Treasury temporary rules will auto-enroll children into Trump Accounts as early as Oct. 1, a change that could add more than 60 million accounts in 2026 and reach families who never signed up.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury published temporary regulations this week that move the program from pure opt-in to automatic enrollment for millions of children. Officials say the shift can start as early as Oct. 1.
CNBC reported the rules could lift the number of children enrolled in 2026 by more than 60 million, with later years adding about two million accounts annually.
Only 7 to 8 million American children are signed up so far. That leaves a large gap between the launch promise and actual participation, especially among lower-income households.
Trump Accounts launched on July 4 as tax-deferred savings vehicles. The Treasury provides a one-time $1,000 deposit for children born between 2025 and 2028.
Parents previously had to opt in through IRS Form 4547 with a tax return or at TrumpAccounts.gov. A national nonprofit, Commonwealth, found only 5% of low- and moderate-income families, those earning up to $80,000 a year, had opened an account.
That pattern is familiar. Paperwork-heavy benefits often miss the households that need the seed money most. Auto-enrollment is designed to close that gap without requiring every parent to hunt down a form.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the House Financial Services Committee on Sept. 15 that the numbers would jump once automatic enrollment begins.
Bessent said:
"we anticipate within a month we will have 70 million because we will go to auto-enroll"
The Social Security Administration had already signaled a newborn pathway: enroll at the hospital when families request a Social Security number during birth registration. Coordination between the IRS and SSA will matter for making that process clean.
Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, said the automatic approach would hit nearly every household.
Brown said auto-enrollment "would certainly reach the vast majority of parents and children." She added that enrollment alone is not the finish line:
"assuming that can happen, after families are enrolled there is still a lot of work to be done to build engagement and awareness"
Omeed Firouzi, who directs the low-income taxpayer clinic at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, noted the current signup maze. He said "there are so many different strange ways to sign up for [Trump Accounts]" and that auto-enrollment could prove "positive for lower-income folks." He also questioned capacity: "I wonder if they have the ability to effectively do this."
In July the Treasury announced that Frank Bisignano, who serves as IRS chief executive and Social Security Administration commissioner, would lead the Trump Account expansion. An IRS official said Friday that Joseph Velli, a former Bank of New York and Convergex Group executive, was hired as senior adviser to Bisignano dedicated to the program.
Those moves put operational owners on the file as the temporary regulations take effect. The $1,000 Treasury deposit remains the core incentive for eligible birth years. Getting accounts opened is the first step; keeping families aware of the money and how it grows is the next.
Auto-enrollment turns a program that too many working parents never reached into one that starts with their children already inside. That is how seed capital for kids stops being a paperwork lottery and starts looking like common sense.