IRS Form 4547 is the paper route to opening a Trump Account for your child — and to claiming the one-time $1,000 pilot program deposit for children born 2025 through 2028. It is a short form, but the two elections it contains are easy to mix up. Here is what each part does, based on the December 2025 form and IRS Notice 2025-68.
What Form 4547 actually does
The form makes up to two distinct elections per child:
- The account election — authorizes the IRS and Treasury to create a Trump Account for the child. Complete Parts I, II, and IV for this.
- The pilot contribution election — requests the $1,000 Treasury deposit under section 6434. This is a single checkbox: line 7 in Part III. If you skip it, you can open the account but no free money arrives.
One form covers up to two children; file additional forms for more.
Who files it
The person who files becomes the account’s responsible party — they manage the account until the child turns 18. The regulations set a priority order: the parent who can claim the child as a dependent under section 152(c), then either parent, then a legal guardian or grandparent. For the pilot election specifically, the child must be (or be expected to be) your qualifying child for the year of the election.
Part-by-part walkthrough
Part I — Parent/Guardian or Other Authorized Individual Information. Your name, SSN, and contact details. The note on the form is explicit: whoever is listed here is the responsible party for the account.
Part II — Eligible child information. The child’s name, Social Security number, date of birth, and address (there’s a checkbox if the address matches Part I). The SSN is non-negotiable: an account election needs an SSN, and a pilot election needs an SSN issued before the election is made. If you’re waiting on the Social Security Administration for a newborn’s number, wait before filing.
Part III — Pilot Program Contribution Election. The line 7 checkbox, one per child. Check it if the child was born 2025–2028, is a U.S. citizen, has a valid SSN, and is your qualifying child. This is the $1,000. The deposit is treated as a payment against the child’s income tax that the Treasury routes directly into the Trump Account — it never passes through your hands. Full eligibility boundary cases (born 2024? turning 18? non-citizen?) are covered in our eligibility guide.
Part IV — Consent to Disclose Information. Your signature. You authorize the IRS and Treasury to create and maintain the account, and to disclose its existence to the child’s other parent or guardian (this prevents duplicate elections — only one account election and one pilot election are allowed per child).
The online alternative: trumpaccounts.gov
You do not need the paper form at all. The Treasury’s trumpaccounts.gov portal accepts the same elections electronically, and the IRS reported more than 4 million children signed up through the early-access wave. Tax software is also building the form in — most major providers attach Form 4547 to your federal return.
Whichever route you choose, the result is the same: the account exists, and the pilot deposit (if elected) lands once contributions open on July 4, 2026.
After filing: what happens on July 4, 2026
- The Treasury deposits the $1,000 for children with valid pilot elections.
- Family contributions can begin, up to the $5,000 combined annual cap — and your employer can add up to $2,500 of that tax-free under section 128.
- Funds are invested in eligible U.S. index funds (fees capped at 0.1%) until the child turns 18.
Form 4547 and its instructions live at irs.gov/Form4547. For the full account rulebook, start with Trump Accounts Explained — and to see what the $1,000 plus your contributions become by age 18, run the Trump Account Calculator.