parent must still file for the $1,000. Deposits from parents, relatives, or employers also require families to claim the account through a Treasury app or webpage, verify identity and legal authority, and then transfer the balance to a claimed account or a rollover Trump account at another custodian.
The temporary rules also allow charities and governments to donate publicly traded U.S. stock, which must be held for five years or until the growth period ends, whichever comes first. Donors can target groups of at least 5,000 children defined by birth year and geography. Treasury cited the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation's $6.25 billion pledge as a model.
Trump Accounts, created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, function as traditional IRAs for children. Until the account holder turns 18, money must be invested in U.S. equity index funds charging no more than 0.1% annually. Contributions are capped at $5,000 per year, with up to $2,500 of that coming from employers tax-free.
The program continues to face industry questions. In a Sept. 25 letter to the IRS, the Investment Company Institute said an August proposal "does not address the mechanics of how employers will send contributions to the Trump accounts of their employees." The ICI also raised concerns about the definition of "dependent" for employer contributions, noting that divorced parents may alternate claiming a child as a dependent from year to year. "Many employers, particularly those that have announced matching programs, are eager to implement their Trump account contribution programs quickly," the letter said. "The Trump account program has moved from enactment to implementation at an unprecedented speed, and inadvertent mistakes and foot-faults are likely."
For financial advisors, the rollout creates a role in helping families navigate the claiming process and decide how to invest the accounts. As similar government initiatives have shown, the practical impact often depends on client action. Advisors may also need to monitor employer matching programs, which could become a new benefit to discuss in retirement planning.
