# Overview

Child accounts enable the legal guardians of end users who are minors to open accounts and trade on their behalf. These accounts automatically transition to personal accounts once the child is old enough to take control. Child account groups may focus on either portfolio management or investment trading as determined by the rules and regulations of the user’s residency. Local regulations will set other requirements such as setting the minimum legal age and determining the required supporting documents to prove guardianship.

When placing orders on a child account, the child is listed as the owner of the account. However, you must include the guardian's user ID in the `decision_maker_id` field on each order. This value provides the ability to track and verify the individual who places the actual order on behalf of the child user.

Child accounts provide the ability for guardians to begin saving and investing for their children’s future. In addition, Upvest’s child accounts are designed to work with similar governmental saving plans focused on providing young individuals investment opportunities.

Currently, the child accounts functionality is focused on guardians and their children who have their sole tax residency in Germany with an expanded solution for other countries coming soon.

## Core Solution

The building blocks of our solution includes:

- Onboarding: The Investment API supports the creation of both guardian and child users and the ability to map them to a single account group.
- Funding:  Both guardians can fund the child account directly from a bank account in their names, either individually or from a joint bank account.
- Automated Transitioning: Following the child's 18th birthday, the child account group automatically transitions to a personal account group and retains a record of all historical transactions.


## Transitioning to a personal account group

When the child reaches 18 years old, Upvest converts the child account group into a personal account group. The conversion works as follows:

- Upvest deactivates the `GUARDIAN` and `CHILD` roles and creates an `OWNER` role for the child user. This transition happens automatically, and is not something you can trigger through the API.
- Investing resumes once the `OWNER` role becomes active. While the `OWNER` role is still `PENDING`, no orders are accepted.
- The account group ID does not change, and the full record of historical transactions is retained.


Beneficial ownership does not change during the conversion, since the child was already the beneficiary of the account.

You can track the conversion through the `ROLE.*` and `ACCOUNT_GROUP.*` events described in [Tracking child account lifecycle via webhooks](#tracking-child-account-lifecycle-via-webhooks).

## Integration approach

The following changes have been made to support child accounts:

- Support of a new account group with `type="CHILD"`.
- Include `/roles` endpoint for the creation of guardian users.
- Provides a `decision_maker_id` field in the Orders API to record and track the guardian that submits the order on behalf of the child.


## Tracking child account lifecycle via webhooks

Child account groups follow the same webhook event patterns as standard account groups. Set up a webhook listener for [`ACCOUNT_GROUP.*`](/assets/accounts_webhooks.db56b8162d2650aa90cb201f4595d471138d1af43b0413d8b3c3d3862aa1d3f5.452bca4f.md) and [`ACCOUNT.*`](/assets/accounts_webhooks.db56b8162d2650aa90cb201f4595d471138d1af43b0413d8b3c3d3862aa1d3f5.452bca4f.md) events to track:

- Account group creation and activation.
- Automatic account transitions when a child reaches the legal age to manage their own account.
- Account closure and offboarding.


For more information, refer to [Account and account group webhooks](/assets/accounts_webhooks.db56b8162d2650aa90cb201f4595d471138d1af43b0413d8b3c3d3862aa1d3f5.452bca4f.md)