President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury Department to build TrumpIRA.gov, a federal marketplace aimed at workers who do not have retirement plans through their employers.

The website is scheduled to go live on Jan. 1 and would allow eligible workers to compare low-cost individual retirement accounts run by private financial firms.

The program follows a retirement savings proposal Trump laid out in his February State of the Union address. Under the plan, accounts offered through the site could come with matching federal contributions of up to $1,000.

"For millions of Americans who lack employer-sponsored plans, this will really be revolutionary," Trump said Thursday while signing the executive order.

TrumpIRA.gov Will Target Workers Without Employer Plans

The Treasury Department will review IRA options listed on TrumpIRA.gov, including their fees, investment choices, minimum contribution rules and balance requirements, Trump said.

The new marketplace is expected to be modeled in part on the Thrift Savings Plan, the retirement savings program available to federal workers.

The administration is pitching the order as a way to close a large retirement access gap. More than 4 in 10 American workers do not have a retirement plan at work.

Participation in workplace retirement plans remains limited across the private sector. March 2025 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that only about half of private industry workers take part in defined contribution plans.

Federal Match Could Start in 2027

The order also ties into the federal government's Saver's Match, a benefit already created under Secure 2.0, the retirement law passed in 2022.

Beginning in 2027, lower-income workers could qualify for matching federal contributions of up to $1,000 paid into their retirement accounts.

Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist and director of the Wealth Equity Lab at The New School for Social Research, said the proposal could reach a large group of uncovered workers.

"Getting 56 million workers into an account with a real federal match is the largest potential expansion of retirement coverage since Social Security," Ghilarducci said in a statement.

Automatic Enrollment Remains Missing

Retirement policy experts said the marketplace could expand access, but the absence of automatic enrollment may hold back participation.

Emerson Sprick, director of retirement and labor policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said employer-based plans still have advantages that IRAs do not always match.

"The gold standard for retirement savings is an employer-sponsored plan," Sprick said. "Those plans can leverage automatic enrollment and have advantages over IRAs."

The administration framed the executive order as an opening move rather than the final version of the policy. Broader changes would need approval from Congress.

A bipartisan group of senators reintroduced the Retirement Savings for Americans Act last year after an earlier version was introduced in 2023. The bill could set into law how workers without employer plans would gain access to retirement accounts, but it has not advanced.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said the administration wants to push the Saver's Match beyond lower-income workers.

"We're working with Congress to significantly expand this program and are looking forward to legislation this year," Hassett said.