A trust account allows you to hold and manage brokerage assets under the name of a trust entity. It is a powerful tool for estate planning, allowing for seamless asset management during your lifetime and structured control over how assets are passed to your beneficiaries.

A trust account is an investment account legally owned by a trust and managed by appointed trustees on behalf of its beneficiaries. One of the primary benefits of a trust account is that it allows assets to transfer smoothly to beneficiaries upon the grantor’s death without going through the probate process.

Robinhood supports revocable living trusts. At this time, irrevocable trusts and corporate (entity) trustees aren’t supported.

To open a trust account on Robinhood, you must meet the following criteria:

• Have an active, individual Robinhood brokerage account.
• Have a revocable trust document.
• Be the grantor (creator) of the trust. If the trust is established under the SSN of a grantor, that individual is considered the primary grantor and must be the one opening the account.
• Act as a designated trustee on the trust (the grantor must also be a trustee).

When applying, you’ll be asked to upload specific pages from your trust agreement or certificate of trust. A certificate of trust is a shortened, official legal document that proves a trust exists without revealing private or sensitive details about the trust's arrangements.

When you open a financial account or conduct business on behalf of a trust, institutions legally require verification of the trust's validity. A certificate of trust acts as a certified summary and includes:

• The official trust name
• The grantor's name(s)
• The names and signatures of all trustees
• The trust's date of execution
• The state of jurisdiction
• Trustee powers: An explicit statement of the trustees' powers, specifically verifying whether they have the authority to manage financial accounts, execute trades, and act unilaterally (independently) on behalf of the trust

To get started, open your Robinhood app and go to Account (person icon) → Add account → Trust.

Step 1: Upload trust documents & designate beneficiaries

First, you’ll upload clear photos or digital files of your official trust paperwork (such as your certificate of trust or relevant excerpts from your trust agreement).

• Smart document scanning: Our system safely reads the document to securely pull vital details like your official trust name, the original date of execution, and the governing state of jurisdiction.
• Beneficiary status: Next, you’ll complete a quick check-screen regarding your trust's beneficiary designations (e.g., whether you’re the sole beneficiary or if the trust includes non-natural entities like charities or organizations).
  • Note: Your selections here determine specific FDIC coverage rules for your automated cash sweep destinations down the line.

Step 2: Certify your trust tax information

To accurately certify the tax status, you’ll need to verify how your trust is structured for U.S. tax reporting purposes:

• Using the primary grantor's SSN: In the majority of cases, a revocable trust shares the creator's personal identity. If the trust utilizes your own Social Security Number (SSN), Robinhood will instantly port over your existing verified name and credentials from your individual taxable account. You’ll be asked to verify or provide the official billing/residential address tied to the trust.
• Using a trust-specific EIN: If your revocable trust has been assigned its own unique Employer Identification Number (EIN) by the IRS, you can select that option. You’ll be prompted to manually input the official EIN string along with the trust's registered legal address.

Step 3: Verify and add your trustees

A Robinhood trust account can support a maximum of 5 total trustees, allowing you to add up to 4 trusted co-managers alongside yourself.

• Automated trustee scraping: Our system scans your uploaded trust document to identify any named trustees and parse their associated legal roles. The app will present these findings in a clean list for your explicit review. Only current, active trustees are relevant here — successor trustees and beneficiaries named in the trust document don't play a role while the trust remains revocable (a living trust), so we don't collect their information or verify their identity at this stage. If our scan picks up a successor trustee or beneficiary, you'll be able to exclude them from the list before submitting.
• Identity verification: For every trustee added, you’ll confirm their legal name and input standard personal information including their email, residential address, date of birth, and SSN. Collecting this up-front is a mandatory regulatory requirement that permits our system to run standard identity verification checks. Passing these structural compliance checks is necessary to legally onboard the trust entity and issue a live account number.
• Manual additions: If our scanning tool misses a trustee due to document formatting variations, you can select Add a trustee to manually enter in their contact information.

Once you confirm your trustee roster, submit the application for final processing. Approved trustees will receive a secure email invitation with a unique tracking code to establish their login credentials and claim equal operational access to the account.

Once your documents are submitted, our team will review your application.

• Notification: You’ll receive both an in-app notification and an email as soon as the review is complete.
• Review process: Applications are reviewed by our team. In some cases, applications with clear, digitally readable documents may qualify for automatic approval.

If your application cannot be approved as-is, there are 2 ways to fix it:

1. Upload a corrected or updated trust document via a support case with Robinhood to update your existing application
2. The primary grantor can start a new application directly in the app

Yes. A Robinhood trust account can support up to 5 total trustees, which includes the grantor and up to 4 additional trustees.

Yes. All authorized trustees on the account share equal operational permissions (except for adding/removing trustees after account creation, this action is taken only by the primary grantor). Any approved trustee can independently place trades, make deposits, initiate withdrawals, and manage account settings. Unequal or tiered permission levels are not supported. To ensure complete transparency and security among co-managers, Robinhood maintains a comprehensive trustee audit trail:

• Detailed activity tracking: Every single trade, order, deposit, withdrawal, and internal asset movement logs the exact identity of the person who initiated it.
• Transaction detail pages: When viewing your transaction history, each individual transaction detail page contains an explicit "Initiated by" field surfacing the full name of the specific trustee who conducted that action (e.g., Initiated by John Smith).
• Filterable activity feed: Trustees can filter the account's historical feed by transaction type or by individual trustee name to easily audit who performed which action.

Each trustee must complete their own onboarding process. Once the primary grantor submits the application, any added trustees will be invited via email and/or shared link that will guide them through the following steps to claim access:

• Secure redirect: Clicking the link automatically directs the trustee to the Robinhood platform with a unique identifier that ties their profile to the specific trust entity.
• Log in or create an account: If the trustee already has a Robinhood account, they’ll be prompted to log in. If they do not have an account, they will be guided to download the app and complete standard individual account onboarding first.
• Claim access: Once logged in, the trustee can select Join account.
• Execute the attestation: To officially claim operational access, the trustee must review and execute the same unilateral action attestation and structural customer agreements as the primary grantor.

The primary grantor acts as the primary contact for the account and will receive all financial statements and tax documents on behalf of the trust.

Bank account linking remains managed at the individual user level. This means each trustee must link external accounts independently to use them. For example, if the primary grantor links a trust bank account, a non-grantor trustee must independently link that same bank account through their own login to move money to or from it.

• Trust-owned accounts: Trustees can independently link and initiate deposits or withdrawals using external bank accounts formally titled in the official name of the trust.
• Grantor-owned accounts: Grantors can view, link, and use external bank accounts titled in their personal individual or joint names to fund the trust. These payment methods remain private and are only visible to the grantor who added them.
• Non-grantor restrictions: Non-grantor trustees can’t view or use the grantor's linked personal bank accounts. However, a non-grantor trustee may use their own personal bank account to make deposits into the trust account, subject to compliance acknowledgment.

You have 4 primary ways to fund your account:

• ACH bank deposit: Link a verified bank account to initiate cash inflows
• ACATS transfer: Transfer existing stocks and eligible securities directly from an external brokerage trust account
• Wire transfer: Initiate first- or third-party incoming wires
• Internal Asset Transfer (IAT): Move assets dynamically from eligible existing Robinhood profiles

Yes. You can transfer assets into your Robinhood trust account via the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS), wires, or ACH deposits, provided the external account carries the exact same trust name.

Yes, but what you can transfer depends on your role on the account:

• If you're a grantor: You can freely execute internal asset transfers (IAT) or internal cash movements (XENT) between the trust account and your other taxable Robinhood accounts, including your individual and joint brokerage portfolios.
• If you're a non-grantor trustee: You can’t mix personal portfolios with trust entities.
• Retirement account blocks: Internal asset transfers (IAT) between a trust account and an IRA are strictly blocked. Cash movements (XENT) out of a trust into an IRA are permitted as contributions, but non-grantor trustees will face a fiduciary warning before proceeding.

• Stocks and ETFs: Full access to all equities, ETFs, OTC securities, ADRs, and leveraged/inverse instruments available to individual Robinhood accounts.
• Dividend Reinvestment (DRIP): Any trustee can sign the DRIP agreement on behalf of the trust to enable or disable dividend reinvestment.
• Recurring investments: Any trustee can create, modify, or delete recurring investment schedules. Non-grantor trustees can only use the trust's buying power for these schedules, while grantors can use either buying power or a linked trust bank account.
• Managed investments: You can choose to have your trust account managed by Robinhood Strategies, our experienced investment team offering a tailored portfolio based on your personal financial goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance.

Options trading, crypto, futures, and event contracts are not supported at this time.

Yes. Trust accounts can be set up as cash or margin accounts. Any trustee with full trading authority can apply for margin and sign the margin agreement on behalf of the trust, enabling it for all trustees. Margin calculations are isolated entirely to the trust account's assets. Review Margin investing for details.

Any trustee, including non-grantor trustees, with an active Robinhood Gold subscription triggers Gold benefits for the trust account, including the higher APY cash sweep rate and Robinhood Strategies management fee cap. You only pay for one Gold subscription per person; benefits automatically extend to eligible accounts.

How the subscription works

• One fee, multiple accounts: You only pay for one Robinhood Gold subscription ($5/month or $50/year). Once your individual investing account is upgraded to Gold, the benefits automatically extend to any eligible additional accounts, including your trust account.
• Trustee access: Any trustee with an active Gold subscription shares the benefits with the whole trust.

Because Robinhood supports revocable living trusts, all income, capital gains, and losses are legally reported under the grantor’s Social Security Number (SSN) per IRS guidelines. Trusts can also be opened under an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Generally, account owners or trustees should consult a tax advisor for tax treatment

• SIPC: Trust accounts are treated as a separate legal account category under SIPC rules, providing an additional layer of protection separate from your individual Robinhood account.
• FDIC: Cash swept through our partner banks is insured under a separate FDIC trust ownership category, provided all sweep destinations are titled in the official name of the trust.
  • If your trust has an organization named as a beneficiary, or the grantor is the sole beneficiary, your available FDIC coverage on swept cash may be reduced.