Wealthfront FAQs

To access your brokerage account information, log in and click Settingsat the top of the page. Youll find the number for each account in the Investment Accountssection.

Withdrawals typically take 1-3 business days to arrive at your bank. It may take longer if, for example, you recently made a deposit or if you are withdrawing to a different bank account than the one used for initial funding.

There is a daily ACH transfer limit of $250,000, so any ACH transfers greater than that amount will be split over multiple days.

Note: For security purposes, thereis up to a 5 business day hold on all new deposits before your funds can be transferred out of your account.

Wedon'tcharge any fees for withdrawals and there are no limits on the number of times you can withdraw.

There is a daily ACH transfer limit of $250,000, so any ACH transfers greater than that amount will be split over multiple days. You must withdraw funds to a bank account in your name, as we currently do not support third-party transfers (i.e. to a title company).

Learn more about withdrawal timing.

Note:For security purposes, there is a 5 business day hold on all new deposits before your funds can be transferred out of your account.

Family members and friends are welcome to contribute via check or wire. You can get the wire/check instructions by logging into your Wealthfront 529 account, clicking the Deposit Cash button at the top right corner of your dashboard, selecting the 529 account and then the check or wire option. You can give these instructions to your family members and friends that wish to contribute to your 529 account. Please note that checks need to include both the account number and WPIC number in the memo line.

Please see our FAQ for general contribution guidelines and consult your tax adviser if you have any questions.

We currently require all Wealthfront clients to have a U.S. phone number that can accept SMS text messages for security verification purposes.

Please note that we require all Wealthfront clients to have a U.S. social security number, a permanent U.S. residential address, and currently reside in the U.S due to financial regulations. We cannot support clients residing outside of the U.S., including U.S. citizens residing abroad.

If you are active duty military or a U.S. government employee living overseas and don't have an active U.S. phone number, please contact us for additional verification steps to open an account.

Employees, officers and directors of public companies, and other individuals with access to confidential information are often subject to trading restrictions. If you are subject to such restriction, you will be notified by the relevant company.

You can review and edit your trading restrictions by logging in and navigating to Settings and Restrictions.

Yes! Unlike a traditional financial advisor, Wealthfront automatically works to minimize the impact of taxes when transferring over outside investments. Specifically, we will apply the following strategies, if applicable, in the following order:

Incorporate compatible transferred assets (e.g. if your existing portfolio holds an ETF or stock that we would include in your Wealthfront portfolio) directly into your Wealthfront investment mix whenever possible

Sell assets with losses

Sell assets with long-term capital gains

Use short-term capital losses from Tax-Loss Harvesting and Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting to offset short-term capital gains and accelerate your transition into the Wealthfront portfolio

Hold off on selling any other assets with short-term capital gains until they become long-term (owned for at least one year)

After selling your assets, invest the cash in your Wealthfront portfolio

Collectively, we call this service Tax-Minimized Brokerage Account Transfer.

Unfortunately we are not able to sell the following kinds of assets: mutual funds (including DFA funds), penny stocks, bonds, options, annuities, or any other financial instruments thatdon'ttrade on an exchange.

Not yet, but we plan to add a debit card with ATM access in the near future!

If your bank does not support electroniclogin verification, we have to verify the account information via a "micro deposit" process.

The micro-deposits are two small test deposits sent to your bank account to verify that we have the correct bank account information for you. The micro deposits usually arrive in 1-2 business days (you can see them in your bank account's transaction history).

You can then log back into Wealthfront and enter these amounts to set up your ACH relationship. To enter the amounts, simplygo to your "settings" tab and look under "MY ACCOUNTS". See below for a screenshot of where toconfirm the two deposits:

Please note that any small depositssent to your bank account for verification purposeswill be withdrawn from that bank accountwithin 10 business days, and may be withdrawn in two separate withdrawalsor combined into a single small withdrawal amount.

We currently offer fourfunding methods, which must originate from a U.S.-based financial institution.

For Cash Accounts, our account minimum is only $1. For investment accounts, our account minimum is $500 which allows us to provide an optimized allocation across seven or eight asset classes depending on whether it is a taxable or retirement account. The account minimum is $100,000 to take advantage of our Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting.

Deposit Cash (ACH bank transfers): This option lets you move funds directly between a checking or savings account and your Wealthfront account. Once you linkyour bank account electronically or by identifying two very small deposits that we send to the desired account, we transfer your money electronically and allow you to make additional deposits at any time. In most cases, bank transfers will be deposited into your Wealthfront account within two to three business days.

Once you have linked a bank account to your Wealthfront account, you will also be able to schedule recurring deposits repeating weekly, biweekly (1st & 15th), or monthly. You can use our repeating deposit feature to set up daily deposits into your Wealthfront account, but we do not recommend it. As a long term investment service, we are not designed for daily cash flows. If you are interested in dollar cost averaging, a weekly, monthly or quarterly deposit is more appropriate.

Transfer / Rollover:For more information on transferring an account electronically, click here. Fore more information on "rolling over" a 401k or other employer-sponsored plan, click here.

Wire Transfer:To obtain the instructions, please log into your dashboardand click Transfer funds => Put money in => Use Same-day wire. All wire transfers must come from an account where you are listed as an owner. We cannot accept wire transfers from a third party (i.e. title company).We do not charge any fees for incoming wire transfers.

Check (529 accounts only): For 529 college savings plans, you can also fund via checks. This is a common option for funding for family and friends who want to give checks as a gift. Please note that we have a $100 minimum for add on deposits and the initial funding amount is $500.

You'll receive two tax documents if you convert your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, and these forms will be posted to the Documents page on your dashboard. Well also remind you of an additional tax form that you may need to file directly.

You'll receive a Form 1099-R for your traditional IRA. It will be coded as a rollover to a Roth IRA.

Youll receive a Form 5498 for your Roth IRA. This form reports the value of the funds received and the value of the account at the end of the year. This form is generally for informational purposes only. The data doesn't have to appear anywhere on your tax return.

Learn more about what you can expect at tax time for your Wealthfront accounts

To satisfy a withdrawal request, Wealthfront will attempt to sell investment lots to both minimize your tax liability from the withdrawal and to also rebalance your portfolio toward your target allocation. To minimize your tax liability, well try to sell lots with losses first (since they generate no tax liability) followed by lots with a smaller tax liability (typically those taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate, but we do look at the overall tax bill). For accounts with our Smart Beta service, a withdrawal may result in short term gains being realized as our algorithm attempts to maintain the characteristics of our service.

Subject to the tax-efficiency constraints above, well also use withdrawals to sell lots from asset classes that are overweighted relative to your investment plan, thus moving your portfolio closer to your target allocation.

Accounts that have transferred from another financial institution and have securities pending transition into a diversified Wealthfront allocation, a withdrawal request will result in the sale of the transferred assets first, regardless of the tax consequences.

There are two ways to withdraw funds and close your account: you can liquidate your account and transfer the cash to your bank account on file, or you can transfer out in-kind to another institution. To liquidate your account, log in and click the Transfer Funds button at the top of the dashboard, select Take money out and then the Withdraw the entire account balance option. You will receive your funds via bank transfer (ACH). Please note that liquidating your account may incur taxes.

Once you request a full withdrawal we'll automatically close your account.You'll still be able to login after your account is closed to access your tax documents and statements. If it's an IRA account please contact our Client Services team.

You can also transfer your account out in-kind to another institution. Please see this FAQ for more information.

Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA:

There are no tax implications for automated transfers requested through our website, which are considered trustee-to-trustee transfers. The other benefit of trustee-to-trustee transfers is that you have no corresponding tax forms or filing requirements.

Once Wealthfront receives your transfer, well sell any investments thatdon'tfit your Wealthfront portfolio. Since this is a tax-advantaged account, youwon'tincur any taxes for selling these investments.

SIMPLE IRA:

The tax implications for SIMPLE IRAs may be different.

We request your updated account information every business day, but your other institution may not always provide us with new information. The updated at time for each linked account reflects the last time we received new information. When we do receive updated information from your institution, well update this automatically.

If youre having trouble linking an external account:

Confirm that youre linking to the correct institution. Make sure the web address listed in the search box is the same address you use to log in to your institution directly. You can verify this by clicking the URL in the dropdown menu or directly entering the URL into the search box. See below: contact our Client Services team

Make sure youre using the correct user name and password.You can verify this by logging in to your institution directly on their website. Onceyou'veconfirmed you can log in to your institution, return to Wealthfront and enter that same login information.

Make sure your browser or password manager is not pre-filling your login credentials.Please make sure to clear them out, and enter your linked account credentials manually.

Check to see if you have a follow-up linking action.Some institutions require more than just a username and password when logging in (e.g., security questions, a PIN, etc.). If any of your links require additional steps from you, youll see a red dot on the Accounts menu in the top navigation bar. To complete your link, go to your linked accounts page and follow the prompts.

Is multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication) turned on for your institution account? If so, you may not be able to link the account unless you disable two-factor authentication on your institutions website.

Ifyou'vetried all of the above and stillcan'tlink your account, you can . Please leave the account on your list of linked accounts this helps our team troubleshoot the issue further.

When you contact us, please include the following in your email:

What is the URL you use to login to your bank or brokerage?

What types of account(s) do you have at your bank or brokerage (e.g. 401K, IRA, etc)?

If the issue is that incorrect values are showing for your account(s), please specify the account values you expect to show.

What type of multi-factor authentication (security pin, etc.) is used to connect to your bank or brokerage?

The annual interest rate ( APY ) for the cash account is 1.82% as of November 1, 2019. The rate may change but we'll continue to do everything in our power to pass along more savings to you.

You can open a cash account with just $1. As your balance grows, you earn the same interest rate. There are no balance requirements to keep your account open or to earn interest.

Interest accrues daily and is compounded monthly. Its typically credited to your account on the 1st business day of the following month.

How can we offer such a high interest rate? Read our blog post to find out more.

When you link your financial accounts to Wealthfront, we factor your account details into our research-driven financial planning model to project your finances and net worth over time. Based on these projections, you get insights and advice to help you make smarter long-term financial decisions.

Specifically, here are some of the account details we consider, and how we use them:

When you link a...

We look at your...

To project your

Checking or savings account

Spending patterns

monthly spending in retirement, adjusted for inflation

Average annual savings rate

savings rate today and over time

Interest rate on your savings

savings growth today and over time

IRA, 401(k), or other retirement account

Average annual contributions

savings rate today and over time

Investment portfolio and fees

account value today and over time

Individual or joint investment account, or a trust

Average annual deposits

savings rate today and over time

Investment portfolio and fees

account value today and over time

Home and/or mortgage

Home location, mortgage terms, and monthly mortgage payment

Home value today and over time

equity in your home today and over time

debt-to-income ratio over time

Equity compensation account

Equity portfolio

equity value over time

529 or other college savings account

Investment portfolio and fees

Account value today and over time

projected 529 savings compared to the specific costs of nearly any school in the country

Credit Card

Current balance

net worth today and over time

Loan (e.g., student loan, car loan, personal loan)

Loan terms and monthly loan payment

net worth today and over time

debt-to-income ratio over time

Health savings account (HSA)

Current balance

net worth today and over time

Cryptocurrency

Current balance

net worth today and over time

Projection information is based on hypothetical performance calculations, which are not an indicator of any investors actual current or future experience and is provided for illustrative purposes only. All investing involves risk, including the loss of money you invest. Hypothetical performance calculations are developed with the benefit of hindsight and have inherent limitations. Specifically, these results do not reflect actual trading or the effect of material economic and market factors on the decision-making process. Wealthfront assumed we would have been able to purchase and/or sell the securities recommended by our models, that markets were sufficiently liquid to permit those trades, and the expected returns are in no way guaranteed. You should evaluate this information carefully before you invest, and consider Wealthfronts processes, the data we used, and the assumptions we made in developing our hypothetical calculations. Hypothetical results are adjusted to reflect the reinvestment of dividends and other income and, except where otherwise indicated, are presented net of fees.

Tax-Loss Harvesting is part of PassivePlus, our signature suite of investment features. It takes advantage of movements in the markets to capture investment losses, which can reduce your tax bill, leaving more money to invest. It is automatically enabled for all taxable investment accounts.

When an ETF in your Wealthfront portfolio declines in value, a common occurrence in broadly diversified investment portfolios, we sell that ETF at a loss if the loss meets certain thresholds established by our model. You can use the losses to offset ordinary income or investment gains, which can lower your overall tax bill.

Whats more, when we sell an ETF at a loss, we replace it with another highly correlated ETF. The result is that the risk and return profile of your portfolio is unchanged, even as Tax-Loss Harvesting can generate tax savings. These tax savings can then be reinvested to further grow the value of your portfolio.

Read our Tax-Loss Harvesting White Paper for more details.

The main difference relates to who is responsible for reporting cost basis information to the IRS when you sell investments.

Covered cost basis means that your brokerage firm is responsible for reporting cost basis and sale information to the IRS. As part of this responsibility, your firm is required to send this information with your account when your transfer your account to a new broker.

Noncovered cost basis means that your brokerage firm is NOT responsible for reporting cost basis information to the IRS and will only report the sales information. For noncovered securities, you are responsible for reporting cost basis information to the IRS when you file your taxes. If you do not report your cost basis to the IRS, the IRS considers your securities to have been sold at a 100% capital gain, which can result in a higher tax liability.

Securities are typically noncovered if you acquired them before firms were required to report cost basis to the IRS (prior to January 1, 2011 for individual stocks and January 1, 2012 for mutual funds). Securities that you purchased after these dates are most likely covered. Your employer stock may also be considered a noncovered security.

The Fund invests in total return swaps, which are used to gain leveraged exposure to a range of asset classes, including: US Stocks, Foreign Developed Market Stocks, Emerging Market Stocks, Real Estate, US Bonds, and Emerging Markets Bonds. The Funds positions are reported quarterly on Form NQ or Form N-CSR. As of July 31, 2018, the Fund held total return swaps with an aggregate notional exposure of $2,258M, referencing the following ETFs:

SPDR S&P 500 ETF (ticker: SPY); notional value of $144M.

Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets (ticker: VEA); notional value of $82M

iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (ticker: EFA); notional value of $79M

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (ticker: VWO); notional value of $105M

Vanguard Real Estate ETF (ticker: VNW); notional value of $173M

iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (ticker: AGG); notional value of $1,335M

iShares JP Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (ticker: EMB); notional value of $240M

The total return swap positions are collateralized with holdings of cash and U.S. Treasury Bills with maturities less than three months. The portfolio holdings information provided above is as of July 31, 2018, which is subject to change and may not reflect the Funds current holdings. The foregoing information should not be considered investment advice.

Links to your institution can fail for a variety of reasons:

Your bank or brokerage changed their website or the way data is accessed. Examples of this could include updates to the institutions login procedure to make it more secure by adding two-factor authentication or additional security questions.

Some institutions periodically prevent access to data aggregators. In these situations, we will work with these institutions to restore connectivity as soon as possible.

Institutions merging with each other or rebranding.

Short-term server maintenance.

When a link fails, well let you know that its temporarily down - the good news is, youdon'thave to do anything! We request information again automatically without any action on your part, and we work with the institution to restore the link automatically as soon as possible. Well still show you the most recently received information

Wealthfront receives a portion of the interest earned on the money in your cash account, just like a traditional bank. However, we keep our operating costs lower than a traditional bank by only building products that we can automate. This means we can provide a higher interest rate with our cash account.

How can we offer such a high interest rate? Read our blog post to learn more: How The High Interest Rate On Wealthfront Cash Accounts Does What Banks Refuse To Do

Below is a short summary of what to expect for tax season over the coming months:

When will my tax documents be available? For any taxable accounts or IRAs with withdrawals, thefirst tax documentswill post aroundFebruary 15th. Why February 15th? You can access them by clicking the "Documents" link on the top of the website once you log in, and we will email you when the documents are available. To learn the timing of other tax documents, get more detail here.

Whichtax documents should I be expecting? You should expect the following:

For any taxable accounts, trust accounts, or joint accounts with dividends or realized gains/losses well posta Consolidated 1099.

For any IRAs (Traditional, Roth, or SEP) with any distributions/withdrawals, well post a 1099-R.

For any IRAs with contributions/deposits,we'll posta form 5498 (this won't be available until late May because you can contribute to an IRA through mid-April). More about Form 5498 here.

For any 529 account with distributions/withdrawalswell posta 1099-Q.

Can I import these documents into TurboTax ?Yes! We're pleased to continue our partnership with TurboTax this year. You'll have the ability to download a CSV file with your tax information in case you're using another tax software.

You should expect anemail when your first tax documents are ready around February 15th.

Not yet, but we plan to support billpay in the near future!

You can transfer a SIMPLE IRA to a Wealthfront IRA tax-free through a trustee-to-trustee transfer if its been at least two (2) years since your employer first contributed to your SIMPLE IRA.

If your SIMPLE IRA is less than two (2) years old, transferring the account will not be tax-free, and the firm that holds your SIMPLE IRA will likely reject the transfer altogether. Learn more about SIMPLE IRA transfers on the IRS website.

We do not charge any fees for our cash account.

For our investment accounts, we charge an annual advisory fee of 0.25% on all assets under management deducted monthly.* Wealthfront does not charge any account-opening fees, withdrawal or account-closing fees, trading/commission fees, or account transfer fees.

Example Advisory Fee Calculation for investment accounts:

An account with an average monthly balance of $100K will have a monthly advisory fee of $20.55. Assuming 30 days in the month and 365 days in the year, the math is as follows: $100,000 * 0.0025 * (30/365) = $20.55.

The only other fee you incur is the expense ratio embedded in the ETFs and mutual funds you will own. The one expense ratio Wealthfront earns is the 0.25% we charge for the Wealthfront Risk Parity Mutual Fund, which can represent up to 20% of your portfolio. Wealthfront 529 account fees are slightly different. You can view our 529 fee details here.

*If you signed up prior to April 1, 2018, you will receive your first $10,000 managed for free. For an account with an average monthly balance of $100,000, your monthly advisory fee is $18.49 ($90,000 * .0025 * (30/365)).

Wealthfronts cash account is neither a checking or savings account. It is a high-interest cash account that offers many of the same features you typically associate with high-yield savings accounts, but with fewer restrictions since Wealthfront is not a bank.

Here are the highlights:

1.82% APY. No strings attached. That interest rate is more than 18x greater than the national average according to Bankrate as of 11/01/19. The rate may change but well continue to do everything in our power to pass along more savings to you.

FDIC insurance for up to $1 million. Your cash is FDIC insured through our partner banks for up to $1 million. Learn more.

No fees. No advisory fees, no management fees, no surprises. Learn more.

Zero market risk. Your cash is kept out of the markets, so you never have to worry about short-term volatility.

Unlimited, free transfers. Easily move your money in and out of your cash account at no cost to you. (Transfers across Wealthfront accounts coming soon!) Learn more.

$1 minimum. It only takes $1 to open and there are no additional deposit requirements.

Make sure to keep enough in your everyday checking account to cover your regular bills and expenses. In the future, we plan to support additional features to serve your everyday cash needs!

To learn more about the Wealthfront Cash Account, please see our blog post.

Many Vanguard index funds are eligible to convert to ETFs as Vanguard has a unique share class structure that allows this process to occur without taxes if it is completed while you hold the securities at Vanguard.

For a list of the mutual funds that may be convertible to ETFs please see the list below.

Please note that there may be blackout periods for certain funds or other circumstances that may prevent the conversion. Contact Vanguard for additional information and to initiate the conversion process.

Mutual FundName

Investor Shares

Admiral Shares

ETF

Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund

VBMFX

VBTLX

BND

Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund

VBISX

VBIRX

BSV

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund

VBIIX

VBILX

BIV

Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund

VBLTX

BLV

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Government Bond Index Fund

VSIGX

VGIT

Vanguard Long-Term Government Bond Fund

VLGSX

VGLT

Vanguard Mortgage-Backed Securities Fund

VMBSX

VMBS

Vanguard Short-Term Government Bond Index Fund

VSBSX

VGSH

Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities Fund

VTIPX

VTAPX

VTIP

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond Fund

VICSX

VCIT

Vanguard Long-Term Corporate Bond Fund

VLTCX

VCLT

Vanguard Short-Term Corporate Bond Fund

VSCSX

VCSH

Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond Index Fund

VTEBX

VTEAX

VTEB

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Index Fund

VDAIX

VDADX

VIG

Vanguard Growth Index Fund

VIGRX

VIGAX

VUG

Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund

VHDYX

VYM

Vanguard Large-Cap

VLACX

VLCAX

VV

Vanguard S&P 500

VFINX

VFIAX

VOO

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund

VTSMX

VTSAX

VTI

Vanguard Value

VIVAX

VVIAX

VTV

Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund

VEXMX

VEXAX

VXF

Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund

VIMSX

VIMAX

VO

Vanguard Mid-Cap Value Index Fund

VMVIX

VMVAX

VOE

Vanguard Mid-Cap Growth Index Fund

VMGIX

VMGMX

VOT

Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund

NAESX

VSMAX

VB

Vanguard Small-Cap Growth Index Fund

VSGAX

VSGAX

VBK

Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund

VISVX

VSIAX

VBR

Vanguard Energy Index Fund

VENAX

VDE

Vanguard Materials Index Fund

VMIAX

VAW

Vanguard Industrials Index Fund

VINAX

VIS

Vanguard Consumer Discretionary Index Fund

VCDAX

VCR

Vanguard Consumer Stapes Index Fund

VCSAX

VDC

Vanguard Health Care Index Fund

VHCIX

VHT

Vanguard Financials Index Fund

VFAIX

VFH

Vanguard Information Technology Index Fund

VITAX

VGT

Vanguard Telecommunication Services Index Fund

VTCAX

VOX

Vanguard Utilities Index Fund

VUIAX

VPU

Vanguard REIT Index Fund

VGSIX

VGSLX

VNQ

Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund

VEIEX

VEMAX

VWO

Vanguard European Stock Index Fund

VEURX

VEUSX

VGK

Vanguard Pacific Stock Index Fund

VPACX

VPADX

VPL

Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap Index Fund

VFSVX

VSS

Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund

VTWSX

VT

Vanguard Total International Stock index Fund

VGTSX

VTIAX

VXUS

Vanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond

VGOVX

VGAVX

VWOB

Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Index Fund

VFWIX

VFWAX

VEU

Vanguard Developed Markets Index Fund

VTMGX

VEA

Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation Index Fund

VIAIX

VIAAX

VIGI

Vanguard International High Dividend Yield Index Fund

VIHIX

VIHAX

VYMI

Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund

VTIBX

VTABX

BNDX

Global Ex-US Real Estate Index Fund

VGXRX

VGRLX

VNQI

In 2018, a small number of clients helped us test a beta version of our cash account before we launched it to the public.

Here are the primary differences:

Insurance: For the Cash Beta Account, we held your funds in a money market fund (TIMXX) protected with SIPC Insurance. With our current cash account, your funds are held in cash at various unaffiliated banks and protected with FDIC insurance up to $1 million. Learn more here.

Interest rate: For the Cash Beta, the interest rate fluctuated with any changes in TIMXX, which could be pretty frequent. With our current cash account, your interest rate should not change as frequently.

Tax implications: For the Cash Beta which used a money market fund, interest earned was reported as dividends and included on a tax form 1099-DIV. With our current cash account, the interest earned is reported on a 1099-INT. You should consult your tax advisor for additional information.

Note: If you were part of the Cash Beta, youll have two different tax documents for 2019 related to your cash account. Youll have a 1099-Div for the beginning of the year while you were still in the Beta, and a 1099-INT that for your interest earned in the current cash account.

No.

Yes. Please open an IRA account on our website by clicking "open new account" for current clients, or "invest now" if you are not yet a client. Then select the option to "transfer an existing account". Complete the information and your IRA will automatically transfer in 5-10 business days.

Please note that we will sell any positions in your existing IRA account upon transfer to Wealthfront and reinvest the proceeds per your Wealthfront investment plan.

Transferring your existing IRA to an IRA at Wealthfront is not a taxable event.

We currently do not have a routing number you can useto set up a direct deposit (i.e. from your payroll) or to initiate an ACH transfer/pay bills out of your Wealthfront account by entering the routing/account number at another institution.In the future, we will offer this capability.

Any ACH transfers between Wealthfront and your bank account need to be initiated through our website by clicking "Transfer funds."

We do, however, support wire transfers into Wealthfront accounts. To obtain the routing number for the purpose of an incoming wire transfer, please log into your dashboardand click Transfer funds -> Put money in -> Use Same-day wire.

Before adjusting your risk score, you may want to review our blog post on the right and wrong reasons to change your risk score, in which we discuss that changing your risk tolerance in reaction to market performance is an unconscious form of market timing.

If you change your risk score in a taxable account, our software willattempt totransition your account to your new allocation in a tax-efficient mannerand minimize realized short term capital gains.If rebalancing will generate significant tax consequences or result in wash sales, then we may not trade right away. This means your allocation may differ from your target allocation for an extended period of time. When you make additional deposits, receive dividends or when overweight asset classes subsequently trade at a loss well use these opportunities to transition your account to your new allocation.

If these trades will not result in significant tax consequences or wash sales, we typically rebalance your account within one business day.

If you change your risk score in a retirement account, we typically rebalance within one business day. Please note that we do not guarantee the timing of any trades.

To change your risk score, log into our full Website, click on your account name in blue text, and click on your risk score in gray text on the bottom left. This will bring you to your settings where you can change your risk score. You'll be taken through the risk questionnaire again, but at the end you'll be able to change your risk score up or down.

Please note that when you change your risk score for taxable accounts, we don't automatically trade to your new risk tolerance. Instead, we first take the tax consequences into consideration before trading. Learn more here.

We also recommend reading this blog post for more information on the right and wrong reasons to change your risk score.

Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting, formerly known as Direct Indexing, is an enhanced form of Tax-Loss Harvesting that looks for movements in individual stocks to harvest more tax losses and lower your tax bill even more and is available for taxable accounts between $100K and $500K. Taxable accounts over $500K get access to Smart Beta.

Instead of using a single ETF or Index Fund to invest in U.S. stocks (such as VTI), Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting purchases up to 500 individual stocks from the S&P 500 Index and a completion ETF of smaller companies. We'll purchase up to 1,000 stocks from the S&P 1500 Index for larger accounts. This allows us to take advantage of the countless opportunities for tax-loss harvesting presented by the movement of individual stocks, to further improve your investment performance.

Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting is part of PassivePlus, our signature suite of investment features designed to deliver more returns without more risk.

Read our Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting White Paper for more details.

You can contact us by email or phone with any account-related question, problem or suggestion.

We estimate the value of an appropriate emergency fund based on an assumption that your annual expenses are 80% of after-tax income and the average emergency fund is designed to cover 4.5 months of expenses (37.5% of annual expenses). The emergency fund is therefore equal to 30% of your annual after-tax income (80% x 37.5%).

We subtract your estimated emergency fund from your cash accounts first, and then any additional amount from your investment accounts. The remaining cash, if any, is considered excess cash.

Smart Beta, formerly known as Advanced Indexing, is an investment feature designed to increase your expected returns by weighting the securities in your portfolio more intelligently.Its available to clients with taxable account balances of $500k or more.

Most index funds (like S&P 500 index funds) weight the stocks in the funds in direct proportion to each companys market capitalization. In other words, the larger the company, the more of the fund is invested in that companys stock. This has been the traditional approach to tracking the index.

There have been decades of research on using factors, other than market capitalization, to track the performance of a collection of stocks.Smart Beta uses multiple factors to determine the weighting of stocks in your portfolio. In addition to market capitalization, it also analyzes five other factors - value, momentum, dividend yield, market beta and volatility.Multi-factor models have been used by institutional investors since the 1970s and more recently were recognized by the Nobel Prize awarded in 2013. Firms like Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) have employed multi factor models to attract assets in excess of $500 billion.

The primary benefits of Smart Beta are:

Tax-efficient: By pairing it with Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting, were able to minimize the impact of taxes on your excess returns. No other Smart Beta service or fund is able to do this.

Multifactor: While there are many investment factors that can be considered when assessing an individual security, 95% of Smart Beta ETFs only use one factor. But our research team has analyzed the data and determined that five factors most efficiently optimize your portfolio.

No fee: Smart Beta is available for no additional fee above and beyond the standard Wealthfront advisory fee. This is significant, as no other issuer of a factor weighted index funds does this. In fact, they often charge an incremental fee at least equal to the benefit of the feature. All of the benefit goes to you with Smart Beta.

Smart Beta is part of PassivePlus, our signature suite of investment features designed to deliver more returns without more risk.

For more details, see our Smart Beta White Paper.

Each month you are charged an advisory fee equal to 1/365 (1/366 on a leap year) of the annual rate multiplied by the net market value of your invested assets as of close of markets for each day in the month, multiplied by the number of days in a month your money was managed.*For example, Jane invests $35,000 in a diversified portfolio on Wealthfront. Jane begins investing on April 5th. At the end of April, she will have been invested for a total of 26 days. Wealthfronts annual fee rate is 0.25 percent. To simplify this example, we will assume that the net market value of Janes assets remains $35,000 while invested. Therefore, Janes advisory fee for the month of April equals: (0.25% / 365) * (the net market value of managed assets) for every day on which the assets were managed = (0.25% / 365) * $35,000 * 26 = $6.23

*If you signed up prior to April 1, 2018, you will receive your first $10,000 managed for free.

You can change the following inputs in your plan and see how each affects your retirement outcome.

Adding a spouse: Add a spouse to your retirement plan so that you can plan for retirement together. If you add a spouse, we ask your spouses age and income so that we can estimate Social Security benefits (in addition to your own), contribution limits and adjust tax calculations appropriately.

Gender: We use this to estimate provide a suggestion on life expectancy conditional on gender.

Retirement age: Alter the age at which you retire. This will affect the amount of time you save for retirement and also your Social Security benefits. Retiring earlier generally means less time to save, less time for your investments to potentially increase in value, more retirement spending and possibly less Social Security benefits.

Life expectancy: Change the age at which you expect to stop needing retirement funds.

Annual income for you and your spouse: The gross annual income for you and your spouse before any taxes (eg. federal, state, Social Security, Medicare), benefit deductions (eg. FSA, HSA), other withholdings or pre-tax contributions to tax-advantaged accounts such as a Roth 401(k) or HSA.

Income expected in retirement aside from Social Security and investment withdrawals: The monthly value of all income you expect in retirement from sources other than Social Security and your savings. Examples are income from rental properties you own and income from defined benefit retirement plans offered by your current or previous employer.

Linked accounts: Link more accounts to your plan at any time and this will generate a more comprehensive retirement income estimate. You can also change the type of a linked account to better reflect its account type in case its classification is not correct. For example, the data we obtain from your account might not be sufficient to classify it properly, in which case it might be classified as Unknown type. You can change its type to better reflect its actual type and contribution limits.

Planned savings: Specify expected monthly contribution amounts toward your Wealthfront and other linked accounts. As you change this amount, Wealthfront provides recommendations on how to adjust your contributions across accounts. Planned savings grow with projected inflation in your plan.

Because of their tax benefits, we recommend you prioritize employer-sponsored plans like 401(k) and individual retirement accounts like Roth or Traditional IRA over a taxable personal savings account. If your employer does not offer a 401(k) plan or if you cannot use tax advantaged accounts, we recommend you use a taxable personal savings account.

Social Security: You can choose to include 100%, 50% or 0% of estimated social security benefits in your projection.

Target retirement spending: Amount your household is expected to spend in retirement, which we automatically estimate based on linked accounts and your age.

For more details on our methodology, please log into your account and review the Path disclosures.

We currently support transfers between Wealthfront cash accounts and taxable investment accounts. Please review our Wealthfront Transfer FAQs for more information.

Yes! Even though the Wealthfront 529 College Savings Plan is sponsored by the State of Nevada, there are no state residency restrictions. Residents of any state may contribute to the plan. If you are not a Nevada taxpayer, however, consider before investing whether your or the beneficiarys home state offers a 529 plan that provides its taxpayers with favorable state tax and other benefits that may only be available through investment in the home states 529 plan and that are not available through investment in the Wealthfront 529 College Savings Plan.

We currently support transfers between Wealthfront cash accounts and taxable investment accounts. Please review our Wealthfront Transfer FAQs for more information.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have the ability to electronically transfer (journal) cash or securities in-kind between other types of accounts. Journaling is more complicated than it might appear because it requires not only transferring the securities held in an account, but the cost basis information and transaction history as well. If not done correctly it can cause numerous issues for our clients, particularly those employing our Daily Tax-Loss Harvesting and Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting strategies.

The only way we can keep our fee so low for the value we provide is to only do things that are completely automated. We prioritize features that will have the most financial impact on your wealth and that will appeal to the broadest audience and electronic journaling has not yet made it.

To transfer funds between Wealthfront accounts, log in to the website or app and click on "Transfer Funds". On the transfer page, you'll see the option to move funds between eligible Wealthfront accounts.

Note that wedon'tcurrently support internal transfers between all Wealthfront accounts.

As of 10/8/19, here are the transfers we support:

Cash Account => Taxable Investment Account

Taxable Investment Account => Cash Account

Please review this link for a more detailed list, including information on account ownership requirements (eg. Individual, Joint, Trust).

We regularly survey the ETF landscape (of which there are over 1,400) and rank ETFs in each asset class using the objective criteria described in the FAQ below titled How do you pick ETFs? Vanguard ETFs often come out on top. We receive no compensation for recommending Vanguard products or any other ETFs.

We look for ETFs with the lowest annual expense ratios, minimal tracking error, and sufficient liquidity. Unfortunately, many investors only focus on cost and end up with an ETF that doesnt track its benchmark well. This defeats the purpose of optimizing the mix of asset classes. Poor liquidity can create real problems when it comes time to buy a house or pay for your kids college.

We chose each of the ETFs because we believe they represent the best way to invest in each corresponding asset class. We offer a managed service that attempts to solve your long-term portfolio needs and are therefore not necessarily appropriate for do-it-yourselfers.

Wealthfront invests your money all at once. The benefit of investing in a portfolio of relatively uncorrelated asset classes is that when one asset class is up, its likely others are down. Therefore, the timing of when you invest is relatively unimportant.Vanguard published a white paper on dollar cost averaging for a diversified portfolio and came to the same conclusion.

If you prefer to dollar cost average, weve made it convenient for you to schedule deposits into your Wealthfront account via bank transfer (ACH). To set-up a scheduled deposit, log in and click the Add Funds button.

You have to renew your linked account credentials when you change your login credentials (which includes your password or security answers), your institution has updated their security process, or you have to take some action on your institutions website (such as accepting new terms and conditions).

Some institutions require you to renew your credentials on a regular basis as a result of their security verification process; we are working with these institutions to improve this process. Even if youdon'tupdate this every day, well still show you the most recently received information.