Parents of some babies born this year have been unable to open Trump Accounts since the new federal investment program went live Saturday, as the Treasury Department confirmed that a subset of children born in 2026 with newly issued Social Security numbers are encountering error messages when families attempt enrollment.
A Treasury spokeswoman stated that the issue affects a limited number of individuals and relates to how recently issued Social Security numbers are processed within the enrollment system. The department has not issued a public statement addressing the problem.
Trump Accounts, opened for families on July 4 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, stem from the Working Families Tax Cuts Act signed into law last July. This program provides a one-time $1,000 federal contribution to eligible U.S. citizen children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028. Parents enroll by filing IRS Form 4547 through TrumpAccounts.gov. The Treasury designated Bank of New York Mellon as the financial agent for the program in April, with Robinhood serving as brokerage, initial trustee, and application developer.
The Social Security number requirement is at the center of the delay. Only children with a valid Social Security number qualify, and the Social Security Administration announced the day before launch that it would integrate Trump Account enrollment into its Enumeration at Birth program. This integration was intended to streamline the process from birth to account activation. However, for families whose babies were assigned numbers in recent weeks, the pipeline remains nonfunctional.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously stated that activation emails would roll out in phases through July 4 from “no-reply@TrumpAccounts.Treasury.gov.” The Social Security Administration reported six million children have already been enrolled, with the Treasury estimating 1.4 million newborns eligible for the $1,000 seed contribution.
The impact on affected families is narrow but significant: each day a newborn’s account remains unopened delays Treasury fund compounding and prevents employers, relatives, or philanthropic contributors from initiating funding for an account that does not yet exist. Whether the issue extends deeper into SSA-Treasury data handoffs or resolves as newly issued numbers propagate through federal systems remains unclear.
