Each brokerage house is different in how they classify their investment-only accounts and applications can update at any time. We have made our best efforts to provide you the most up to date applications here, but please check with E*Trade to ensure you have the right application to open an investment-only brokerage account under your Solo 401k plan and trust.

It's important to remember you're not opening an E*Trade 401k. Rather, your 401k plan and trust are opening an investment-only account with E*Trade.

E*Trade calls these types of accounts "Non-Custodial Retirement Plan" and they are designed to work with your Solo 401k.

Plan Structure: If you and your spouse will maintain separate accounts, select "Participant-Directed Account" and you both need to fill out separate applications.

If you are the sole participant for your 401k plan, select "pooled account".

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Alert: It's important to remember you're not opening an E*Trade 401k. Rather, your 401k plan and trust are opening an investment-only account with E*Trade.

E*Trade calls these types of accounts "Investment Only Account" and they are designed to work with your Solo 401k.

Complete the section for plan information

Enter your business information

Tip: If you're a sole proprietor, enter your name for the company name and list your SSN for the "plan sponsor tax ID number" (since your business may not have an EIN if you are a sole proprietor

Input information for each trustee (one column per trustee). If you are the sole trustee (no spouse) in your plan, input your information in the left-hand column

Continue to input trustee information

Enter employment and citizenship status for each trustee

Since the Solo 401k is a non-ERISA plan, enter your information as Control Person

Since the Solo 401k is a non-ERISA plan, enter your information as Beneficial Owner (your spouse may be an owner as well, if they co-own your business)

Input employment information and citizenship status for each beneficial owner (just you, or you and your spouse)

If your spouse is NOT a co-trustee (and only a participant), enter their information in section 5

Enter your current financial information

Complete your investor profile

Leave these sections blank unless you have a third party administrator (having a TPA is very uncommon for a Solo 401k since your plan is self-administered by you)

Sign and Date

If you plan to trade options in the account, complete this section for the trustee and participant

Let's walk through various scenarios on opening your E*Trade account, be it starting fresh without rollovers, or rolling over an ETrade IRA into the new Solo 401k E*Trade account.
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If you're simply opening the new investment-only account with E*Trade to get into traditional equities, then all you need to to is open the E*Trade Non-Custodial Retirement Plan Account under the name and Tax ID Number of your new Solo 401k. 

Fund your E*Trade account with new contributions, calculated from your business income and you're ready to go.

Complete the Non-Custodial Retirement plan application:  Access the application here

Include your entire Adoption Agreement and Trust Agreement. These documents can be found in your 401k documents, located on your 401k dashboard.

Note: It is not required you fund the account when submitting the Non-Custodial Retirement Plan account application. 

Fax your application to E*Trade at 866-650-0003.
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If you and your spouse are each opening the new investment-only account with E*Trade to get into traditional equities, then you'll each fill out an application as a participant.

Each participant will keep his money separate in his own E*Trade participant account. You'll each have a distinct login and keep the E*Trade funds separate.

Complete the Non-Custodial Retirement plan application:  Access application here

Include your entire Adoption Agreement and your trust document. These documents can be found in your 401k documents, located on your 401k dashboard.

In section 2, mark that you're completing a direct rollover to a qualified employer plan and enter your new account number:

Leave section 3 blank.  
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In section 4, select how you would like to distribute the assets. In this example, we're rolling over all of the funds from the IRA into the new plan:

Leave Section 5 blank
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In Section 6, you should not need to have taxes withheld as this is a direct rollover from one qualified retirement plan to another:

Sign in Section 7.
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If filling out the PDF, fax your application and documents to E*Trade at 866-650-0003. You also need to send a valid photo ID of the account holder that is requesting the transfer.  

Further supporting documentation to send in with your application:

The above information will help the E*Trade team to connect the Nabers Services prototype trust (which has IRS approval) to your business and it's Solo 401k plan.

Note: It is not required you fund the account when establishing the Non-Custodial Retirement Plan account. Additionally, you can submit your transfer documents rolling over funds while you establish the new Non-Custodial Retirement Plan account.

The above steps will accomplish  opening a new Non-Custodial Retirement Plan account, withdrawing the funds from the E*Trade IRA, transferring them to the new Non-Custodial Retirement Plan account with E*Trade and then accepting the rollover as your own plan administrator.
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