Interactive Brokers Review 2026
Interactive Brokers is the professional's choice with access to 150+ exchanges, all product classes, and the lowest fees for active traders.
Fee Overview
Tradable Products & Features
Pros & Cons
Exchanges
Compare with Other Brokers
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. A high proportion of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. Make sure you understand the risks involved and only invest money you can afford to lose.
Verdict: Interactive Brokers review
Interactive Brokers is the platform serious traders graduate to, and our 4.5 rating — the highest among all seventeen providers tested — reflects that status. Founded in 1978 and regulated by the SEC, FCA and BaFin, IBKR is aimed squarely at professionals, very active traders and internationally diversified investors who treat brokerage as infrastructure, not as an app.
Nothing else in this comparison comes close on scope. IBKR connects to 150+ exchanges in 33 countries and covers every product class: stocks, ETFs, options, futures, CFDs and around 40 cryptocurrencies. US share orders cost from $0.005 per share (minimum $1) or a fixed $1 — for frequent traders the cheapest structure available anywhere in this test. Idle USD balances earn up to 4.33% interest (on amounts above $10,000, tiered by account type), client securities sit under SIPC protection of up to $500,000, and the Trader Workstation desktop platform plus a full demo account complete a genuinely professional stack.
The same depth is the main weakness. The platform is complex and unapologetically so: order entry, fee reports and configuration menus assume financial literacy, German-language support is effectively absent, and there are no savings plans — automated ETF accumulation, the bread and butter of European retail investing, has to be improvised manually. Beginners regularly bounce off IBKR within weeks.
In context: DEGIRO is the obvious halfway house, offering 50+ exchanges and low fees with a far gentler interface, but without IBKR's interest on cash, its derivatives depth or its desktop tooling. At the other end, Trade Republic costs about the same per trade (€1) for a hundredth of the capability — which is precisely the point: most savings-plan investors never need that capability.
Our conclusion: Interactive Brokers is the best broker in this test for professionals, high-volume traders, options and futures users and anyone holding significant USD cash. It is a poor first broker. If you are not yet sure what a limit-on-close order is, start with DEGIRO or a neo-broker and move here when your requirements catch up.