Almost anything you own can go into a trust: real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, business interests, life insurance, collectibles, intellectual property, and digital assets. The important exceptions are retirement accounts and health savings accounts, which cannot be retitled to a trust without triggering a full taxable distribution. Understanding what assets can and cannot go into a trust is less about a fixed list than about matching each asset to the right type of trust and the right transfer method, because a mismatch can create tax bills, void insurance, or disqualify you from benefits you were counting on.
Why the Type of Trust Changes the Answer
Before working through specific assets, it helps to know that “can this go in a trust” often depends on which kind of trust you mean.
A revocable living trust leaves you in full control. You can add or remove assets, change beneficiaries, or dissolve it. The IRS treats it as an extension of you, so income is reported on your personal return under your Social Security number, and the assets remain part of your estate for estate tax purposes. The main payoffs are avoiding probate and a smooth handoff if you become incapacitated.
An irrevocable trust is a separate legal entity with its own tax identification number. Once you fund it, you generally cannot take the assets back or change the terms. In exchange for giving up control, you may gain estate tax reduction, creditor protection, and eligibility for certain government benefits. Specialized trusts such as irrevocable life insurance trusts and Medicaid planning trusts fall into this category.
Real Estate
Homes, rental properties, vacation properties, and raw land are among the most common assets funded into trusts. You prepare a new deed naming the trust as owner, sign before a notary, and record it with the county recorder. The recording keeps the property out of probate, which is both slow and public: anyone can search probate filings to see what you owned and who received it.
If the property is mortgaged, the Garn-St. Germain Act bars lenders from invoking a due-on-sale clause on residential property with fewer than five units when the transfer goes into an inter vivos trust where you remain a beneficiary and continue to occupy the home.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 U.S. Code 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions Still, notify your loan servicer and homeowners insurance carrier after recording so their records match the new title.
Bank Accounts and Investment Accounts
Checking, savings, brokerage accounts, CDs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds can all be retitled into a trust. The institution will usually ask for a certification of trust, a short summary document that confirms the trust exists, names the trustee, and provides the tax ID without revealing beneficiaries or distribution terms.
Most people retitle investment accounts early because they are high value and simple to transfer. The real risk is forgetting. An account left in your individual name passes through probate regardless of what the trust document says.
Business Ownership Interests
Partnership interests, LLC membership interests, and corporate shares can be moved into a trust to keep the ownership out of probate and provide continuity. For an LLC, you assign your membership interest to the trust and update the operating agreement. For a corporation, you re-register shares in the trust’s name. Review the governing documents first, because operating agreements and bylaws often restrict transfers or require consent from other owners.
S Corporation Stock Is a Special Case
Federal tax law limits who can hold S corporation stock. If an ineligible shareholder ends up owning shares, the company loses its S election and gets taxed as a C corporation. Only certain trusts qualify as permissible shareholders: grantor trusts where the deemed owner is a U.S. citizen or resident, testamentary trusts for a limited two-year window after stock transfers from an estate, voting trusts, electing small business trusts, and qualified Subchapter S trusts.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 1361 – S Corporation Defined If your trust does not fit one of those categories, moving S corporation stock into it can cost everyone in the company their favorable tax treatment.
Life Insurance Policies
You can name a revocable trust as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy to control how proceeds are distributed, but the death benefit still counts as part of your taxable estate.
An irrevocable life insurance trust, or ILIT, is the structure that removes the death benefit from your estate for federal estate tax purposes.3Financial Planning Association. Flexible Estate Planning with ILITs and Life Insurance For estates approaching or exceeding the $15 million federal estate tax exemption in 2026, that exclusion can save beneficiaries millions.4Internal Revenue Service. Whats New Estate and Gift Tax The ILIT owns the policy and is also named as its beneficiary. It can supply liquidity to cover estate expenses without forcing a sale of other assets.
Watch the three-year rule. If you transfer an existing policy to an ILIT and die within three years, IRC 2035 pulls the death benefit back into your taxable estate, wiping out the advantage. The common workaround is to have the ILIT purchase a new policy from the start rather than transferring one you already own.
Tangible Personal Property
Jewelry, art, antiques, and collectible vehicles can all go into a trust. For titled items like vehicles and boats, you retitle through your state’s motor vehicle or registration agency, with the trustee presenting either the full trust or a certification of trust.
For untitled items, you execute an assignment and attach a detailed schedule to the trust listing each piece. The schedule matters. Vague language like “all my personal property” invites disputes. Describe each item specifically, include an approximate value, and note where it is physically kept. Update the schedule when you acquire or sell anything significant.
Intellectual Property and Digital Assets
Copyrights, patents, and trademarks move into a trust through a written assignment of ownership. Each type has its own recording requirement: patent and trademark assignments go through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and copyright transfers go through the U.S. Copyright Office. Failing to record does not automatically void the transfer, but it can produce ownership disputes later.
Digital assets, including cryptocurrency, online financial accounts, domain names, and social media accounts with commercial value, are governed in nearly every state by the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. A trustee’s access follows a priority order: any online tool the platform provides for naming an account manager after death, then instructions in your trust or other legal documents, then the platform’s terms of service.
Your trust should explicitly grant the trustee authority to access and manage digital assets. Without that language, many platforms will refuse to cooperate or will limit access to non-content information only. Keep a separate, secure list of account credentials and update it. Do not put passwords in the trust itself, since trust documents can end up in court records.
Assets That Cannot Go Into a Trust
A few assets either cannot be transferred to a trust at all or should not be, because the tax or practical consequences outweigh the benefits.
- Retirement accounts as direct transfers. You cannot retitle an IRA or 401(k) in a trust’s name. The IRS treats that as a full distribution, which makes the entire balance taxable as ordinary income in the year of the transfer. On a $500,000 IRA, that mistake can create a six-figure tax bill in a single year. The correct approach is to name the trust as the beneficiary. The account stays in your name during your lifetime, and the trust receives the funds after your death.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts
- Health savings accounts. An HSA must be maintained by the individual account holder. Transferring one to a trust would be a prohibited transaction, costing the account its tax-exempt status and making the entire balance taxable.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4975 – Tax on Prohibited Transactions
- Vehicles you use daily. You can retitle a car in a trust, but doing so complicates insurance claims, registration renewals, and routine transactions. Many estate planners recommend leaving everyday vehicles outside the trust and relying on a small-estate process or a transfer-on-death title where state law allows it.
A Note on Retirement Account Beneficiaries
If you do name a trust as a retirement account beneficiary, how the funds come out depends on whether the trust qualifies as a “see-through” trust under IRS rules. The trust must be valid under state law, become irrevocable at the account owner’s death, have identifiable beneficiaries, and provide a copy to the account custodian by October 31 of the year after the owner’s death.7Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary The stakes are high enough that this decision should involve both your estate planning attorney and your tax advisor.
If Medicaid Planning Is Part of the Picture
A trust does not shelter assets immediately for Medicaid purposes. Medicaid imposes a 60-month look-back on asset transfers. When you apply for coverage for nursing home or long-term care, the agency reviews every financial transaction from the previous five years. Any assets transferred to an irrevocable trust during that window for less than fair market value trigger a penalty period of ineligibility.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries, and Transfers of Assets The penalty length depends on the value transferred divided by the average monthly cost of care in your area.
Assets held in a revocable trust receive no Medicaid protection, because you retain the ability to pull them back. Only irrevocable trusts funded more than five years before application provide shelter, and the trust must genuinely remove your access.
A Trust Only Controls Assets You Actually Transfer Into It
The most common estate planning failure is not a bad trust document. It is a perfectly good trust that no one ever funded. A trust only controls assets formally transferred into it. If you sign the agreement but never retitle the house, re-register the brokerage accounts, or update the insurance beneficiaries, those assets pass through probate exactly as if the trust did not exist.
A pour-over will can act as a partial safety net, directing that assets still in your individual name at death be transferred into the trust. The catch is that those assets go through probate first, which brings court involvement, public records, and delay. A pour-over will catches what falls through the cracks; it is not a substitute for funding the trust during your lifetime. Review your asset titles at least once a year, and after any major purchase, account change, or refinancing.