Trump Account Calculator: Rules, $1,000 Pilot Deposit and Growth

A child born in 2026 who is a U.S. citizen with an SSN gets the $1,000 pilot deposit if it is elected, which is placed at the end of 2026 in this example. The family contributes $1,000 at the end of every year from 2026 through 2043, the last year of the growth period, and the account earns an assumed 7% a year. That is $18,000 from the family plus the $1,000 deposit. The assumed growth is $18,157.85, for a balance of $37,157.85 when the child turns 18. Seven percent is an assumption, not a forecast: a real account can earn less or lose money. Contributions are placed at the end of each year, which understates growth if you contribute earlier and overstates it if you contribute later.

Section 530A of the Internal Revenue Code defines an eligible individual as someone under 18 at the close of the year the election is made, with a Social Security number issued before the election. The IRS puts it this way:

The IRS instructions say what counts as a valid number:

Citizenship is not a condition for the account itself, only for the $1,000 pilot deposit. A child can have only one initial account: the statute lets either Treasury or another person make the election, but not both. Treasury began enrolling eligible children automatically on October 1, 2026, and the IRS says you must still claim and activate the account to manage it.

Who can open or claim the account, and where

The Form 4547 instructions say who can make the election:

The IRS says an authorized individual can claim a child’s account through the Trump Accounts app, and that Form 4547 is not required for that. On the provider, the IRS FAQ says:

The instructions add that every Trump account needs a trustee, which must be a bank or a person approved by the IRS as a nonbank trustee. The IRS pages point to trumpaccounts.gov for program information. Whether other trustees will accept rollovers or open accounts is not set out in the IRS documents.

Under section 6434 the statute treats the deposit as the child’s $1,000 payment against federal income tax, deposited by Treasury into the child’s Trump account:

The conditions, as the IRS prints them on Form 4547:

In the statute, the child must be born after December 31, 2024, and before January 1, 2029, and no one may have made a prior election for the child. The person electing must expect the child to be their qualifying child for the year of the election:

How to claim it

The IRS says the election can be made on Form 4547 filed with a tax return, on paper, or through the Trump Accounts app or website, and that you do not need to file a Form 1040-X to fix one. An election for a child who is not an eligible child can carry a $500 penalty for negligence or $1,000 for fraud under section 6659.

Timing

The statute says only that the election is made “at such time and in such manner as the Secretary shall provide”, so no filing deadline for the election is stated in the IRS documents. The deposit does not count toward the yearly limit, is not includible in income when made, and does not create basis. Because Treasury pays it after the election, whatever year your family starts contributing, the calculator places the pilot deposit at the end of the first year an account can exist (2026 or the birth year, whichever is later) and lets it grow from then. That is a simple assumption; the real date depends on when you elect and when the account is confirmed open.

The statute sets the limit and says what does not count toward it:

The IRS applies it like this, including the employer money:

Indexing. For taxable years after 2027, both the $5,000 and the $2,500 are increased by a cost-of-living adjustment and rounded down to a multiple of $100. The first adjusted figures are not yet published, so the calculator keeps $5,000 and says so when your first year is 2028 or later.

When contributions could start.

No income needed. Unlike most IRAs:

Going over. The statute says the account may not accept a contribution that would take the year over the limit. If one is made anyway, the excess can be withdrawn without being included in income, but the tax is increased by 100% of the net income earned on the excess. The calculator counts only the part under the limit.

A Trump account contribution also does not count against the limit for any other IRA before the year the child turns 18, according to section 530A(h)(3), so it does not use up the room in a custodial Roth IRA.

Section 128 sets the amount an employee can exclude from income:

The IRS adds:

The limit is per employee, shared across all of the employee’s and dependents’ Trump accounts. The Notice gives an example:

The money can go to the employee’s own Trump account or to the account of an employee’s dependent, if it is paid under a separate written employer program that meets requirements similar to the dependent care assistance program rules in section 129(d). Employer money counts toward the child’s $5,000 limit, so $2,500 from an employer leaves $2,500 of room for everyone else. The Notice says the Departments of Labor and Treasury expect to issue guidance on how to structure these contributions so they are not subject to the ERISA coverage framework, and the IRS documents do not say whether an employer must offer one.

Until the year the child turns 18, no part of the account can be invested in anything other than an eligible investment. The IRS summarises the statute:

In the statute, a qualified index is the S&P 500 or another index of equity investments in primarily U.S. companies for which regulated futures contracts are traded on a qualified board or exchange. It cannot be an industry or sector-specific index, but it may be based on market capitalization. The fee cap is 0.1% a year of the balance in the fund. Treasury may add other criteria. The responsible party, the adult who made the election, picks among eligible investments. The IRS documents used here do not list the funds available, so check with the provider.

Before 18. The growth period is defined by the IRS:

A qualified rollover is a trustee-to-trustee transfer of the entire balance to another Trump account for the same child. The instructions say:

In the year the child turns 17, the entire balance can also be moved to an ABLE account for the child. If the child dies before the growth period ends, the account stops being a Trump account and the fair market value, less basis, is taxable to the person who receives it or to the child’s last return if the estate does.

At 18 and after.

Notice 2025-68 also lists distributions made after age 59½ among the cases where the 10% additional tax does not apply. The Notice says that after the growth period a Trump account may be rolled over to an IRA or another eligible retirement plan for the beneficiary, and that if there is basis it cannot go to some employer plans but may still go to an IRA. No new rollover Trump account can be established after the growth period.

Tax treatment. Contributions are not deductible:

For contributions after the growth period, the Notice says:

Section 530A(a) treats a Trump account like a traditional IRA unless the section or Treasury guidance says otherwise, so earnings are not taxed while they stay in the account, and a withdrawal is taxed under the traditional IRA rules, with a tax-free share for basis. What creates basis:

In practice, for a family that contributes $1,000 a year, those contributions are basis. The pilot deposit, any employer contributions and all the growth are taxable as ordinary income when withdrawn. The calculator shows this split. It ignores the rule that basis is tracked separately from other IRAs the child may own: the Notice says a Trump account is never aggregated with other IRAs when allocating basis.

Proposed regulations were announced in the Notice but have not been published, so details can change. State tax treatment is not covered by the IRS documents.

This compares only what our own sourced pages and the IRS documents above say. We do not compare returns, fees, financial aid treatment or state tax breaks, because the IRS documents do not cover them.

A Trump account is not a Roth IRA: the statute defines it as an IRA that is not designated as a Roth IRA, so growth is taxed as described above rather than being tax-free.