How to Deposit Checks Written to Children

Being the wonderful relatives they are, my wife's paternal grandparents recently sent a check to start our new son's savings account. The "pay to the order of" field included my son's name, as well as an appended "(child)."

Being new at this sort of thing, I wasn't sure how to deal with it. Could I simply deposit it in the normal fashion? Would I need to open a separate checking account for my son, deposit the check there, and then transfer the money? The check was burning a hole in my pocket waiting to be put into a high-yield online savings account. (This time bankrate.com led me to choose ETrade.) A couple of quick searches online didn't turn up anything useful, so I gave Wells Fargo a call.

According to a friendly banker, a check made out to a minor can be deposited into a parent's account. To accomplish this, the parent must endorse the check by:

1. signing the child's name,
2. writing "minor by," and then
3. signing the parent's name.

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