This Is The Best Debit Card for Teens Who Want to Try Their Hand at Investing (2024)

For parents in search of an account that offers their teens more than just a way to pay for purchases, investing industry stalwart Fidelity has an answer.

With the Fidelity Youth Account, children aged 13 to 17 can invest their money in the stock market alongside an easy-to-use debit card with all the standard features.

This teen-owned brokerage account comes with a $50 welcome bonus, domestic ATM fee reimbursem*nt and no subscription fees, account fees, trading commissions or minimum balance requirements. A parent, however, must have an existing Fidelity brokerage account in order for their teen to get this debit card.

What does the debit card offer?

With Fidelity’s Youth Account, teens can experience firsthand the risks and rewards of investing. Unlike traditional joint- or custodial-trading accounts offered by many investment firms, Fidelity’s brokerage account can be solely controlled by your teen, meaning they don’t need an adult to manage it on their behalf.

The account does require some adult supervision, though, as parents must initiate and approve its opening. Additionally, parents can log in to view all debit card transactions and trade confirmations whenever they want and can opt to receive real-time alerts for all trades, transactions and spending. Any unwanted behavior and parents can close the account or cancel the debit card.

To prevent your teen from engaging in riskier activities, Fidelity also puts guardrails in place by limiting the investment options and trading behavior permitted in a Youth Account. While teens can invest with as little as $1 and make as many trades as they want, their options are restricted.

They cannot buy other companies’ mutual funds, corporate bonds, municipal fixed-income securities, certificates of deposit, treasuries, penny stocks, international stocks, foreign currencies or cryptocurrencies. Teens are also barred from after-hours trading, short selling and participating in initial public offerings.

Fidelity’s Youth Learning Center, available through its app and online, provides teens with easy-to-digest financial explainers on a range of topics such as ETF basics and why diversification is important.

Are the perks worth the fees?

There are other debit card accounts available to under 18-year-olds that also offer investing services, but most charge a subscription or other fee to take advantage. Greenlight, our pick for best overall debit card for kids, for example, costs $9.98 a month if you want access to its investing platform.

Fidelity’s overall lack of account fees and $50 welcome bonus means that while teens may lose some money based on the investment choices they make, the account itself won’t eat into their returns and is a low-cost way for them to gain stock market experience. (Note that unless your teen buys Fidelity ZERO funds, which carry no expense ratio, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds will charge a management fee.)

Who benefits most from this card?

Depending on how their chosen stocks perform, teens could potentially lose some or all of the money held within the Fidelity Youth Account. So this option is best for mature, responsible kids who understand the basics of investing.

This account lacks some parental control over spending, which means prodigal teens would likely be better served by a card with more potential for adult involvement. Greenlight, for instance, allows parents to set limits on ATM cash withdrawals, spending within a certain category and purchases at specific stores. Chase’s First Banking debit card, our pick for best free debit card for younger children, also offers a range of spending controls.

Finally, parents who have other Fidelity accounts in which their child is either a named beneficiary, such as a Uniform Gift to Minors Act account, or which were set up for their benefit, such as a Roth IRA for minors, should be aware that adding a Youth Account will allow a child to view information about all accounts they’re connected to. This could be problematic if you don’t yet want your teen to know about college savings, inheritances or other assets due to them.

How we picked

To pick Buy Side from WSJ’s Best Debit Cards for Kids, we looked at card options available to those under the age of 18, including prepaid debit cards, checking account-linked debit cards, secured credit cards and brokerage account-linked debit cards. To pick the best ones, fees to open or maintain the account were most heavily weighed, followed by the range of parental controls available and other perks offered, such as interest payments, rewards or educational tools. We also favored cards that were easy to obtain and for parents to monitor with a well-reviewed app experience.

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