Key Takeaways
- Trump Accounts auto-enrollment will bring more than 60 million children in 2026.
- Trump Accounts can receive a one-time $1,000 Treasury contribution for eligible children.
- Experts say auto-enrollment could improve access but raise implementation challenges.
The Treasury Department says it will automatically enroll more than 60 million children in Trump Accounts beginning Oct. 1, 2026, to broaden access nationwide without requiring parents to open accounts themselves.
Treasury Plans Auto-Enrollment
Under the Trump Accounts auto-enrollment plan, temporary regulations published Tuesday direct the Treasury secretary to create accounts for eligible children who do not already have one, starting on or about Oct. 1 and periodically after that.
The rules allow the accounts to be created without action from parents or guardians. A person with legal authority to view a child’s tax information, including a guardian or legal custodian, can later claim an account and become responsible for managing it.
The regulations estimate the change will affect about 73 million children in 44 million families. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service expect the rules to increase the number of children with Trump Accounts by more than 60 million in 2026 and by about 2 million additional accounts per birth-year group in later years.
Rules Expand Account Access
Trump Accounts auto-enrollment provides access to tax-deferred investment accounts structured as traditional individual retirement accounts for children under 18. During the growth period, funds generally must be invested in funds that track broad U.S. equity indexes and meet limits on leverage and fees.
The accounts can receive contributions from governments, nonprofits, employers, and individuals. The law also provides a one-time $1,000 Treasury contribution for eligible U.S. citizen children born in 2025, 2026, 2027, or 2028 when the program’s requirements are met.
The program launched July 4 and initially required families to elect an account. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sept. 15 that 7 million to 8 million children had signed up and said, “We anticipate within a month we will have 70 million because we will go to auto-enroll.”
The new rules also create a trust structure that allows Treasury to hold investments for automatically created accounts. The agencies said the approach helps address legal and administrative barriers that had complicated automatic account creation.
Experts See Access Gains, Raise Questions
Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, said Trump Accounts auto-enrollment “would certainly reach the vast majority of parents and children.” She added that “after families are enrolled there is still a lot of work to be done to build engagement and awareness.”
Commonwealth reported in September that only 5% of eligible parents in low- and moderate-income households surveyed had opened a Trump Account. The survey covered 1,075 parents of children 10 and under with household incomes between $30,000 and $80,000.
Omeed Firouzi, a practice professor and director of the low-income taxpayer clinic at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, said the existing process has “so many different strange ways to sign up.” He said automatic enrollment could be “positive for lower-income folks” but questioned whether the IRS has enough resources to carry it out.
Treasury announced in July that IRS Chief Executive Officer and Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano would lead the next phase of Trump Account expansion.
The temporary regulations are scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on Sept. 30 and take effect upon publication.
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