Forge Trust Review

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Forge Trust is a South Dakota-chartered trust company that acts as a custodian for self-directed IRAs, letting account holders put retirement money into real estate, private equity, precious metals, promissory notes, and other assets that most mainstream IRA providers won't touch.

The company traces its roots back more than 40 years to IRA Services Trust Company, which rebranded as Forge Trust after being acquired by Forge Global, the publicly traded private securities marketplace (NYSE: FRGE).

Today Forge Trust says it services over 2.3 million accounts holding more than $16 billion in assets. This review looks at what the company actually offers, how its fees stack up, and what real customers say about working with it.

Key Takeaways

• Forge Trust holds an A+ rating with BBB accreditation, but its Trustpilot score sits at 2.5 out of 5 and ComplaintsBoard shows 1.4 out of 5 from recent reviewers.
• Fees are charged per account and per asset on a quarterly basis, plus separate transaction, wire, and termination charges, which makes total cost hard to predict without reading the full fee schedule.
• The most common complaints involve slow response times, unexpected fees when closing an account, and delays transferring assets like real estate or private equity to a new custodian.

Company Background

Forge Trust Co. is chartered as a trust company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with operational offices that have included San Carlos and San Mateo, California.

The company's history goes back to IRA Services Trust Company, a name still recognized by long-time self-directed IRA investors. In 2022, Forge Global acquired the business and rebranded it as Forge Trust, folding it into a broader private markets platform that also runs a trading marketplace for pre-IPO shares.

That parentage matters because it shapes Forge Trust's focus: unlike custodians that grew out of brokerage or banking backgrounds, Forge Trust's institutional roots are in private securities, which lines up with the alternative asset classes it now custodies for individual retirement accounts.

Forge Trust operates strictly as a passive custodian. It does not give investment, tax, or legal advice, and it does not evaluate whether a given investment is a good idea.

Its job is to hold the asset, process paperwork, file required IRS reporting, and confirm that transactions don't violate prohibited transaction rules.

That distinction trips up some new self-directed IRA investors who expect more guidance than a custodian is legally allowed to provide.

Self-directed IRAs remain a small slice of the overall retirement market. Total U.S. retirement assets crossed $39.9 trillion in early 2024, according to Federal Reserve data cited by NerdWallet, and roughly 60 percent of adults hold a 401(k), traditional IRA, or Roth IRA.

Self-directed accounts that hold alternative assets like real estate or private equity make up a much smaller share of that total, but interest has grown as more investors look for ways to diversify retirement savings beyond publicly traded stocks and bonds.

That growth is part of why custodians like Forge Trust, Equity Trust, and Millennium Trust have expanded their alternative-asset processing capacity over the past decade.

Account Types and 2026 Contribution Limits

Forge Trust offers the standard menu of tax-advantaged accounts used for self-directed investing.

Each comes with its own contribution rules set by the IRS, and those limits were adjusted upward for 2026.

These limits apply whether the account is self-directed or held at a mainstream brokerage. What changes with Forge Trust is what you can put inside the account once it's funded.

What You Can Actually Invest In

Forge Trust custodies a wide range of alternative assets, which is the entire reason investors choose a self-directed IRA over a standard brokerage IRA.

According to the company's own materials, supported asset types include:

Every one of these assets requires paperwork that a standard IRA custodian never has to touch: annual valuations, purchase agreements, transfer documents, and sometimes third-party appraisals.

Forge Trust's Investment Specialists review this documentation before an asset can be added to an account, which is standard practice among self-directed custodians but adds processing time compared to buying a stock through an app.

Fee Structure

Forge Trust does not charge a flat annual fee. Instead it uses a tiered structure built around account fees, asset fees, and transaction-based charges.

Based on the company's published fee schedule, the general categories look like this:

This model means total cost depends heavily on how many assets you hold and how often you transact.

A single-asset real estate IRA will cost less per year than an account holding five separate private placements, each of which triggers its own quarterly asset fee.

Investors comparing custodians should ask for a personalized fee estimate rather than relying on a headline number, since the per-asset structure can add up quickly for diversified portfolios.

A few reviewers on IRA-focused comparison sites have pointed out that Forge Trust's tiered, asset-based approach differs from flat-fee competitors, and that the difference only becomes obvious once an account holds several assets at once.

A flat-fee custodian charging one annual price regardless of asset count can end up cheaper for a diversified portfolio, while Forge Trust's model may cost less for an investor who holds a single large asset, such as one piece of rental property, and rarely transacts.

There is no universally cheaper option here. The right structure depends on how many separate holdings the account will carry and how often those holdings change hands.

Customer Ratings Across Platforms

Forge Trust's reputation looks different depending on where you check. Regulatory-style profiles tend to rate it well, while open review platforms show a rougher picture.

The gap between the BBB rating and the consumer review platforms is worth sitting with.

BBB accreditation and letter grades are based on how a business responds to complaints filed through BBB's system, not a running average of star ratings.

A company can hold an A+ while still showing a low score on Trustpilot or ComplaintsBoard, because those two systems measure different things.

Anyone researching Forge Trust should look at more than one source before drawing a conclusion.

Common Complaints

Reading through BBB complaints, Trustpilot reviews, and ComplaintsBoard entries turns up a recurring set of issues.

Several reviewers describe long hold times when calling customer service, sometimes over an hour before reaching a live person.

Others describe fee surprises at account closure, including one reviewer who reported paying over $600 in combined fees to close two accounts.

A few complaints involve delays transferring private assets, such as private company stock or LLC interests, to a new custodian after the account holder decided to leave.

One older complaint references extended delays tied to litigation involving a since-collapsed investment sponsor, Woodbridge, which affected accounts that held that sponsor's notes rather than being a fault in Forge Trust's own operations.

Not every review is negative. Some BBB reviews describe responsive account representatives who walked customers through complicated transfers or LLC valuations without major issues.

The split in experience appears to track with account complexity: simple, single-asset accounts generate fewer complaints than accounts holding multiple alternative assets that require more paperwork and coordination.

Who Forge Trust Fits and Who Should Look Elsewhere

Forge Trust makes sense for investors who already know they want to hold real estate, private equity, or precious metals inside a retirement account and who are comfortable with a per-asset fee structure.

Given its ownership under Forge Global, it may also appeal to investors who already hold pre-IPO shares through Forge's trading marketplace and want to keep those shares inside a tax-advantaged account.

Investors who want a simple, low-cost IRA holding index funds or ETFs have no reason to use a self-directed custodian at all.

Standard brokerages handle that at a fraction of the cost, since none of the alternative-asset infrastructure applies.

Investors who are especially sensitive to customer service responsiveness should also weigh the Trustpilot and ComplaintsBoard patterns carefully, and consider requesting a full, itemized fee schedule and asking pointed questions about average transfer-out timelines before funding an account.