The Coogan Law Protects Child Voice Actors Too. Most Parents Don't Know How It Actually Works

Animation, video games, commercials, apps, and children's audiobooks all regularly cast child voice actors, and in several states, California most prominently, a real portion of what that child earns is legally required to be set aside in a trust account that the child, not the parent, ultimately controls once they turn eighteen. The law behind this, almost always called the Coogan Law, is nearly ninety years old, and it exists because of one specific child star's very public, very painful lesson in what happens without it.

The Case That Created the Law

Jackie Coogan was one of early Hollywood's biggest child stars, earning an estimated three to four million dollars in the silent-film era, a genuinely staggering sum for the time. When Coogan turned twenty-one and tried to claim his own earnings, he discovered his mother and stepfather had spent nearly all of it. He sued them in 1938 and, after legal costs, recovered only a fraction of what remained of his own fortune. His mother's public defense of what had happened became almost as well known as the case itself.

"No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything."

The public outrage over that case led directly to the California Child Actor's Bill of 1939, universally known since as the Coogan Law, which for the first time required that a portion of a child performer's earnings legally belong to the child, held in trust, rather than being entirely at a parent's or guardian's disposal.

What California's Statute Actually Requires Today

California Family Code Section 6752, the modern form of the Coogan Law, requires that 15 percent of a minor performer's gross earnings under a contract be set aside in trust. A parent or guardian has to open the account, a Coogan Trust Account, at a California-based bank, credit union, brokerage firm, or registered investment company within seven business days of the contract being signed, and the employer is required to withhold that 15 percent and deposit it into the account within 15 days of the minor starting work. If a parent fails to provide proof of a trust account within 180 days of the child starting work, the employer is required to forward that withheld 15 percent to the Entertainment Community Fund, formerly known as The Actors' Fund of America, which then acts as trustee of the funds until the family actually establishes a proper account.

The money in the account is genuinely the child's, not the parent's, held until the beneficiary turns eighteen or reaches the age of majority in their state. A trustee is required to provide an annual accounting of the funds, which is a real, enforceable obligation, not a formality that quietly lapses once the account is opened.

Beyond California: A Patchwork, Not a National Standard

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California's is the oldest and most detailed version of this law, but it isn't the only one. New York and Louisiana are among several other states that have enacted their own trust-account requirements for child performers, each with its own specific percentage, deadlines, and enforcement mechanism, which means a family working across state lines, a real possibility for a voice actor doing remote sessions for productions based anywhere, needs to know which state's law actually governs a given contract rather than assuming California's well-documented rules apply everywhere.

What This Actually Means for Child Voice Acting Specifically

Voice work for animation and games is one of the more common entry points into a child's performing career, partly because it requires no on-camera appearance and can often be recorded in short, manageable sessions. Character voices for animation and games frequently cast children for genuinely child characters, and those contracts are just as subject to Coogan requirements, where applicable, as a live-action film role would be. A parent managing a child voice actor's career needs to treat the trust account as a mandatory part of accepting a job, not an optional afterthought handled whenever convenient, both because it's the law in states that require it and because the 180-day fallback to the Entertainment Community Fund is a real, if imperfect, backstop that a family doesn't want to find out about by default.

SAG-AFTRA's own rules add a further layer of protection for union jobs specifically, and the basics of SAG-AFTRA membership are worth understanding even for a family managing a child's non-union work, since the union's standard practices around minors often inform what a reasonable non-union contract should look like too, even when the union's own rules don't technically apply.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Coogan Law apply to every production that hires a child voice actor?

It depends on which state's law governs the contract and the specific terms of that state's statute. California's requirement is well documented and broadly applies to contracts governed by California law; other states' requirements vary. It's worth confirming the specific applicable law for any given contract rather than assuming.

What actually happens if a parent never sets up the trust account at all?

In California, after 180 days without proof of an account, the employer is required to forward the withheld 15 percent to the Entertainment Community Fund, which holds it as trustee. The money isn't lost, but the family loses control over it being invested or managed according to their own preference until they actually establish a proper account.

Can a parent access the trust account funds before the child turns eighteen?

Generally no, that's the entire point of the structure: the funds are held for the benefit of the minor and released to them directly at the age of majority, not to the parent or guardian who set up the account on their behalf.

Sources and Further Reading

• Collider, This Actor Is Responsible For Child Actors Getting Control of Their Money: the Jackie Coogan lawsuit history and the Lillian Coogan quote.
• California Family Code Section 6752, full statute text: the current legal text requiring the 15 percent trust deposit and account setup timeline.
• BizParentz Foundation, California Coogan Law: a plain-language explainer of the statute's practical requirements, written for working performer families.
• SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union, Coogan Accounts: how a Coogan Trust Account is actually opened and administered in practice.