Correction (August 12, 2026): An earlier version of this article gave October 13, 2026 as the deadline to request to speak at the public hearing, following the IRS newsroom summary. The proposed regulations themselves set that deadline at September 25, 2026, the same date comments are due – October 13 is the deadline to request to attend.
Treasury and the IRS published proposed regulations on August 11 setting out what an employer has to do before it can put money into an employee's child's Trump Account (530A). The proposal names the paperwork, the certification steps, and the fairness test behind every employer match families have been hearing about since the spring – and it is open for public comment through September 25, 2026.
What an employer's program has to contain
Per the IRS, a qualifying program must "be a separate written plan of an employer for the exclusive benefit of employees" that provides contributions to the Trump Accounts of employees or their dependents. Treasury's release lists what else an employer must do to establish one: maintain a separate written plan document, follow certification procedures, provide notices to employees, provide annual statements to employees, and provide reporting to the Trump Account trustee.
The certification piece is the one an employee will actually touch. Per Treasury, the procedures "permit employers to rely on employees' self-certification of the Trump Account beneficiary's age and dependent status, but require validation that the account into which the contribution will be made is a Trump Account." In practice that means a parent signs off on their own child's age and dependent status, while the employer's job is to confirm the account on the receiving end is a real Trump Account and not an ordinary brokerage or custodial account.
The rule that decides who can join
The proposal also carries a fairness test. Per the IRS, "eligibility to participate in these programs and contributions and benefits under these programs must not discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees or their dependents." That covers all three layers at once – who is allowed in, how much goes in, and what participants get out of it.
For a parent, that is the provision worth knowing about. A company cannot design a Trump Account program that quietly works out to a benefit for its executives, and a rank-and-file employee who hears that a program exists has grounds to ask why they are not eligible for it.
Your own pre-tax pay may be an option too
Employer money is not the only lane the guidance touches. Per Treasury, the Working Families Tax Cuts "allows employees to make pre-tax contributions through an employer cafeteria plan to their dependents' Trump Accounts" – so an employee whose company offers it may be able to route part of their own pay in before tax, the way health or dependent care contributions already work at many employers. Whether that option exists is up to the employer's plan design, so it is a question for a benefits team rather than something every worker has by default.
Employer contributions and a family's own deposits both count against the account's $5,000 annual limit, so a family stacking an employer contribution, a cafeteria plan election, and their own deposits is working within one ceiling, not three.
The $2,500 figure, stated carefully
The tax break at the center of all this is the Section 128 exclusion: per the IRS, an employer may make a "tax-free contribution of up to $2,500 per year to the Trump Account of an employee or their dependents." It is an exclusion cap, not a separate contribution allowance – it sets how much employer money escapes an employee's taxable wages, and anything above it is ordinary taxable pay. Our earlier coverage of how these contributions show up on a W-2 walks through how that works on an employee's own return, and our reporting on the Labor Department's ERISA guidance covers the compliance conditions on the employer's side.
These are proposals, not final rules
The regulations are not yet in force, and some of what is being described online as settled is not. Treasury and the IRS have requested comments on all aspects of the proposal by September 25, 2026, and scheduled a public hearing for October 15, 2026 at 10 a.m. ET. Anyone who wants to testify works to that same September 25 date: per the proposed regulations, a request to speak and an outline of the topics to be discussed are both due then, and October 13 is the deadline only for requesting to attend – a distinction several summaries of the guidance have collapsed. Details can change between a proposed rule and a final one, so an employer's program terms announced today may not be the terms that end up in the finished regulation.
Who has already committed
Alongside the guidance, Treasury named companies with contribution commitments and said more than 50 of the country's largest employers have been prepared for the program. Visa's is a $1,000 company match of the federal one-time seed for U.S. employees, per the release. State Street's matches Treasury's $1,000 contribution for eligible children of active employees. Vanguard's works differently: crew members may choose to direct a $1,500 employer contribution beginning in 2027, through the company's well-being and lifestyle program. Chime and Franklin Templeton are also quoted with matches for employees' children, and Kraken with a pledge to sponsor accounts for every child born in Wyoming in 2026.
If you want to check whether your own employer is on that list – or whether a state or nonprofit program might apply to your child – our Match & Bonus Finder tracks the commitments we have sourced, with each entry marked announced or verified.