Treasury Opens Trump Accounts for 60 Million Kids Whose Parents Never Asked

The Treasury Department said Thursday that it has finished opening Trump Accounts for more than 60 million American children whose parents never signed them up. In a press release, the department said every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number now has one.

That is a large change in how the program works. Until this week a parent had to ask for an account. Now the account exists first, and the parent's job is to claim it.

"Millions of children have already enrolled in Trump Accounts," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release. "With automatic enrollment, over 60 million more eligible children now have an account ready to be claimed."

An account that exists is not an account that is funded

The fine print matters here. Treasury's release says a parent or guardian must claim the automatically created account in order to manage it and to let relatives, friends and employers put money in. Eligible children must also have the account claimed before the one-time $1,000 seed contribution from Treasury arrives.

Claiming runs through the official Trump Accounts app for iOS and Android. According to Treasury, the parent or guardian verifies identity and the relationship to the child, reviews the child's information and accepts the account terms.

The $1,000 is not for everyone. CBS News reported that the seed money goes to U.S. citizens born from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2028. Older children get the account without the federal deposit. CBS also reported that Treasury is building the accounts from tax returns, Social Security Administration records and other government data, and that the old route required a parent to file IRS Form 4547.

The limits, and the lock

Trump Accounts were created by the One Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed in July 2025, and they opened on July 4 of this year. First for Money reported that parents may contribute up to $5,000 a year per child and employers up to $2,500.

The money is meant to sit. The tax publication Current Federal Tax Developments, in a technical review of the new rules, said the account's growth period runs through December 31 of the year the child turns 17, with distributions before then allowed only for specified uses. The same review said unclaimed accounts hold a share of a pooled master trust, while claimed accounts can choose among index-tracking stock funds.

It also noted two things that deserve attention from anyone who cares about how Washington writes rules. The regulations are temporary and expire in three years, and Treasury skipped the usual public notice-and-comment period, citing good cause.

Private money is already lined up

The automatic accounts also give donors somewhere to send money. CBS News reported that Michael and Susan Dell have pledged $6.25 billion for children born from 2016 through 2024 who live in ZIP codes with a median household income below $150,000, and that more than 50 corporations have committed to fund accounts for their employees' children. First for Money put the Dell gift at $250 per qualifying child.

Treasury's release said the change creates "a pathway for philanthropic contributions." A child whose parents never opened an account had no place to receive such a gift. Now there is one.

Why Treasury stopped waiting for sign-ups

The voluntary approach was reaching the families who needed it least. Yahoo Finance reported that only 5% of eligible low- to moderate-income families had opened an account, citing a study by the nonprofit Commonwealth that found confusion over setup and eligibility, worry about taxes and distrust of the administration. Fox 5 DC put the total number of eligible children at roughly 73 million.

Not every critic is on the left. Yahoo Finance reported that Adam Michel of the libertarian Cato Institute has argued the program's eligibility rules, contribution limits and withdrawal rules are complicated enough to discourage participation. Automatic enrollment removes the first step. It does not simplify the rest.

The number to watch next is how many of the 60 million accounts are actually claimed, a figure Treasury has not yet published. Until a parent completes that step, the $1,000 for the youngest children stays undelivered and the account cannot take a family's own deposits. The temporary rules also have to be replaced with final ones, and those may differ.