IRS proposes new criteria for Trump account investments
Beneficiaries and trustees of Trump accounts must follow the proposed rules on eligible investments starting the year the beneficiary turns 18.
The Internal Revenue Service issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (FR Doc No: 2026-17123, RIN 1545-BS14) that would define the only assets in which Trump account funds may be invested before the first day of the calendar year in which the account beneficiary reaches age 18. The proposal applies to account beneficiaries and trustees of Trump accounts, which are traditional IRAs that are not Roth IRAs and are established for the exclusive benefit of an eligible individual.
The proposed Sec. 1.530A-3 would restate the definitions of "eligible investment" and "qualified index" from section 530A(b)(3)(A) and (B). An eligible investment must be a mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the returns of a qualified index, does not use leverage, and has annual fees and expenses of no more than 0.1 percent of the fund balance. The rule also clarifies that an ETF includes ETF share classes of mutual funds and that a mutual fund is a domestic corporation registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 as an open-end company that is not an ETF.
To track a qualified index, a fund's investment objective must be to replicate the index's performance before fees and expenses, and the fund must hold investments reasonably expected to achieve that objective. A qualified index is limited to the S&P 500 or any other index composed primarily of U.S. equity securities for which regulated futures contracts trade on a qualified board or exchange; sector-specific indexes are excluded.
Comments and requests for a public hearing must be submitted by October 20, 2026 via the Federal eRulemaking Portal, referencing IRS and docket CC-00349938-26. The IRS listed a contact, Justin R. Karlin, for questions about the proposed regulations, and a separate contact for comment-submission procedures. The agency will consider the input before finalizing the rules that will govern the investment choices for Trump accounts during the growth period, which ends on December 31 of the year the beneficiary turns 17.
The Treasury Department and the IRS note that additional regulations under section 530A are expected in the future, but this notice focuses solely on the eligible-investment criteria that will shape the investment landscape for Trump accounts during the early years of the beneficiary's life.