The Treasury Department said on October 1 that it had finished automatically enrolling children in Trump Accounts, the tax-advantaged investment accounts created by the 2025 reconciliation law. According to Treasury, every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number now has an account, including more than 60 million who had not been signed up by a parent.
An account that exists is not an account that is funded. Treasury’s announcement is explicit that a parent or guardian must still claim the account through the official app before anyone can contribute. That includes the government itself: the one-time $1,000 federal deposit for children born from 2025 through 2028 is paid only into claimed accounts. Enrollment is now automatic. The money still has to be claimed.
1. What Treasury announced
The release frames auto-enrollment as a milestone and quotes Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: “Millions of children have already enrolled in Trump Accounts. With automatic enrollment, over 60 million more eligible children now have an account ready to be claimed.” It does not say how many accounts have been claimed or how many $1,000 deposits have been paid, which are the numbers that measure take-up.
A parent or guardian must claim the child’s automatically enrolled Trump Account to manage it and allow for family members, friends, and employers to contribute. […] Eligible children must also have their Trump Account claimed to receive the one-time $1,000 seed contribution from Treasury.
EXCERPT · U.S. Treasury, press release, Oct. 1, 2026
Claiming happens in the Trump Accounts app for iOS and Android. A parent verifies identity and relationship to the child, reviews the child’s information and accepts the account terms. Families can also make the election on IRS Form 4547, the paper and online route the IRS set up in late 2025.
Eligibility for the account and eligibility for the money are different things. Any child under 18 with a valid Social Security number gets an account. Only children born from 2025 through 2028 get the federal $1,000, so a ten-year-old’s account starts empty unless family, an employer or a philanthropy puts something in.
2. The rules, in one table
The account sits in new Section 530A of the Internal Revenue Code. The $1,000 deposit comes from a separate pilot program in Section 6434. The IRS instructions for Form 4547 lay out the mechanics.
| Feature | Rule |
|---|---|
| Federal seed | $1,000, one time, for US citizens born after Dec. 31, 2024, and before Jan. 1, 2029 |
| First contributions | Not before July 4, 2026 |
| Annual limit | $5,000 from families, others and employers combined; indexed after 2027 |
| Employer contributions | Up to $2,500 per employee, counted inside the $5,000 |
| Outside the limit | The pilot deposit, qualified general contributions (e.g., philanthropic programs) and rollovers |
| Investments | Mutual funds or ETFs tracking an index of primarily US companies |
| Growth period ends | Dec. 31 of the year before the child turns 18 |
3. Why claiming matters more than enrolling
Auto-enrollment solves one problem, opening millions of accounts, and leaves the harder one in place. Programs that require an affirmative step from parents tend to reach fewer families than programs that pay automatically, and the families least likely to complete the step are often the ones the program was sold to help. Treasury chose to auto-open the accounts but not to auto-deposit the seed.
Treasury chose to auto-open the accounts but not to auto-deposit the seed.
There are defensible reasons for the design. Claiming verifies a responsible adult and accepts account terms before money moves, which limits fraud and misdirected deposits. The counterargument is that the government already holds the data it needs, including Social Security numbers and dates of birth, to pay the $1,000 automatically.
Private money adds a second layer. Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion in December 2025 to deposit $250 into accounts of children 10 and under, a group largely born before the federal seed’s cutoff. Gifts of that kind are designed to work as “qualified general contributions,” which sit outside the $5,000 cap. They too need a claimed account to land in.
4. What to watch
- Claim rates: The meaningful number is how many accounts are claimed and how many $1,000 deposits are made. Treasury has not published either alongside the auto-enrollment news.
- 2027 indexing: The $5,000 limit is fixed for 2026 and 2027 and begins adjusting for inflation after 2027.
- Filing season: Form 4547 remains an alternative to the app, including when filed with a federal tax return.
- Treasury Announces the Completion of Automatic Enrollment Today for Trump Accounts — U.S. Department of the Treasury · content.govdelivery.com
- Instructions for Form 4547, Trump Account Election(s) — Internal Revenue Service · irs.gov
- About Form 4547, Trump Account Election(s) — Internal Revenue Service · irs.gov
- Notice 2025-68 — Internal Revenue Service · irs.gov
- H.R. 1, One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) — Congress.gov · congress.gov
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