If a child in your family was born in 2025, or arrives any time through the end of 2028, the federal government will make a one-time $1,000 deposit into a new kind of savings account carrying that child’s name, provided the child qualifies and someone opens the account. The money comes from the U.S. Treasury, not from the family, and it does not require the household to put in a dime of its own. Created by the tax law signed in the summer of 2025, these Trump Accounts already cover millions of children. The birth-year window, opening process, and role for parents and grandparents each matter before money can land in one.
A Four-Year Birth Window: January 2025 Through December 2028
The accounts come from the Working Families Tax Cuts, which President Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025. The law created a new type of individual retirement account for minors and seeded it with a pilot program: a one-time $1,000 contribution from the Department of the Treasury for eligible children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, who are U.S. citizens with a valid Social Security number. The Social Security Administration’s announcement puts enrollment at six million children and says those first $1,000 contributions began reaching accounts on July 4, 2026. This is a standing eligibility rule, not a limited-time offer with a countdown clock: a qualifying baby born next month, or in 2027, sits inside the same window as one born last year.
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Form 4547, ID.me, and What Opening an Account Involves
Accounts are opened through the government rather than at a bank branch. The IRS’s Trump Accounts page walks through the process: sign in to, or create, an IRS individual online account using ID.me, then complete and submit Form 4547, the Trump Account election form, for the child. The IRS estimates the whole thing takes 5 to 10 minutes and asks for three pieces of information about the child: Social Security number, date of birth, and address. An account can be established for any child who holds a valid Social Security number and has not turned 18 before the end of the calendar year of the election, and the government’s information hub for the program is TrumpAccounts.gov. The Social Security Administration, for its part, is folding enrollment into paperwork parents already do: it announced plans to update the hospital forms used to request a newborn’s Social Security number so that a Trump Account can be created automatically at birth, with future Social Security card mailers carrying enrollment information as well.
The $5,000 Cap, Employer Money, and Index Funds Only
Once an account exists, family and others can add to it, within firm limits. Treasury and IRS guidance issued in December 2025 sets the ground rules. Contributions are capped at an aggregate of $5,000 per child per year, with the limit indexed to inflation starting after 2027. An employer may put in up to $2,500 a year for an employee’s account or an employee’s dependent’s account under a workplace contribution program; that employer money counts against the $5,000 annual cap but is excluded from the employee’s taxable income. Accounts could not be funded before July 4, 2026, so contribution history everywhere starts from this summer. And there is no stock-picking inside these accounts: the guidance requires the money to be invested in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds tracking the S&P 500 or another index of primarily American equities.
Locked Until the Year the Child Turns 18, Then a Traditional IRA
The design is long-term by force. Under the same guidance, money generally cannot be withdrawn from a Trump Account before January 1 of the calendar year in which the child turns 18. From that point on, the account is generally treated as a traditional IRA and follows the same rules as other traditional IRAs, including the tax treatment that comes with them. That shape matters for planning: this is retirement-style architecture, not a college fund, and a family expecting to tap the money for tuition should understand the account does not unlock on that schedule. What the lock buys in exchange is time: a child born this year has roughly two decades ahead of the age-18 threshold, all of it with the pilot deposit and any family contributions riding in broad stock index funds.
What a Parent or Grandparent Can Do This Year
The election is generally made by a parent or guardian, though the IRS describes eligible filers as parents, guardians, and other authorized individuals. For a grandparent, the practical checklist is short. First, confirm the child has a Social Security number and that a parent has filed, or authorized someone to file, Form 4547, since without the election there is no account and no pilot deposit. Second, coordinate before writing a check: the $5,000 cap is per child, not per giver, and an employer’s contribution may already be occupying up to half of it. Third, remember that collecting the $1,000 itself requires no family money at all. The one-time Treasury contribution belongs to every eligible child whose account gets opened, which makes the paperwork, not the funding, the step that decides whether a child in your family receives it, according to the Social Security Administration’s description of the program.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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