Individual Retirement Accounts at Interactive Brokers
Key takeaways:
• Interactive Brokers and its sister company Interactive Advisors both offer Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
• There are multiple IRA types at Interactive Brokers and Interactive Advisors.
• IBKR charges no recurring IRA fees.
If you need a tax-sheltered account to help you save for retirement, Interactive Brokers may have a solution for you. Here’s the full story on the company’s retirement program:
Overview of IRAs at Interactive Brokers
A brokerage account at Interactive Brokers can be opened as an IRA. The brokerage giant offers the following IRA structures:
• Roth
• Traditional
• Rollover
• Inherited
• SEP
• SIMPLE
The Rollover IRA only comes with traditional tax treatment. However, a regular Roth IRA can accept a rollover, so that solves the issue easily. The Inherited IRA can be opened with either Roth or traditional tax treatment. Despite recent changes in federal law, the SEP and SIMPLE accounts are still compatible only with pre-tax contributions.
Overview of IRAs at Interactive Advisors
Interactive Brokers has a sister company called Interactive Advisors. As the name suggests, this firm offers advisory accounts instead of brokerage accounts. An IRA can be opened with Interactive Advisors as well. However, the advisory side of the company only offers Roth, Traditional, and Rollover accounts—at least directly.
There is a workaround. If you open an IRA of any kind at Interactive Brokers, you can partition it for use at Interactive Advisors. For example, you can open a SEP IRA at the brokerage division and section off a portion of it for use at Interactive Advisors. In this way, any IRA available at Interactive Brokers can be used at Interactive Advisors.
Interactive Advisors is strictly a robo firm, so every IRA there will be an automated account.
Available Investments
A brokerage IRA can buy and sell most investment products that taxable accounts can. The long list includes stocks, bonds, precious metals, futures, options, ETFs, and mutual funds. Foreign exchanges are also available. Cryptocurrencies are one exception that brokerage IRAs can’t trade. Some Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) are off limits, too.
A self-directed IRA at Interactive Brokers has access to the firm’s list of target-date mutual funds, which are built for creating a retirement nest egg over time. Vanguard and J.P. Morgan are two fund families we found.
A robo IRA with Interactive Advisors has access to the same securities as a taxable robo account: stocks and ETFs. The list of ETFs and stocks is smaller than what brokerage accounts can access and is divided into investment themes. These include:
• Technology
• Mindful Business Models
• Small Cap Dividend
• Telecom
• Consumer Discretionary
Some themes use only stocks, while others use only ETFs; a third category uses a mix of the two.
Limited Margin for IRAs
Both robo and brokerage IRAs with IBKR can sign up for limited margin. By default, a managed IRA automatically has limited margin, which lets it trade with unsettled funds. A brokerage IRA, on the other hand, must apply for limited margin. This is easy enough to do on the client portal (aka the website). Simply click on the head-and-shoulders icon in the upper-right corner and select the link for Settings. On the Settings page, scroll down to the blue hyperlink for Account Type. Click on this and follow the on-screen prompts to apply for limited margin. Although IBKR does offer portfolio margin, this feature is not possible for IRAs of any kind.
Once enabled, the limited-margin IRA can trade some option spreads and do the same thing as an advisory IRA: trade with unsettled funds. Interactive Brokers does not allow IRAs with limited margin to borrow currencies. To place a trade in a non-base currency, a currency exchange must be made. Withdrawals can be made only in U.S. dollars, although an IRA can be opened in any base currency.
Futures can be traded in a brokerage IRA, although these products have much higher margin requirements in retirement accounts.
IBKR IRA Fees
A self-directed IRA with Interactive Brokers has no minimum balance requirement. It can be opened with any deposit or no deposit at all. There are no ongoing fees of any kind. Commissions are zero on U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs for U.S. residents.
A managed IRA with Interactive Advisors requires at least $100 to start investing. Some portfolios require more than this amount. Here, there is an annual fee; it ranges from 0.10% to 0.75%, depending on the investment strategy selected.
Opening an IRA at IBKR
It’s very easy to open a retirement account with Interactive Brokers or Advisors. Just click on the red button at the top of either site to open an account (IB) or sign up (IA). To open a robo IRA directly through the Advisors website, a residential address in the United States is required.
Current IBKR customers can open an IRA by logging into the website and going to the Settings page we have already seen. Here, there is a button at the top to open a new account.
Generally speaking, the U.S.-based division of IBKR does require a Social Security Number to open an investment account with any tax treatment. Non-U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. may be able to use a passport number or tax ID number from a foreign country.
IRAs at Interactive Brokers can be opened by residents of foreign countries; a direct application through Interactive Advisors requires U.S. residency. There can be restrictions at the brokerage department. For example, Interactive Brokers requires a Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number from residents of several foreign countries, including Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, India, and Canada.
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IBKR IRA Review Judgment
Interactive Brokers and Interactive Advisors offer IRAs in a variety of formats with access to different asset classes. Pricing at the brokerage firm is outstanding, and the advisory division is very competitive.
Updated on 3/27/2026.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.
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