Interactive Brokers serves more than two million clients around the world, and when you join us – like them – you’ll be able to trade stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds, and more, from a single unified platform, at our low and transparent costs, as well as have access to the global markets with the use of our innovative platforms, tools, and services, including our award-winning Trader Workstation (TWS).
Through this guide, we’ll help you find those resources best suited for your trading and investing needs – whether you’re an individual making an occasional investment, a professional and frequent trader, or an institutional investor – we’re here to help steer you in the right direction.
Open an Account
To become a client at Interactive Brokers, you’ll first need to open an account, fund it, and, once it’s approved, you can then begin to actively deposit and withdraw your funds. In this lesson, we’ll show you how to find the information you need to get started with these steps, as well as provide you with some tips that might help speed up your application review process.
Our website offers a wealth of details about the specific account types that are available to you. To determine which one is right for you will ultimately depend on whether you are applying as an individual or as an institution.
The Open Account menu on our website offers a guide to choosing the appropriate account with easy-to-read tables that break down and describe our various selections, including individual, joint, trust, and IRA accounts, professional and non-professional advisor accounts, family offices, small businesses, hedge funds, mutual funds, money managers, and much more.
To further help you prepare for the application process, you can also select ‘What You Need’ from the Open Account menu, and when you’re ready, simply start the application. By the way, if you’ve already started on an application, you can complete it by choosing the ‘Finish an Application’ option in the same menu.
It’s quite simple to request opening an account with us. All you need to do to get started is:
- Create a username and password,
- Confirm your email address, and
- Complete the application.
You can find certain, general requirements on our website for individual and institutional applicants, including contact information, as well as bank account details, among other items specific to the type of account being requested. You can even select a different language to apply in, if needed. Additional support is also available through our Help services.
Once all documentation has been submitted and accepted, please allow us time to complete our due diligence checks and application review.
And, as mentioned earlier, there are steps you can take to accelerate, or prioritize, the application review process. For example, you may fund your application prior to approval, and If for any reason your account is not approved, the funds will promptly be returned. Please note, however, that while an ACAT (Automated Customer Account Transfer) can be entered as an initial funding method, the request will not begin processing until application approval is granted.
To further help ensure your application status is on track, you can log in, and once there, you can verify that all the necessary documentation has been submitted. You can also check the email you provided us for any correspondence from our Compliance team, which might be a request for additional documentation and / or clarification of existing information. This might help mitigate any undue delays during the review process.
Funding Your Account – Making Deposits & Withdrawals
To learn how to fund, and make subsequent deposits, to your account, refer to the ‘Fund Your Account’ option in the Support section of our website. Since our clients reside in diverse geographic locations globally, we offer a long list of ways to fund accounts across a host of different countries, as well as in several different currencies.
Select to Deposit Funds into your account, and input your region or country of residence, along with the currency type you’re using. For example, if you reside in the United States, you can elect to deposit funds via a direct, electronic transfer from your bank, or mail a check, among other methods. You can use U.S. dollars, or another currency, like Hong Kong dollars, or euros. But if you reside in say, Singapore, you’ll see different selections for methods to deposit funds, as well as available currencies.
We also offer several methods to withdraw funds, including ACH transfers for U.S.-based accounts, Canadian EFT transfers, among several others. Check out our online guides on entering withdrawals, limits, and withdrawing funds to a third party, along with a host of other related information.
Now that you’re more familiar and better prepared for the simple process of applying for an account, funding it, and ways in which you can deposit and withdraw funds, we’ll next take you on a brief tour of our website, where we’ll highlight some of the places you can go to get up-and-running quickly with our platforms, tools, and services.
Hello I live in France ( after a long stay in Canada ) I have CND account in Canada and would like to invest in CND Will it be possible on your platform (I am a dual citizen French Canadian) Thank you for your feed-back JC Bisserbe
Hello, thank you for asking. No, it is not possible to deposit in Canadian Dollars as a French resident at this time. Please use this tool on our website to review available funding methods and ETAs based on your residency and the currency you wish to deposit: https://spr.ly/FundCampusEU
Buenas tardes. Estoy pensando en abrir una cuenta para comprar acciones ipo en USA y me gustaría saber si existe un importe mínimo para comenzar o por el contrario puedo comprar con cualquier importe
Hola, ¡agradecemos su interés en abrir una cuenta! Para solicitarla, visite: https://spr.ly/OpenAccountCampusEU
Se requiere un depósito mínimo de 2000 USD (o equivalente) para las cuentas de margen. No se requiere un depósito mínimo para abrir una cuenta de efectivo en Interactive Brokers para la mayoría de las entidades. Consulte estas preguntas frecuentes para obtener más información sobre qué entidades requieren un depósito mínimo diferente al que se indica: https://www.ibkr.com/faq?id=32659392
Estaremos encantados de ayudarle con preguntas generales sobre la apertura de cuentas aquí. También tenemos una sección de preguntas frecuentes sobre asistencia para la solicitud: https://ibkr.com/article?id=28216814. Comuníquese con nosotros si tiene más preguntas. ¡Estamos aquí para ayudar!
Hello. I am.intreated in opening a brokerage account for my kids. How do i go about it. Thank you
Hello Zainab, we appreciate your interest in opening an account at IBKR! To get started: https://spr.ly/OpenAccountCampusEU
To view the available account types based on your region of residency: https://spr.ly/AccountConfigurationCampusEU
To review detailed application requirements: https://spr.ly/AppReqsCampusEU
We hope this information is helpful!
Bonjour Je suis un particulier et envisage d’investir dans des parts d’ETC adossés à de l’or que j’ai déjà sélectionnés. Merci de bien vouloir me confirmer que je peux le faire via votre plateforme et, dans l’affirmative, m’indiquer la marche à suivre. Cordialement. J. P. Penneret
Bonjour, merci de nous avoir contactés. Vous pouvez consulter tous nos produits et plateformes d’échange disponibles sur notre page web : https://spr.ly/ProductsExchangesCampusEU
Vous devez demander des autorisations de trading pour négocier des produits spécifiques. IBKR accorde ces autorisations en fonction de votre profil financier (par exemple, âge, patrimoine net, objectifs d’investissement, connaissance des produits et expérience de trading) et parfois de votre localisation. Veuillez noter que nous ne pouvons pas divulguer les conditions requises pour obtenir des autorisations de trading spécifiques.
Vous pouvez facilement consulter et gérer vos autorisations de trading à tout moment sur le Portail Client :
https://spr.ly/IBKR_TradingPermissions
Bonjour, je suis résidant français et je possède un PEA chez Hello Bank et je voudrai le transférer chez vous. Comment dois je procéder? Merci
Bonjour, merci de votre demande. Pour transférer votre compte PEA de votre institution financière actuelle vers IBKR, veuillez consulter cette FAQ pour obtenir des instructions : https://www.interactivebrokers.com/faq?id=666623891
Nous espérons que cela vous aidera !
Hello I’m leaving in Italy and from amy country I’m looking for to invest only on US stock market. Is it possible from your application Best regards JM Evrard
Hi JM, we appreciate your interest in opening an account! To get started: https://spr.ly/OpenAccountCampusEU
You can view and manage your trading permissions anytime in Client Portal: https://spr.ly/TradingPermissionsCampusEU
To trade certain products or in specific regions, you’ll need to request permissions. These are based on your financial profile (e.g., age, experience, net worth, objectives) and sometimes your location. Please note we can’t share the exact requirements for each permission.
You can review our available Products and Exchanges on our webpage: https://spr.ly/ProductsExchangesCampusEU
We hope this helps!
Do you issue debit cards for use internationally? If so, do you charge for withdrawals at foreign ATMs (Schwab does not but the local Israeli banks charge me each time I use an ATM, Schwab refunds these fees if I can get them to send me a card). How do you send debit cards to foreign clients? How do you activate them for deaf clients? Can you instead use an Android app such as PayBox or PayPal for withdrawals? I can use an Android phone without talking and ID myself biometrically with a face or fingerprint scan. That’s already how I login to the internet, and how I open my phone to check for messages, but I do not use any phone for talking or listening to any talk. I am 66+. I am deaf, I do not use phones and I do not listen to talk. I have an active trading account with Charles Schwab, the only problem with it is in 7 weeks Schwab has failed to send me a debit card, although they claim to have sent 3 of them. I had the same problem with my other American Bank. I live in Northern Israel, US citizen. I do not have any problem getting debit cards from local Israeli banks, but I need an English trading platform to trade in USD. I do not trade in Shekels. I withdraw from my American account via debit card at an Israeli ATM in Shekels or I use the card to buy groceries, etc. About 5 transactions a month. Currently, those are made with an Oregon debit card that expires in one year, and which does not reimburse local ATM fees. I want a means to spend money without incurring ATM fees, and still be able to trade more or less daily. I’ve been trading now for 7 weeks on the Schwab site, but unable to spend one cent because Schwab does not read my instructions and keeps assigning new people to “take care of the debit card” yet nobody has in 7 weeks. I have in fact outperformed 3 out of 4 major indices so far and hope to continue to do so. I invest about 30% of my income and 78% in equities. I reinvest daily. Can you help a DEAF client out? DO NOT CALL! Aviva in Akko
Hello, thank you for reaching out. IBKR does not offer a debit card at this time. We hope this answers your question!
Dear Interactive Brokers Support, I am a student currently living in Poland. I have a valid PESEL number and long-term residency status. I would like to open an individual brokerage account to invest in global ETFs and stocks. My source of funds is a regular student scholarship, and I plan to invest approximately 100 USD every 5 months. Could you please let me know if I am eligible to open an account in this situation, and if there are any specific requirements or documents I should prepare? Thank you very much for your assistance. Best regards, Danilo
Hi Danilo, we appreciate your interest in opening an account! To get started: https://spr.ly/OpenAccountCampusEU
There is a minimum required deposit of 2,000 USD (or equivalent) for Margin accounts. There is no minimum required deposit to open a Cash Account at Interactive Brokers for most entities. Please view this FAQ for more information on which entities require a different minimum deposit than otherwise stated: https://www.ibkr.com/faq?id=32659392
Please review our detailed application requirements here: https://spr.ly/AppReqsCampusEU
Hi, what is different with margin and cash account, please?
Hello, thank you for asking. Cash accounts must maintain a positive balance. In order to trade a foreign security, you must deposit or convert funds to the desired security’s currency, and the trade can be placed once the funds settle. For instance, if you carry Euros in your account and want to trade a stock on an American stock exchange, you will need settled USD funds. Please note that forex settlement generally takes place two business day following the sale transaction (Trade Date plus one business day: T+2). You can review this resource for more information: https://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/general/currencyHoliday.php
Margin accounts allow you to trade without waiting for cash to settle or converting currencies. However, it is required that you meet the margin requirement in your account. Failure to meet these requirements will result in becoming subject to liquidation of assets to bring the account back into margin compliance. We hope this helps!
Hola buenos dias, por favor me gustaria saber si es posible traspasar acciones depositadas en otra entidad a una cuenta de Interactive Brokers y operar con ellas desde Interactive. otra prgeunta: es posible vender y comprar acciones del mercado OTC desde una cuenta de Interactive Brokers?? gracias saludos
Hola, gracias por preguntar. Sí, es posible transferir posiciones a IBKR. Consulte estas preguntas frecuentes para obtener instrucciones: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/faq?id=51679386
Para operar en los mercados OTC Pink o ArcaEdge, debe agregar los permisos para operar con acciones de bajo precio en Estados Unidos. Si su cuenta no cumple con los requisitos, no verá la opción para operar con acciones de bajo precio en EE. UU. Consulte estas preguntas frecuentes para obtener más información: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/faq?id=23299042
¡Esperamos que esto le sea útil!
account from greece?
Hello Athanasios, thank you for reaching out. Yes, it is possible to open an account from Greece. If you are ready to apply: https://spr.ly/OpenAccountCampusEU
You can review our full availability here: https://spr.ly/AvailabilityCampusEU
Please use this tool on our website to review available funding methods and ETAs based on your residency and the currency you wish to deposit: https://spr.ly/FundCampusEU
Once you select the best method for your needs, please follow all the steps to complete the transfer.