Interactive Brokers is supposed to be the cheapest place to trade currencies, and on paper the claim holds: its spot FX commission is 0.20 basis points of trade value, which works out to about $2.31 on a standard EUR/USD lot. Pepperstone's Razor account charges $3.50 for the same lot. The myth is that the rate is the whole story. It isn't. Printed directly under that 0.20bp rate on the IBKR fee page, read on 17 September 2026, is a second line: a minimum of USD 2.00 per order. On a 0.1-lot trade, a common retail size, the percentage fee comes to 23 cents and the minimum takes over. The trader pays $2.00 per side. Pepperstone charges 35 cents for that ticket, IC Markets 35 cents, Tickmill 30 cents. The broker with the lowest rate becomes the most expensive of the four the moment the ticket shrinks.
The number that matters, then, is the crossover rather than the rate. Against Pepperstone's USD 3.50 Razor commission, Interactive Brokers only becomes cheaper once a EUR/USD order passes 0.57 lots, roughly $65,900 of notional at the 16 September ECB reference rate of 1.1537. Against Tickmill's $3.00 Raw commission the break-even climbs to 0.67 lots. Below those sizes, every order pays the flat $2.00, and on a 0.01-lot micro trade that floor equals 17.3 basis points per side, more than 85 times the headline rate. The rate is what gets quoted. The crossover is what decides who the account is actually for.
- IBKR spot FX commission: 0.20bp of trade value, minimum USD 2.00 per order (Tier I, up to $1bn monthly volume) — Interactive Brokers fee page, read 17 Sep 2026
- Auto currency conversion carries a 0.03% adjustment to the rate, 15 times the 0.20bp manual commission — same page, 17 Sep 2026
- USD cash earns 3.13%, but nothing on the first $10,000, and accounts under $100,000 NAV get a proportionally lower rate — IBKR interest rates page, 17 Sep 2026
- 5.460 million client accounts at end-August, up 35% year on year, with $962.8 billion of client equity — IBKR August 2026 brokerage metrics, 1 Sep 2026
- Second-quarter commission revenue rose 30% to $673 million, and the pretax margin was 77% — IBKR Q2 2026 results, SEC Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, 21 Jul 2026
- IBG LLC reports $22.3 billion of equity capital, $13.9 billion above regulatory requirements — IBKR financial strength page, 17 Sep 2026
- Interactive Brokers Australia Pty Ltd holds AFS licence 453554, granted 28 Jul 2016 — ASIC licensee register, September 2026 extract
How a 0.20bp rate turns into $2.00
IBKR's currency pricing works differently from a retail CFD broker's, and the difference sits in the unit. Pepperstone, IC Markets and Tickmill all charge a fixed dollar amount per standard lot, meaning per 100,000 units of the base currency, and scale it down in proportion for smaller trades. Pepperstone says so plainly on its costs and fees page, read on 17 September 2026: "Commission on trades lower than 1 lot will be proportionally adjusted." A tenth of a lot pays a tenth of the commission, with no floor.
Interactive Brokers charges a percentage of the trade's dollar value instead. For clients doing up to $1 billion a month (Tier I), that percentage is 0.20 basis points, or 0.002%. Then comes the minimum. The spot currencies schedule lists it as USD 2.00 per order at Tier I, falling to USD 1.00 only above $5 billion of monthly volume. The UK and Irish versions of the page, at interactivebrokers.co.uk and interactivebrokers.ie, show the same schedule and apply it to Currency CFDs as well as spot.
The arithmetic is short. The percentage fee reaches $2.00 at exactly $100,000 of trade value. For EUR/USD at 1.1537, that is 0.867 lots. Any order smaller than that pays $2.00 regardless of size.
Two further details from the same page change the maths for some traders. IBKR treats a modified order as a cancellation and a new order, which can trigger a second minimum. Orders that stay open overnight also count as new orders for minimum purposes. A trader who works a limit order across two sessions and gets filled in pieces can pay the $2.00 more than once.
The peer comparison, read live on 17 September
Every figure below comes from each broker's own live page on 17 September 2026. The EUR/USD conversion uses the European Central Bank reference rate of 1.1537 for 16 September, retrieved through the Frankfurter API. Tickmill's figure is from its accounts overview, which lists the Raw account at "$3 per lot per side" on MT4 and MT5. IC Markets now trades from ic.com, where the MetaTrader Raw Spread account shows $3.5 per lot per side and the cTrader account $3.0 per USD 100k. That page belongs to Raw Trading Ltd, licensed by the Seychelles FSA. Pepperstone's figure is the USD 3.50 per lot, per side stated for Razor accounts by Pepperstone Group Limited, the ASIC-licensed entity.
| EUR/USD order size | USD notional | Interactive Brokers Pro | Pepperstone Razor (ASIC) | IC Markets Raw (MT) | Tickmill Raw (MT4/5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.01 lot | $1,154 | $2.00 | ≈$0.04 | ≈$0.04 | $0.03 |
| 0.1 lot | $11,537 | $2.00 | $0.35 | $0.35 | $0.30 |
| 0.5 lot | $57,685 | $2.00 | $1.75 | $1.75 | $1.50 |
| 1 lot | $115,370 | $2.31 | $3.50 | $3.50 | $3.00 |
| 10 lots | $1,153,700 | $23.07 | $35.00 | $35.00 | $30.00 |
At 0.1 lot, the IBKR ticket costs 5.7 times Pepperstone's and 6.7 times Tickmill's. Round trip, that is $4.00 against 70 cents. At one full lot the order reverses: IBKR's $2.31 undercuts Pepperstone by 34% and Tickmill by 23%. By ten lots the saving against Pepperstone is $11.93 per side. The chart shows the retail-sized ticket, where reputation and bill part company.
Commission is not the whole cost. All four brokers pass through a raw interbank-style spread. IBKR says its quotes come from 17 large FX dealers and can be as narrow as a tenth of a pip. IC Markets gives its average EUR/USD spread as 0.1 pips. We did not measure live spreads side by side this session, so this review compares only the commission line, which each broker publishes and fixes. Our earlier reviews of Pepperstone's Razor pricing in AUD, IC Markets' cTrader fee and Tickmill's Raw account cover how those schedules move with account currency and platform.
The quieter FX charge: auto-conversion
A smaller line on the same schedule matters more to investors than to FX traders. When a client buys a foreign-currency stock without converting cash first, IBKR runs the conversion automatically and "will typically add or subtract (at its discretion) 0.03% to the exchange rate," according to the page. No separate commission appears, so the cost does not show up as a fee line.
0.03% is 3 basis points, fifteen times the 0.20bp manual rate. On a $10,000 conversion the auto route costs about $3.00 against the $2.00 minimum for a manual FX order. On $100,000 the gap widens to $30.00 against $2.00. A client who places the currency order before the stock order, instead of letting the platform do it, saves most of that. Currency costs on foreign share purchases are the main finding of our Saxo review, and IBKR's manual route is one of the cheapest answers to that problem, provided the client knows to use it.
Stocks, cash interest and a rate hike the page had not caught up with
IBKR's share pricing is where its reputation was built, and the live schedule still backs it. IBKR Pro Fixed charges USD 0.005 per share on US stocks, with a USD 1.00 minimum and a cap of 1% of trade value. The broker's own example prices 100 shares at $25 at $1.00, which is 4 basis points on a $2,500 order. IBKR Pro Tiered starts at USD 0.0035 per share with a USD 0.35 minimum, plus exchange, clearing and regulatory fees passed through. IBKR Lite charges nothing on US exchange-listed stocks and ETFs, but only US residents can open it, according to the stock commissions page.
IBKR also publishes what clients actually pay, which few brokers do. Its August 2026 metrics release puts the average commission per cleared stock order at $1.99 on an average order of 626 shares. It puts IBKR Pro clients' total cost of executing and clearing US stocks at about 2.1 basis points of trade value against a daily VWAP benchmark. Across the prior twelve months the figure was 2.5bp.
Cash interest is where the headline number needs the most reading around. The interest rates page advertises 3.13% on USD balances. Three conditions sit under it. No interest is paid on the first USD 10,000 of cash in each currency. The full rate applies only to accounts with net asset value above USD 100,000. Below that, the rate is scaled by the ratio of NAV to $100,000. Take an account worth $50,000 holding $30,000 of cash. By those rules only $20,000 earns interest, at half of 3.13%, which is $313 a year. That is 1.04% on the cash held, a third of the advertised figure. The same cash in a $100,000-plus account earns $626, or 2.09% blended.
Timing matters too. The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12–0 on 16 September to raise the federal funds target range by a quarter point to 3.75–4.00%. On the morning of 17 September, IBKR's pages still showed 3.13% on cash and margin loans "as low as 4.13%". IBKR Pro pays benchmark minus 0.5% on cash, so 3.13% implies a benchmark of 3.63%, which sits inside the pre-hike range. Expect both figures to be restated upward. Margin loans on IBKR Pro start at benchmark plus 1.5%, falling for larger balances. IBKR Lite pays benchmark minus 1.5% on cash and charges benchmark plus 2.5% on loans.
Licences, checked at the registers
The US parent broker-dealer, Interactive Brokers LLC, appears as active on FINRA BrokerCheck under CRD 36418, SEC number 8-47257, checked on 17 September. ASIC's September 2026 licensee extract lists Interactive Brokers Australia Pty Ltd under AFS licence 453554, first granted on 28 July 2016.
Two registers could not be read directly. The FCA register is a JavaScript application that cannot be fetched from our systems. IBKR's UK site states that Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited is authorised by the FCA under reference 208159. At Companies House, company 03958476 is active, incorporated on 28 March 2000, with a confirmation statement dated 1 September 2026. The Central Bank of Ireland's register redirected our query without returning results. IBKR's disclosure gives Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited's CBI reference as C423427, which we could not confirm at the source.
The balance sheet is where IBKR differs most from the CFD brokers it is compared with. The financial strength page reports $22.3 billion of consolidated equity at IBG LLC, $13.9 billion more than regulators require. It cites an S&P rating of A- with a stable outlook for Interactive Brokers LLC and says there is no long-term debt. As of 1 July 2026, about 89% of client funds sat in short-term US Treasuries and reverse repos backed by Treasuries, with the other 11% segregated in bank or custody accounts. Employees and their affiliates own 73.5% of IBG LLC, and the listed company holds 26.5%.
What the "cheapest broker" consensus misses
The fee schedule makes more sense once you see who IBKR is built for. The August metrics put the average US stock trade by IBKR Pro clients at $22,288. The client base has been growing fast: 5.19 million accounts at 30 June, up 34% on a year earlier, according to the second-quarter results, and 5.460 million by the end of August. Customer margin loans rose 67% year on year to $108.5 billion in the quarter. Net interest income, at $1.06 billion, was larger than commission revenue.
That is a business earning more from client balances than from tickets, serving clients whose typical stock order runs above $20,000. A trader converting currency in that size barely notices a $2.00 floor. It does touch the newcomer who opens an account to trade 0.1-lot EUR/USD positions after reading that IBKR is the cheapest (our EUR/USD forecast covers the pair itself). The ranking sites are not wrong about the rate. They are answering a question about a $1 million trader and giving the answer to a $5,000 one.
IBKR's own founder frames costs the same way. "Investment returns are not just about picking the right trades. They are influenced by the costs you pay, the prices you get, and how efficiently your capital is put to work," said Thomas Peterffy, Founder and Chairman at Interactive Brokers, in a press release dated 2 January 2026. For a small FX account, the cost paid is the $2.00 floor, not the 0.20bp rate.
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One caveat cuts the other way. An FX-only comparison undersells IBKR for anyone who holds shares, bonds or futures in the same account. Pepperstone, IC Markets and Tickmill offer share exposure mainly through CFDs. IBKR gives direct ownership on more than 170 markets from one account, and currency trades there often exist to fund those purchases. The list keeps growing. "Adding the Bucharest Stock Exchange expands the choices available to our clients and reinforces our commitment to providing the broadest possible access to global markets," said Milan Galik, Chief Executive Officer at Interactive Brokers, announcing the addition on 13 August 2026. For that client, the auto-conversion charge matters more than the FX minimum.
Verdict: 4.2 out of 5
Interactive Brokers earns 4.2 out of 5 in this review. The strengths hold up against live primary sources. Its FX commission beats the three peers from about 0.57 lots upward, and by 34% at one full lot. US stock pricing starts at $1.00 per order on Fixed, and the broker publishes its clients' all-in US stock execution cost, 2.1bp in August. The parent is a $22.3 billion-equity, S&P A- rated group, and the US and Australian licences checked out at their registers, with the UK company confirmed at Companies House.
The deductions are specific. A USD 2.00 minimum on every FX order makes 0.1-lot and micro-lot currency trading between 5.7 and roughly 57 times dearer per side than the raw-pricing CFD brokers compared here. The 0.03% auto-conversion charge is easy to miss. The 3.13% cash rate pays nothing on the first $10,000 and is scaled down for accounts under $100,000, so a typical small account earns about a third of the advertised figure. And on 17 September the published rates had not yet reflected the previous day's Fed decision.
The profile the numbers favour is clear. IBKR suits multi-asset investors who hold real securities in several currencies, FX traders whose orders routinely exceed about $66,000 of notional, and anyone who values balance-sheet strength over a simple platform. It suits traders who place frequent sub-lot currency orders far less well; for them the per-order floor outweighs the headline rate. Would a lower or percentage-only FX minimum change the verdict? Yes. So would a cash-interest schedule without the $10,000 carve-out. Either change would lift the rating. A widening of IBKR's typical EUR/USD spread relative to raw-pricing peers, which this review did not measure, would lower it.
FAQ
Does Interactive Brokers charge a minimum commission on forex?
Yes. The live spot currencies schedule on 17 September 2026 sets the commission at 0.20 basis points of trade value, with a USD 2.00 minimum per order for clients trading up to $1 billion a month. The minimum applies to any order below $100,000 of trade value. Modified orders and orders carried overnight can be charged the minimum again as new orders.
Is Interactive Brokers cheaper than Pepperstone for forex?
It depends on order size. On a EUR/USD trade at 1.1537, IBKR's commission is lower than Pepperstone Razor's USD 3.50 per lot once the order exceeds about 0.57 lots. At one lot IBKR charges $2.31 against $3.50. At 0.1 lot IBKR charges $2.00 against 35 cents. Spreads were not compared in this review.
How much interest does IBKR pay on cash?
IBKR Pro advertised 3.13% on USD cash on 17 September 2026, a day after the Fed raised rates. No interest is paid on the first $10,000 per currency, and accounts with net assets under $100,000 receive a proportionally reduced rate. A $50,000 account holding $30,000 in cash would earn about $313 a year under those rules.
Is Interactive Brokers regulated?
Interactive Brokers LLC is active on FINRA BrokerCheck under CRD 36418. Interactive Brokers Australia holds ASIC AFS licence 453554. IBKR states that its UK arm is FCA-authorised under reference 208159 and its Irish arm is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland under C423427. We confirmed the UK company at Companies House but could not query the FCA or CBI registers directly.
What is IBKR's auto currency conversion fee?
When IBKR converts currency automatically, for example to settle a foreign stock purchase, it typically adds or subtracts 0.03% to the exchange rate instead of charging a commission. That equals 3 basis points, or $30 on a $100,000 conversion. A manual FX order for the same amount carries the $2.00 minimum commission.
This review is analysis, not investment advice. Trading foreign exchange, CFDs and securities on margin carries a high level of risk, and you can lose more than your initial deposit. Fees and rates quoted were read from each broker's live pages on 17 September 2026 and can change without notice. Check the current schedule with the broker before opening an account.