Sixty Million Children to Be Auto-Enrolled in Trump Accounts

Treasury is about to open investment accounts for kids without their parents lifting a finger. New temporary rules released Tuesday flip Trump Accounts from an opt-in program to automatic enrollment, letting the federal government create accounts on its own for more than sixty million additional children under eighteen, according to the Treasury Department.

That is a massive jump from where the program stands now. About seven million children are currently signed up, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, out of an eligible pool of roughly seventy-three million children. Bessent has said the total could reach seventy million within a month of auto-enrollment beginning.

Why auto-enrollment is such a big deal

Until now, families generally had to opt in by filing IRS Form 4547 with a tax return or through TrumpAccounts.gov, and that paperwork left most eligible kids outside the program, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new rules let the Treasury secretary create an account for an eligible child without a parent making an election first. Accounts are handled through a master group trust that manages transactions while protecting taxpayer information.

Policy experts say the design change is the biggest since the program's creation. "This is the most important design change since the law passed," said Jin Huang, a professor of social policy at Washington University in St. Louis, in an interview with the Journal. Broader enrollment also means big donor money reaches more households: the shift lets contributions from wealthy donors, including a multibillion-dollar pledge from Michael Dell, flow to far more children. The rules themselves note that donors prefer their gifts to reach every child, not only those whose parents know to opt in. See the Journal's reporting on the rule change here: the Wall Street Journal on Trump Accounts auto-enrollment.

The catch with Trump Accounts

Here is the nuance that matters most. Automatic enrollment in Trump Accounts creates the account, but it does not trigger the federal contribution. Children born between 2025 and 2028 can receive a one-thousand-dollar federal contribution, yet under the law that created the program, taxpayers must specifically elect to get it — and Tuesday's rules do not change that, the Journal reported.

Parents and guardians must also claim the auto-created accounts to take full advantage of them. Claiming an account is what lets families make their own contributions and accept employer contributions, and the rules do not yet spell out exactly how parents will claim accounts for children who are auto-enrolled. Until an account is claimed and funded, it can sit empty: an account may open without any money in it until a parent, guardian, employer or nonprofit puts some there.

What parents actually have to do

Automatic enrollment covers children under eighteen with a Social Security number who do not already have an account, and the government will keep adding newly eligible children on a rolling basis, with about two million newborns expected to join each year. The Social Security Administration plans to enroll newborns during hospital birth registration, when families apply for Social Security numbers.

The move is aimed squarely at the participation gap. Only a fraction of eligible children signed up under the old opt-in model, and enrollment has been especially low among lower-income families facing barriers to access, according to iHeart's summary of the Treasury announcement. Read that summary here: iHeart on children being auto-enrolled in Trump Accounts.

Even supporters say enrollment is only step one. Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, told CNBC there is "still a lot of work to be done to build engagement and awareness" once families are enrolled.

Some context on the timeline: Trump Accounts were created under the One Big Beautiful Bill signed in July 2025, launched with fanfare in early July of the following year, and could begin auto-enrolling children as soon as this week. Once a child turns eighteen, the account functions as a traditional individual retirement account. The accounts are managed through Robinhood and the Bank of New York Mellon, with a dedicated phone app and website, according to the Journal.

The bottom line: the government is about to hand an investment account to just about every kid in America by default — a genuine expansion of who gets a shot at long-term saving. But the money still requires a grown-up to show up and claim it. For more on the stories moving fastest right now, see our The Feed topic page, and for how Washington's policy moves are landing with voters, check GenZ NewZ's 2026 midterms coverage.