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Robinhood Age Requirement in 2024
Robinhood age limit requirement. How old do you have to be to open a brokerage account at Robinhood?
Robinhood for under 18 years old.
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Minimum Age for Robinhood Account
Are you considering opening an investment account at Robinhood? You will have to be
at least 18 years old to do that.
An investment account requires lots of legal paperwork to be signed, physically or electronically, and
this of course requires the applicant to be a legal adult. That’s 18. Robinhood currently does not offer custodial
accounts or any other investment accounts for minors.
But it is possible to open a brokerage account for minor at Charles Schwab.
Charles Schwab offers many account types for kids. These accounts do require a sponsor from a legal adult.
Examples include:
Custodial Account
Charles Schwab offers both UGMA and UTMA accounts. These are the custodial accounts. An account must have one custodian and one minor (not two and not zero). Usually, the custodian is a grandparent, parent, or other relative. But by law, the custodian can be anyone. He doesn’t even have to be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. The minor does have to be one, though.
In most cases, the custodian is the one putting money into the custodial account; but technically, anyone in the world can contribute to a custodial account, including the minor.
Visit Charles Schwab Website
Open Schwab Account
Visit Robinhood Website
Open Robinhood Account
Minor IRA
Charles Schwab has lots of IRA types, one of which is the Minor IRA. It’s available in both
Roth and Traditional formats. In either format, a minor and an adult are required to get the account
open (this includes details on both, including tax ID numbers).
Technically, on the Minor IRA, the brokerage firm is the custodian, and the adult opening the account is a “responsible individual.”
As with any other retirement account, the juvenile IRA requires earned income on the part of the account owner, who is the minor in this case. That’s a really important requirement that the other minor accounts don’t have.
Education Savings Account (ESA)
Charles Schwab also has the ESA. It can be used for tax-free growth to underwrite educational expenses.
We do emphasize educational expenses here because that’s all a ESA’s accounts funds can be used for.
There are income limits on the ESA account, which makes it very different from the other two accounts
mentioned in this article. Like the Minor IRA, an adult opens the account on behalf of a minor, and
Charles Schwab serves as custodian.
Opening a Minor Account at Charles Schwab
For any of the beneficiary accounts listed above, Charles Schwab has user-friendly tools to start the application process. A custodial account can be opened online. The ESA account and Minor IRA have to be opened with paper forms, although these forms can be downloaded from the same starting point on Charles Schwab’s website.
This starting point is the list of available account types with the broker. To find this list, go to the Charles Schwab website and click on the Open New Account link at the top of the site. The next page will display a long list of account types available with the brokerage firm. Most of these are for legal adults. Scroll through the list until you find the minor account you’re interested in.
On the account type’s profile page, click on the green button to open the account. For the custodial account, this will give you the online form. For the other two, you’ll get an online form to access the paper application. It can be downloaded, emailed, or sent through the postal service.
Learning Resources
Any of the adolescent brokerage accounts can be accessed through the Charles Schwab website. Once logged in, many educational materials will be found. These include self-guided courses and digital tools to keep track of your progress through the materials. Some of the learning materials are geared towards beginners.
Fees and Commissions
Charles Schwab uses the same pricing schedule for its minor brokerage accounts as it does for its other account types. This means no recurring fees and no commissions on stocks and ETFs (assuming the trades are placed online, and the securities aren’t over the counter). The broker has a decent selection of target-date mutual funds.
Open Charles Schwab Account
Open Schwab Account
Updated on 7/4/2024.
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