Is your kid's Trump account (530A account) automatic, or do you need IRS Form 4547?

Do you have to sign your kid up, or is a 530A account automatic now?

Until this week, a Trump account existed only if an adult asked for one, by filing IRS Form 4547 or using the government's app or website. The temporary regulations change that. They say that "on or about October 1, 2026, the Secretary shall make an election" to open an auto account for each child the Secretary has determined meets the age and Social Security number requirements and for whom no one has already asked for an account. After that first round, Treasury "shall make subsequent periodic elections" for children who meet the requirements later.

The child has to be under 18 at the end of the year the account is opened and must have a Social Security number. Those two tests come from section 530A of the tax code, which already let the Secretary open an account based on "information available to the Secretary from tax returns or otherwise." No one has to activate an auto account: the rule treats the Secretary as having done that, and "no separate action by anyone is required for the auto account to be established."

Treasury expects the rule to affect 73 million children in 44 million families and to raise the number of children with accounts in 2026 by more than 60 million. The regulations were filed with the Federal Register on September 29 and took effect on September 30, 2026, the day they were published, without first giving the public time to comment. CBS News reported the same October 1 start. The IRS's own Trump Accounts page, last updated July 7, 2026, still told parents to submit Form 4547 and did not mention automatic enrollment when we checked on October 1, 2026.

73M

children Treasury expects the new rule to affect

60M+

more children with accounts in 2026, per Treasury

5.6M

online sign-up forms processed before July 30

The $1,000 isn't automatic: where IRS Form 4547 still comes in

An auto account is a holding account with Treasury in charge. Until the year your child turns 18, it "may only accept" two kinds of money: contributions that Treasury passes along from a government or charity to a whole class of children, and the $1,000 federal deposit "if a pilot program election has been made," meaning someone has asked for the $1,000. It cannot take deposits from you, grandparents or an employer.

The $1,000 is the part most likely to trip families up. It comes from a separate section of the tax code, section 6434, and goes only to a U.S. citizen child with a Social Security number who is born after December 31, 2024 and before January 1, 2029. The regulations say plainly that "the Secretary cannot make a pilot program election" for a family. So an automatic account for a baby born in 2025 or 2026 does not come with $1,000 in it unless someone has asked for it. The IRS's Form 4547 instructions say the person who can ask is one who "anticipates that the child will be his or her qualifying child for the tax year in which the election is made." In everyday terms, that is an adult who expects the child to count as theirs on that year's tax return. Vanguard's explainer for parents describes the test the same way.

If you already filed Form 4547 but never finished activating the account, the rule covers you too. Where that request was made before October 1, 2026 and no account was set up by September 30, for example "because the account agreement was not signed," Treasury opens an auto account based on it, and that auto account can receive the $1,000 if you asked for it. A tax lawyer or tax preparer can help you work out what was filed for your child.

Who can claim your child's auto account, and what it takes

Claiming is how an adult takes over an auto account. The rule lets "a guardian or legal custodian having authority under applicable law to manage the account beneficiary's property or financial affairs" file a claim through an electronic application or web page that Treasury makes available. The young person can also claim it once the law lets them act for themselves, for example on becoming an adult under their state's law.

Claiming asks for more information than the sign-up form did. Because the existence of an auto account is itself protected tax information, the person claiming has to prove who they are, show they are entitled to see the child's tax information, and sign a consent to the disclosures needed to move the money. The regulations say the information required "is more extensive than what is required by Form 4547." If handing over your child's personal details in an app made you hesitate before, expect to be asked for more information at the claim stage, not less.

A claim cannot be undone. Once it goes through, the whole balance moves in one transfer to either a new account with the trustee Treasury chose, meaning the financial company that holds the account, or a Trump account at a different one. The person who claimed generally becomes the first "responsible party," who can choose among the eligible investments on offer and direct a later transfer, as far as the account agreement and the law allow. When more than one authorized adult files a claim, the rule gives that role to the first one who activates the receiving account. For separated parents, who has authority over a child's property is a state-law question, and a family law attorney can explain how a custody order answers it.

The rule also covers the worst case. If a child dies during the growth period, the years before the one in which they turn 18, and a funded auto account has not been claimed, the account stops being a Trump account that day but remains an IRA, a type of retirement account, and the child's estate is its beneficiary. A person with authority over the estate can claim the funds, which is the kind of question estate planning attorneys handle.

Why Treasury changed course on automatic enrollment

In March 2026, Treasury and the IRS proposed rules that left sign-up to parents. This week they withdrew that proposal. They say they did not change their reading of the law. What changed is that they found "an administrable structure" that lets the Secretary open accounts while "protecting return information from disclosure." Each child gets a separate account with its own records, and the money in all auto accounts is invested together through one "master group trust," so the trustee can buy and sell without seeing who each child is.

Commenters had pushed for this. The regulations say commenters argued that making an adult sign up "would reduce participation, particularly among nonfilers, families unfamiliar with tax procedures, and families with limited time or resources to complete a separate enrollment process." The Journal of Accountancy reported that the AICPA, the accountants' professional group, urged automatic enrollment in February.

Treasury's own numbers show the gap. Before July 30, 2026, about 5.6 million electronic Forms 4547 had been processed, against an estimated 73.4 million eligible children. In the group with no income on file with the IRS, or with income data missing, about 10,000 forms had been processed against an estimated 8.6 million eligible children. Treasury points to Maine's Alfond Grant, which enrolled around 40% of eligible families while parents had to opt in, and estimates that sign-up would likely have been "close to 50%" of eligible families for Trump accounts.

Donors are the other reason. The regulations cite a $6.25 billion pledge from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation for children born between 2016 and 2024 who live in ZIP codes where median household income is below $150,000, and say stakeholders told the agencies that eligible donors "prefer that their contributions reach all children, not just children whose parents have the awareness to opt in." The rule also lets donors give publicly traded stock through Treasury, generally to be held for five years.

How the rules got here

1. July 4, 2025

   The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act becomes law and adds section 530A, which creates Trump accounts, to the tax code.

2. December 2, 2025

   Treasury and the IRS issue Notice 2025-68, guidance on how to sign up and what must be reported, and ask for comments.

3. March 9, 2026

   The agencies propose rules that leave sign-up to parents and guardians, and separate rules for the $1,000 pilot program.

4. July 4, 2026

   Contributions to Trump accounts can be made for the first time.

5. August 11, 2026

   The agencies propose rules for employer contributions to Trump accounts.

6. August 21, 2026

   The agencies propose rules on which investments a Trump account can hold.

7. September 30, 2026

   Temporary regulations with automatic enrollment are published and take effect, and the March sign-up proposal is withdrawn.

8. October 1, 2026

   On or about this date, the Treasury Secretary is to open the first auto accounts.

9. November 30, 2026

   Comments on the matching proposed regulations are due.

Who can put money into a 530A account, and how much

An auto account that nobody has claimed takes only what Treasury passes along. Once an adult claims it and activates the new account, the agencies explain, that account "can receive any contribution that is permitted to be made to a Trump account (such as a contribution from the family of the account beneficiary or from an employer)." The IRS's Form 4547 instructions list where money can come from: the federal $1,000, gifts that governments and charities make to a whole group of children, employer contributions, a transfer from the child's earlier Trump account, and "contributions from other sources (such as the child, the child's parents, or any other person)." So a grandparent, an aunt or a family friend can add money, not only a parent.

The yearly limit is in section 530A. Contributions from family and employers together can't go over $5,000 for the calendar year, a figure adjusted for inflation after 2027. The $1,000 federal deposit, the donor gifts Treasury passes along and transfers between Trump accounts don't count toward it. Your child doesn't need a job for the account to take money: an IRS notice from December 2025 says contributions can be made "even if the account beneficiary does not have includible compensation," meaning pay from work. The same notice says a deposit counts for the year you make it, so one made on January 31, 2027 "is for 2027 and cannot be applied to 2026."

You can't deduct what you put in: the statute allows no deduction for a contribution made before the year your child turns 18. Employer money gets its own break. Under section 128 of the tax code, up to $2,500 that an employer contributes under a written plan to the Trump account of an employee, or of the employee's dependent, is left out of the employee's income, and the notice counts that money toward the $5,000. If contributions go over the yearly limit, the extra can be taken back out, but the statute then adds a tax equal to 100% of what the extra money earned.

What can you use a 530A account for, and how is it different from a 529?

A 530A account is a type of traditional IRA, the retirement account, set up for a child, so it is built for the long run, not for next year's bills. The regulations say that withdrawals are generally not permitted during the "growth period," which ends on December 31 of the year your child turns 17. After that, the rules for traditional IRAs generally apply. For those, the IRS says withdrawals before age 59½ carry "an additional 10% early withdrawal tax unless an exception applies," and its list of exceptions for IRAs includes qualified higher education expenses and up to $10,000 for qualified first-time homebuyers. In the year the child turns 17, the whole balance can also move to an ABLE account, a savings account for people with disabilities.

Until the year your child turns 18, the account's money can generally be invested only in low-cost index funds. Donated stock passed along by Treasury is the exception. Section 530A limits investments to a mutual fund or exchange traded fund that tracks an index of mostly U.S. companies, such as the S&P 500, "does not use leverage," meaning it doesn't borrow to invest, and has annual fees of no more than 0.1%. In an unclaimed auto account nobody in the family picks the fund: the account's only investment is its share of the pooled trust, and Treasury has decided what that trust holds. Choosing among eligible investments, where more than one is offered, comes with claiming the account.

On taxes, a 530A account follows the traditional IRA pattern. Nothing is taxed while the money grows: the regulations say a Trump account is exempt from tax the way other IRAs are, and the IRS notice says contributions are not counted as your child's income when they go in. The tax comes at withdrawal. Money that family members put in has already been taxed, so that part comes back out untaxed. Everything else is taxed as income, in the notice's words "including all earnings of the account." That covers the federal $1,000, donor gifts and employer contributions left out of the employee's income. The notice says those "do not create basis," the tax term for money that has already been taxed. Each withdrawal is treated as a mix of the two, in proportion to what is in the account.

A 529 plan is for school. The IRS describes it as a plan operated by a state or educational institution to make it easier to save for education, and says earnings are not subject to federal tax when used for qualified education expenses. A 530A account's earnings are taxed when they come out, whatever they pay for.

What changes when your child turns 18

The switch doesn't happen on the 18th birthday. It happens on January 1 of the year your child turns 18, because the special rules run through what the regulations call the growth period, which "ends on December 31 of the calendar year in which the account beneficiary attains age 17." The regulations give an example: a child born on October 1, 2025 turns 17 on October 1, 2042, so the growth period ends on December 31, 2042.

From that January 1, the lock on withdrawals, the index-fund requirement and the $5,000 limit stop applying, and the rules for traditional IRAs generally take over. The IRS notice lists what that covers: "contributions, distributions, required minimum distributions, rollovers, Roth conversions, ordinary income taxation, and reporting." In plain terms, those are the ordinary IRA rules on putting money in, taking it out, moving it to another retirement account, switching it to a Roth IRA, and how withdrawals are taxed and reported. For contributions, the IRS says you can put money into a traditional IRA if you have taxable compensation, so pay from work starts to matter. Being able to take money out doesn't make it tax-free: apart from the share that is contributions from the child, parents or anyone else, an 18-year-old's withdrawal is taxed as income, and the 10% extra tax can apply unless an exception does. Some differences stay for good. The one that matters at withdrawal: the notice says the account is counted on its own, separate from any other IRA your child has, when working out how much of a withdrawal was already taxed.

An auto account that nobody has claimed by then follows its own rules. After the growth period it "generally may not accept contributions," and claiming it moves the whole balance into an ordinary IRA for your child, one that is not a Trump account. Your child can make that claim without you once the law treats them as able to act for themselves, for which the agencies give two examples: reaching the age of majority, meaning becoming a legal adult, or becoming emancipated under state law. An auto account that never received any money is closed by the trustee after the growth period ends.

How a 530A account compares with a Roth IRA for a child

A 530A account is not a Roth IRA. Section 530A defines a Trump account as an individual retirement account "which is not designated as a Roth IRA," and the regulations call it a type of traditional IRA. The difference shows up at the end. A Roth IRA is another kind of retirement account. The IRS says contributions aren't deductible, and nothing is taxed on a withdrawal that meets its conditions, which it calls a qualified distribution. For a 530A account, family contributions aren't deductible either, and the earnings are still taxed when they come out.

For a young child, the bigger difference is who can have one. The IRS says you can contribute to a Roth IRA "at any age if you (or your spouse if filing jointly) have taxable compensation" and your income is below certain amounts. The most you can put in is your taxable compensation for the year, when that is less than the yearly dollar limit. A child with no pay from work can't put anything into a Roth IRA. A 530A account has no such test, and its limit is separate: the statute says money put into one isn't counted against the contribution limit for any other IRA, and the notice says a child who does have pay from work can have contributions to both. Access differs too. The IRS says of traditional and Roth IRAs that "you can withdraw money anytime," though tax and the 10% extra tax can apply, while a 530A account is generally locked until the year your child turns 18.

Can a 530A account become a Roth later? The IRS notice names Roth conversions among the traditional IRA rules that generally apply after the growth period. This week's regulations say nothing more about conversions, so what a conversion would cost an 18-year-old in tax is a question for a tax professional.

What the rule leaves open

These are temporary regulations. They expire on September 30, 2029, and the agencies published matching proposed regulations the same day. Comments and requests for a public hearing are due by November 30, 2026, and the agencies say they will consider all timely comments before issuing final regulations, so details could change. Agencies sometimes skip the proposal stage and take comments on a rule they have already issued: the Bureau of Prisons did that with its rule on First Step Act time credits, which took effect September 30, the day its comment period closed.

Several practical pieces are still missing. The rule says claims go through "an electronic application or web page made available by the Secretary, in accordance with applicable instructions," but it does not publish those instructions. The agencies say they "anticipate" that reporting rules for auto accounts "will be addressed in future guidance." The proposal asks for comments on how a 17-year-old's auto account could move to an ABLE account. And the regulations do not settle state taxes: treatment under any state's law "depends on that law and is not determined by these regulations."

Employer money is on a separate track. The August proposal on employer contributions gets a public hearing on October 15, 2026, now by telephone only. If your employer offers a Trump account contribution, an employment lawyer can explain how a workplace benefit like this is supposed to be offered.

What to check before you act

Some of what you need to know depends on claim instructions that the rule refers to but does not include, so check Treasury's current instructions before you act. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. If you need someone to apply the rules to your family, we can help you find a lawyer.

1. Whether anyone has already filed Form 4547 for your child, and whether that account was activated.
2. Your child's birth year: only children born in 2025 through 2028 are eligible for the $1,000, and only when someone asks for it.
3. Whether your child has a Social Security number, which both the account and the $1,000 require.
4. Who has legal authority over your child's property under your state's law or your custody order, since that person is the one who can claim.
5. Treasury's instructions for claiming an auto account, which the rule refers to but does not set out.
6. How much family members and an employer have already put in this calendar year, since one $5,000 limit covers both.
7. The year your child turns 18: most of the special rules end on January 1 of that year, not on the birthday.
8. Any request for a fee to get the account or the $1,000: the regulations describe no fee for having an auto account opened.
9. The November 30, 2026 comment deadline, if you want to tell the agencies how the claim process should work.