Early Life Investments
A Family Financial Head Start
“The best time to build lifelong money habits is when you are young. The second-best time is today.”
“The best time to build lifelong money habits is when you are young. The second-best time is today.”
From the Blog — June 26, 2026
The accounts open July 4. The first providers are confirmed, the IRS election is live, and a $1,000 government seed is waiting for qualifying children.
After months of “coming soon,” the picture is finally clear. Trump Accounts — the new custodial-style retirement accounts for children created under the 2025 tax law, codified in the tax code as Section 530A accounts — open for contributions on July 4, 2026. That is days away. The two things families were waiting on — a first set of confirmed providers and a working way to make the election — are both here, with more institutions expected to join later this year. If you have been meaning to sort this out, this is the week.
The number that should get your attention: as of June 2026, the IRS reports only about 1 million children have actually claimed the $1,000 seed. With the U.S. recording roughly 3.6 million births a year, about 5 million babies have been born into the eligible window so far — which leaves nearly 4 million eligible children, almost 80%, whose families have not yet claimed their $1,000. If yours is one of them, keep reading to fix it.
I wrote the full rules explainer two weeks ago, so this post is not a rehash. This is the practical layer most parents are asking about right now: where your child’s account will live, how the process works, and what to finish before the holiday weekend so you are not scrambling.
This is the part that trips families up: opening a Trump Account is not one click at a brokerage. It is two steps, in order.
This is the part almost every “where to open a Trump Account” article gets wrong, so read this before you compare providers. You do not choose your brokerage on day one. Every eligible child’s initial Trump account is set up automatically with Robinhood (with BNY as Treasury’s financial agent behind it). If you are happy there, you do nothing — the account works as-is, and the $1,000 seed and your contributions land in it.
Choosing a different institution — Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, and the rest — is a second, optional decision you make later. Under IRS Notice 2025-68, moving the account creates what the rules call a rollover Trump account, and the IRS is strict about how it works:
At the January 2026 trustee summit, 27 companies committed to offering Trump Accounts as successor trustees, and that roster is still being finalized. The accounts are required to hold only low-cost index mutual funds or ETFs, with a hard cap of 0.10% (ten basis points) on fund expenses and no leverage. That cap is a gift to families — it means the difference between providers is small, and you should not overthink it. Pick the place you will actually log into.
One important caveat: the table below is not the final list. These are the institutions the IRS has confirmed will be available shortly after the July 4 launch — the approved roster is still growing, and more providers are expected to come online later in 2026. With that in mind, the lowest published fund expense ratios at launch are worth knowing. (The provider links go to each firm’s custodial and education-savings pages, the most likely home for the 530A account once it is live.)
| Provider | Lowest index fund expense ratio | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Fidelity ZERO funds | 0.00% | Fidelity’s ZERO index funds (e.g., FNILX, FZROX) carry a 0.00% expense ratio — the lowest possible. No minimums; available alongside a custodial Roth IRA and the Fidelity Youth account. |
| Fidelity (standard index) | 0.015% | Its standard index funds (e.g., FXAIX) are broad-market staples if you prefer them to the ZERO lineup — one login for the whole family. |
| Charles Schwab | 0.02% | Just launched its Teen Investor account too; strong branch and phone support. |
| Vanguard | 0.03% | The index-fund original; good if you already hold Vanguard funds. |
| Bank of America / Merrill | 0.03% | Convenient if your everyday banking already lives there. |
| Robinhood (with BNY) | Varies | The default. Every initial account opens here automatically — no rollover needed if you stay. Mobile-first setup. |
The mistake I keep hearing is treating this as an either/or decision. It is not. A Trump Account is one tool, and the families building real wealth layer it with the others. Here is the quick version of how it sits next to the accounts we already cover on the site:
If you want the longer walk-through of how these stack for different ages, the Teen & College education page and our investing-for-retirement guide both lay it out.
Most financial commentary on Trump Accounts stops at the rules. The standard guidance also tends to direct the whole “invest for your kids” question into the household-adult framework — the familiar advice to put 15% of income toward retirement and call it done. That advice is built for grown-ups. It quietly skips the fact that your child can now hold three or four tax-advantaged accounts before their first full-time job, with a compounding runway no adult will ever match. The 530A seed plants the first $1,000. The habit of opening the account, funding it, and watching it is the part that compounds for life. That is the lesson the rules pages never mention.
July 4 is days away, and for the first time the path is fully open: the brokerages are confirmed, the election is live, and the $1,000 is real money for qualifying children. If your child was born in 2025 or later, do the IRS election this week so the seed lands on day one. The account itself opens automatically at Robinhood — you do not have to choose a provider to get started, and you can roll the whole balance to Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, or another trustee later if you prefer. The window opening on the Fourth is the easy part. The families who win are the ones who treat it as the first deposit in a long habit, not a one-time headline. If you want help making the case at your kitchen table, the books that have worked in our house are in the book reviews.