How to buy bonds for a child

Giving savings bonds as gifts — TreasuryDirect

Gifting electronic EE or I savings bonds

For electronic savings bonds as gifts, both you and the recipient must have a TreasuryDirect account. TreasuryDirect is the official United States government application in which you can buy and keep savings bonds.

Learn about TreasuryDirect Open a TreasuryDirect account

You can gift a savings bond to adults or children. A child under 18 can have a TreasuryDirect account if the child's parent or other adult custodian has a TreasuryDirect account and sets up a linked account for the child.

About linked accounts

In TreasuryDirect, you can give anyone either EE or I savings bonds.

EE savings bonds I savings bonds

Comparing EE and I savings bonds

What you need to know about the recipient

To give an electronic savings bond to someone else, you must know that person's

Full name
Social Security Number (or Taxpayer Identification Number)
TreasuryDirect account number

You can also save that information in your account so it will be there for you to give the person other gift savings bonds in the future.

How far in advance to buy the savings bond

You must hold the savings bonds in your account for at least 5 business days before you deliver them to the gift recipient.

That 5-day hold lets us be sure that the money for the gift has successfully gone through the banking system.

How to buy and deliver a gift bond in TreasuryDirect

Use either these videos or the PDF step-by-step instructions sheet:

Buying a Gift Savings Bond

Delivering a Gift Bond

Step-by-Step Instructions

How the person knows there's now a gift bond in their account

When you deliver the savings bond to the recipient's TreasuryDirect account, we send them an email announcing the gift.

You can also let them know yourself with one of our gift announcements.

Gifting paper I savings bonds

Only Series I savings bonds are available in paper.

Paper Series I savings bonds come in 5 denominations: $50, $100, $200, $500, and $1,000.

The only way to get a paper savings bond is to use your IRS tax refund. With your tax refund, you can buy savings bonds for anyone (yourself, your child, or as a gift to anyone).

If you buy paper savings bonds, we mail the savings bonds to you. You can then give the gift bonds yourself to the gift recipient.

You can also send or include one of our pretty gift announcements.

For more about buying paper savings bonds, see Using your income tax refund to buy paper savings bonds

Sending an announcement to tell about your gift

We have more than 25 announcements in 9 different categories for you to choose from.

Choose the design you want. Personalize it online. Print it at home. Give or send it to let someone know they are getting a savings bond from you.

See all the available gift announcements

Buying savings bonds — TreasuryDirect

Buying electronic EE or I savings bonds

TreasuryDirect is the official United States government application in which you can buy and keep savings bonds.

Learn about TreasuryDirect Open a TreasuryDirect account

To buy a savings bond in TreasuryDirect:

Go to your TreasuryDirect account.
Choose BuyDirect.
Choose whether you want EE bonds or I bonds, and then click Submit.
Fill out the rest of the information.

For information on registration, see Registering your bonds (Who owns them).
If you plan to give the bond to someone else, see Giving savings bonds as gifts.

You can buy an electronic savings bond for any amount from $25 to $10,000 to the penny. For example, you could buy an electronic savings bond for $75.38.

In any one calendar year, you may buy up to $10,000 in Series EE electronic savings bonds AND up to $10,000 in Series I electronic savings bonds for yourself as owner of the bonds. That is in addition to the amount you can spend on buying savings bonds for a child or as gifts.

See more about how much can I spend and how much can I own.

Buying through our Payroll Savings Plan

Another way to buy savings bonds is to have your employer send money from each paycheck directly to your TreasuryDirect account.

You decide how much to set aside for savings bonds, then it all happens automatically (like getting the rest of your paycheck to your bank by direct deposit.)

To set up a Payroll Savings Plan

If you don't yet have a TreasuryDirect account, open an account.
Go to your TreasuryDirect account and follow the instructions to set up a Payroll Savings Plan.
Choose the type of savings bonds you want (EE or I) and the amount you want for each bond.
Ask your employer to send money from each paycheck to your TreasuryDirect account.

To have your employer send the money

You will fill out a direct deposit form that needs this information:

The "receiving bank name": TREASURYDIRECT (all capitals, no space)
The routing number for TreasuryDirect: 051736158
Your 10-digit TreasuryDirect account number, no hyphens, with a P at the end

(Example: A123456789P)

How much money you want to have your employer send from each paycheck
Where the form asks if this is a savings account (22) or a checking account (23), you can choose either. That doesn't matter to our system.

Tell your employer that they can send the money to us in any of these 3 ACH file formats:

PPD (Prearranged Payment and Deposit)
CCD (Corporate Credit or Debit)
CTX (Corporate Trade Exchange) – CTX users must submit a TD/CTX Participant Agreement and use the TreasuryDirect CTX File Format.

What happens in TreasuryDirect

The money your employer sends each time goes into a special Payroll Savings Plan Certificate of Indebtedness (C of I) in your TreasuryDirect account. Every time the balance in that specific C of I is large enough to buy the bond you chose at the amount you chose, we issue you that type of savings bond for that amount.

For example: If you want to buy $50 Series I savings bonds and you ask your employer to send $25 from each paycheck to your TreasuryDirect account, we issue a $50 bond for you after every other payday. You don't have to think about it again or do anything else. You keep getting more savings bonds automatically until you change or end your Payroll Savings Plan.

Each savings bond earns interest for you in your TreasuryDirect account until you tell us to cash the bond or until it reaches the end of its 30-year interest-earning life.

Buying paper Series I savings bonds

The only way to get a paper savings bond now is to use your IRS tax refund.

You can buy any amount up to $5,000 in $50 increments.

We may issue multiple bonds to fill your order. The bonds may be of different denominations. We use $50, $100, $200, $500, and $1,000 bonds. Again, the amount of your purchase can be any multiple of $50, from $50 to $5,000. You need to tell us only the amount. We determine denominations.

To buy paper savings bonds, you use IRS Form 8888 to specify how much of your refund should go to savings bonds and how much to you directly (by check or by direct deposit to your bank account).

On Form 8888, you also specify who will own the bonds. That means, you can give paper savings bonds to yourself or to anyone else (as a gift). If you have enough money in your refund, you can buy multiple bonds and, if you wish, you can give them multiple registrations.

You may buy up to $5,000 in paper savings bonds with each year's tax refund.

See more about how much can I spend and how much can I own.

Registering savings bonds (Who owns them?)

Whether you buy an electronic bond or a paper bond, you must specify who owns the bond.

You may name yourself, a child, yourself and someone else (either as another owner or as the beneficiary), or indeed anyone you want to give the savings bond to as a gift.

But the person (or people) you name must meet these conditions:

The person must have a Social Security Number.
The person must also meet any one of these three conditions:

United States citizen, whether the person lives in the U.S. or abroad, or
United States resident, or
Civilian employee of the United States, no matter where that person lives

You may also register the bond in the name of a trust or estate. An electronic bond in TreasuryDirect also can be in the name of a corporation, partnership, or other entity.

Note: If you are thinking of using the money from savings bonds to pay for your child's college education, do NOT put the bond in the child's name. Keep the bond in your name. See

Using savings bonds for higher education

For more about who owes taxes on savings bond interest, see

Tax information for EE and I bonds

For details on what registrations are allowed and how to register your bonds, see

Registering your savings bonds (Who owns them)

Managing savings bonds for a child under 18

See the note above about using savings bonds for higher education. Whether the bonds are paper or electronic, to use them for college expenses, the bonds must be in an adult's name, not the child's!

But with that exception, you can name the child as the owner of either paper or electronic savings bonds.

Paper savings bonds

If you buy paper savings bonds for your child, you have the responsibility for keeping the bonds.

Electronic savings bonds

If you buy electronic savings bonds for a child, here's how that works:

The child needs a TreasuryDirect account that is linked to the account of a parent or other adult custodian. You (the parent or other adult custodian) may open a TreasuryDirect account for the child. You can then buy savings bonds or other securities, as well as conduct other transactions, for the child. Other people can buy savings bonds for the child as gifts to go into the child's linked account.

See more About linked accounts

Can minors invest? - TOV "FREEDOM FINANCE UKRAINE"

How often can you meet a child who is ready to exchange walks with friends or online rpg games for serious economics and finance? Let's not dissemble, in Ukraine such cases are more isolated cases than mass phenomena.

Now in order. With each new stage of life, a small citizen has more and more rights for investments and investments. Everything is like in the same games: reached a certain level - catch the desired access or bonus. The main rule is that a minor is not solvent, therefore, until the age of 18, his investment portfolio is managed in one way or another by adults: parents, guardian or trustee.

How old can you be to invest: shareholders from the cradle

Like any knowledge of life, raising a child's financial literacy also goes through parents. Caring about the future of their child, his further education and quality of life, parents, as a rule, simply open a child's deposit in a bank. It is documented easier, does not require special knowledge and will allow you to increase your savings. However, Ukrainian legislation allows you to purchase securities in the name of a child, even from infancy. In practice, parents begin to think about investing in stocks at a more conscious age for the child. As a rule, such initiatives most often come from them. But sometimes the child himself, at the suggestion of advertising, peers or Internet surfing, asks new questions and begins to understand the open possibilities.

Adolescence is a good time to start getting acquainted with the basic principles of economics, stocks, deposits, dividends. But at what age can you start trading on the stock exchange and start earning your first money on your own? Under the age of 14, minors cannot make transactions, trade on the stock exchange and dispose of their shares, only parents or guardians with the permission of the guardianship and guardianship authorities can do this for them. Future traders do not yet make independent decisions, but together with adults they can discuss companies, investments, learn to do something new and think strategically.

Investment goals: an inside view

The decision to adopt a pet teaches a child responsibility and compassion. The decision to start investing and trading on the stock exchange with a child also arises due to a number of reasons.

First of all, savings and securities will be a good start-up capital by adulthood, when the child enters an independent life.
Interest in trading on the exchange develops observation, responsibility, the ability to sensibly assess the situation and control emotions.
The child begins to feel like an adult, which, of course, affects his self-esteem.
Such initiatives are an additional reason to spend time with the child and teach him useful skills that will be useful in the future.

Young Entrepreneurs: How old do you have to be to trade on the stock exchange?

It's simple: children have the opportunity to make independent choices and decisions that require attention. Where to invest, how best to sell and buy shares? Along with economic knowledge comes the ability to see and delve deeper into the activities of companies.

From the age of 14 to 18, teenagers can independently open a brokerage account and make transactions, but only with the mandatory written permission from their parents or guardian. Even having received a passport, minor citizens are not solvent. And any investments are associated with risks, so investors must be fully liable for any of their decisions, including unsuccessful ones.

And here comes another moment, not entirely dependent on the small trader. How do companies and brokers perceive it? Not every agency and company will want to conclude a contract for the provision of services or sell their shares to a schoolchild / student. In addition to the commission, the broker's earnings depend, among other things, on the number of shares in the hands of the trader, and large corporations often do not want to bother with the sale of small shares of shares. Being at the very beginning of the journey, small investors do not yet have a lot of capital, and the volume of their brokerage account will be limited to a little money or a scholarship. Often, following the advice of adult mentors, teenagers can purchase 1 share of different companies, researching and learning from them, which means that they are not of due interest and value to large traders. In other words, there are few benefits for brokers and corporations, and many headaches and approvals.

Responsibilities of parents and guardians: limited play.

Summing up the legislative articles, it is important to note that the state, acting as the main regulator, ensures that the assets of minors do not decrease. Especially in that which is associated with risks and can lead to undesirable consequences. In this regard, it acts as the highest authority for the protection of minors, so there are clear restrictions for parents, guardians and trustees when investing for their children.

When opening a brokerage account, one of the mandatory requirements is the written consent of at least one parent or guardian. However, this does not mean a green light and the gas pedal to the floor. In the future, such permissions are required for each transaction that is concluded with a minor child. And that's just from the parents.

But the parents, in turn, must obtain the consent of the guardianship and guardianship authorities every time a purchase and sale of securities is made. In any quantity. It is easy to guess that the process itself is complex and lengthy, which, in principle, does not imply and does not tolerate the market - delays. An application for consent can be considered in Ukraine for up to 30 days, while many economic conditions for a transaction may change several times and become irrelevant for the applicant. This is also why brokers are rather reluctant to deal with such initial data.

However, the practice of investing together with a child most often has a good effect on his ability to reason and soberly assess the true value of money, and not just short-term pocket expenses.

At what age can you open a brokerage account for a child and start investing? Therefore, parents can easily open deposits for their children, issue cards to them and teach them how to manage money on their own. With the growth of financial literacy, such services are increasingly in demand. But brokers are different.

Formally, there are no prohibitions on investing and opening a child account: the law does not say anywhere that you can use the services of a broker only if the person is over 18 years old. But in fact, for a child to gain access to the stock market is difficult and requires effort.

At what age can children manage money

In terms of financial rights, children are divided into two age groups: under 14 and from 14 to 18.

Until the age of 14, the child himself can only make small household transactions. For example, go to the store and buy something. Such operations should not generate income, but it is possible on the stock exchange. In addition, according to the law, until the age of 14, a person does not bear property responsibility for his unsuccessful decisions. It is carried only by legal representatives - a parent, trustee, guardian. This means that they should make all investments for the child.

After the age of 14, a person already has more rights. For example, he can independently dispose of the money he personally earned. But other people's finances or risky operations are possible only with the written consent of the parents. This means that from the age of 14 you can open an investment account. But not all brokers provide such an opportunity. For example, at Newton Investments LLC, the minimum age for joining the regulation is 18 years.

Learn to invest September 04, 2020 How to start investing: 10 steps for beginners 18 minutes

There is one more complicating moment for exchange transactions - guardianship authorities. Even if the parent gives written consent, trading is considered alienation of someone else's property. In addition, this is a potential deterioration in the financial situation of the child, no matter how old he may be. This means that for any operation, including the payment of commissions, you need to provide the broker with the written consent of both guardianship and the parent. The prices on the stock market for most assets change quickly and unpredictably, which means that a teenager is physically limited in choosing securities.

Broker restrictions

Brokers are most often worried about the legal purity of transactions. Therefore, they reinsure themselves and do not open accounts even for emancipated minors. The broker has the right to refuse to serve the investor without giving reasons. The exception is children who have inherited securities.

It turns out that, theoretically, a teenager can open a brokerage account and deposit money into it from the age of 14, but it is difficult and time-consuming for minors to conduct transactions.