A Trump Account could make your kid a millionaire by 45—but financial experts say the app’s projections come with a catch

If you’ve opened the Trump Accounts app, the pitch for investing is hard to resist. 

Enter a $250-a-year contribution, and the app shows the user would have $19,000 by age 18 or a whopping $878,000 by age 55. Bump it up to the $5,000 annual max, and the numbers jump to $271,000 and $13 million, respectively.

That eye-popping figure comes straight from the government’s own projection on TrumpAccounts.gov, but it rests on an assumption of the S&P 500’s historical annual return of more than 10%, sustained without interruption for 55 years. While that 10% has historically been the case, Morningstar provided CNBC with data showing U.S. stock market returns could be lower over the next decade, closer to an average return of 6.3% per year.

That being said, financial planners want parents to see the full picture before they start dreaming of what feels close to a trust fund, or at the very least, a nice nest egg, for their kids.

Trump Accounts, the tax-advantaged investment accounts for children created under President Donald Trump’s tax law that officially launched July 4, have drawn attention for a headline promise: that a child could retire a millionaire off contributions their family barely notices. The accounts function like a traditional IRA, but during the “growth period” that runs from birth through the year before a child turns 18, special rules apply. 

Eligible babies born between 2025 and 2028 receive a one-time $1,000 seed deposit from the U.S. Treasury, and families, friends, and others can collectively add up to $5,000 per year in after-tax dollars, a limit indexed for inflation after 2027. 

So what could a family actually build? And what should they understand before treating any app projection as a full financial plan? Here’s how four financial experts break it down—including Adam Vega, a certified financial planner and managing partner at Avance Private Wealth Management, who is weighing the accounts for his own newborn. 

“We’re going through these nuances together,” he told Fortune.

How much could a Trump Account really be worth?

The four advisors who spoke with Fortune landed in a very similar range, and they got there using a more conservative return assumption than the Trump administration.

Pam Krueger, a registered investment advisor and founder of the advisor-matching platform Wealthramp, ran the numbers for a family that maxes out their accounts.........

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