If your kid is under 18 and has a Social Security number, Treasury opened a Trump Account for them on October 1. You didn’t sign anything. And if your kid was born in 2025 or later, that account still can’t receive the free $1,000 until you ask for it.
Here’s what happened. On September 30, Treasury and the IRS published temporary rules that let the government open accounts for every eligible child at once. More than 60 million kids were auto-enrolled, according to Fortune, for a total of nearly 70 million.
Sounds like the paperwork just disappeared. It didn’t.
The rules split these into two kinds of accounts. The one Treasury opened is an “auto account,” and Treasury runs it. It can take exactly two kinds of money: group contributions from governments or charities, and the $1,000 seed. But the seed only goes in if a parent asked for it. The regulation is blunt: “the Secretary cannot make a pilot program election for the $1,000 pilot program contribution.”
Translation: Washington built a free $1,000, opened an account to hold it, and then wrote rules that keep it out until you fill in a form.
Same story for everyone else’s money. Grandma’s birthday check, your $50 a month, an employer contribution: none of it can touch the auto account. To get those in, you claim the account. That means proving who you are and that you have legal authority over the child. The claimed account, in the rule’s words, “is an entirely different account.”
One piece does land without you. Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion for kids born from 2016 through 2024 in ZIP codes where the median household income is below $150,000. Fortune puts it at $250 a kid for up to 25 million kids. That’s a group contribution, the one kind the rules let an unclaimed account take.
Now the math. Leave the $1,000 alone for 18 years at 7% and it’s about $3,380. Skip the election and your kid gets zero. Claiming costs nothing but a few minutes in an app.
Do this now. If your child is a U.S. citizen born from 2025 through 2028, make the $1,000 election with Form 4547 or in the Trump Accounts app, then claim the account in the app. Not optional. It’s free money with your kid’s name on it.
If your child is older, the rules let a Dell deposit land in the unclaimed account, so you don’t have to act to get it. Claim the account only if someone plans to add money. Ask HR, too. Fortune counts more than 70 companies contributing, and employers can put in up to $2,500 a year.
Before you add your own money, read our breakdown of how Trump Accounts are taxed. Once the growth period ends in the year your kid turns 17, the account follows traditional IRA rules, so a 529 or a Roth may be the better home for new savings. Run your own numbers through our investment calculator.
Take the free money. Then decide about yours.
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