Interactive Brokers fees explained (UK): what you actually pay

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The short answer

Interactive Brokers charges UK shares at 0.05% with a £3 minimum on its Fixed plan, or 0.05% with a £1 minimum plus exchange fees on Tiered. US shares cost $0.005 a share, minimum $1, on Fixed. Currency conversion is close to free: 0.03% if IBKR converts automatically, or 0.2 basis points with a $2 minimum if you convert yourself. There is no inactivity or custody fee; the ISA has a £3 monthly minimum activity fee.

In practice a £1,000 US share costs about £1 to £2 for the round trip at IBKR, against £3 at Trading 212 and £10 at XTB. The catch is small UK orders, where the £3 minimum makes IBKR dearer than the zero-commission apps. Figures below are from the Interactive Brokers U.K. website, checked on 23 October 2026.

Every Interactive Brokers fee in one table

Sources: IBKR UK’s stock commission page, spot currency commission page, ISA page, other fees schedule, market data pricing page, interest rates page and margin rates page, all on interactivebrokers.co.uk.

Fixed or tiered: which IBKR pricing plan is cheaper?

IBKR Pro gives you a choice, and you can switch in the account settings. The UK site’s commission tables publish Pro pricing only, so that is what this guide covers.

Fixed is one all-in price. IBKR’s UK table lists 0.05% of trade value for UK shares with a £3 minimum and no maximum, which means every order up to £6,000 costs £3 and anything bigger costs 0.05% (£5 on a £10,000 order). For US shares it is $0.005 a share with a $1 minimum. Exchange fees and most regulatory fees are included, although US sales still pass on the small SEC transaction fee.

Tiered has a lower headline rate that falls as your monthly volume rises, but exchange, clearing and regulatory fees are added separately. For UK shares the rate starts at 0.05% with a £1 minimum. For US shares it starts at $0.0035 a share with a $0.35 minimum, dropping to $0.002 after 300,000 shares a month. (The $0.0005 figure you sometimes see quoted is the bottom tier, which only applies above 100 million shares a month.)

For most UK private investors Tiered is cheaper, because the minimums are what you actually pay on normal-sized orders. A £500 UK purchase is £3 on Fixed and about £1 plus a few pence of venue fees on Tiered. Fixed suits people who want a predictable number on every contract note, and very large single orders in thinly traded shares, where Tiered’s pass-through fees can add up.

What about stamp duty and other UK levies?

IBKR’s commission page says plainly that “UK stamp duty will be applied to all UK share purchases”. That is HMRC’s 0.5% Stamp Duty Reserve Tax on buying shares in UK-incorporated companies, and every UK broker collects it. You do not pay it when you sell, on ETFs, or on most AIM shares.

The same page lists the Takeover Panel’s PTM levy of £1.50 per qualifying trade, which only applies to large trades in eligible companies. A £1,000 order will not trigger it.

How much does IBKR charge to convert pounds to dollars?

This is where IBKR is cheapest, and where it is easiest to get wrong. There are two routes.

• Automatic conversion. If you buy a US share with pounds and let IBKR handle the currency, its spot currency page says it “will typically add or subtract (at its discretion) 0.03% to the exchange rate”, with no separate commission. On £1,000 that is about £0.30.
• Manual FX order. Convert pounds to dollars yourself through the FX trading screen and you pay the interbank quote plus a commission of 0.2 basis points (0.002%) with a $2 minimum. On £1,000 the 0.2 bp is pennies, so the $2 minimum applies, roughly £1.50.

The break-even is around £5,000: below that, automatic conversion at 0.03% is cheaper; above it, the manual route wins easily. Converting £50,000 manually costs about $2, against £15 at 0.03%.

One warning. In a margin account, buying a US share without first holding dollars can leave you with a negative USD balance rather than a conversion. That is a loan, and it is charged at the margin rate below until you convert. If you trade US shares from a margin account, convert first, or check that your settings convert automatically.

For comparison, Trading 212 charges 0.15% and XTB 0.5% on the same conversion.

What does £1,000 in a US share actually cost?

Assumptions: a GBP account, Tiered and Fixed pricing compared, automatic conversion at 0.03%, an exchange rate of $1.33 to the pound, and a share bought at $133 (10 shares) and later sold at the same price. Exchange fees on Tiered vary by venue, so they are approximated.

The same trade costs £3 at Trading 212 and £10 at XTB, both of which charge no commission and make their money on the currency conversion. US shares carry no UK stamp duty.

And £1,000 in a UK share?

Here IBKR loses. Trading 212 and XTB charge no commission on UK shares, so the same round trip costs £5 there, all of it stamp duty. Buy a London-listed ETF instead and the stamp duty disappears: £6 at IBKR on Fixed, about £2 on Tiered, and £0 at the zero-commission apps. The gap narrows as order size grows, because IBKR’s 0.05% is flat, but for regular £100 or £200 monthly purchases of UK shares the minimum commission bites hard.

Does IBKR charge for market data?

Not for the basics. IBKR’s market data page says every client gets free real-time streaming data on US-listed stocks and ETFs from Cboe One and IEX (not consolidated across all US exchanges), free delayed data elsewhere, and up to 100 free snapshot quotes a month.

Paid subscriptions are optional. IBKR’s page lists the US Securities Snapshot and Futures Value Bundle at $10 a month, waived in any month you generate $30 of commission, and real-time LSE UK top-of-book data at £1 a month for non-professional users. Subscriptions are charged for the full month even if you join or leave mid-month. A buy-and-hold investor can ignore all of this.

How much interest does IBKR pay on cash?

IBKR’s UK interest page explains a structure that is generous at the top and stingy at the bottom:

• No interest on the first £8,000 of GBP cash (or the first $10,000 of USD), applied separately to each currency.
• Above that, accounts with a net asset value over $100,000 earn 3.197% on GBP and 3.38% on USD (rates as of 18 September 2026). The GBP rate sits 0.5 percentage points below IBKR’s sterling benchmark.
• Accounts below $100,000 NAV get a lower rate that rises the closer the account is to $100,000.

IBKR’s own comparison table makes the point honestly: a £20,000 account holding £5,000 in cash earns 0%, an £80,000 account with £20,000 cash earns a blended 1.794%, and a £320,000 account with £80,000 cash earns 2.691%. If you are a smaller investor with idle cash, the 4.00% XTB pays, or Trading 212’s interest, will beat IBKR. Rates are variable.

How much does margin cost at Interactive Brokers?

IBKR UK’s margin rates page lists blended rates by tier. For sterling loans:

Dollar loans up to $100,000 cost 5.380% (benchmark + 1.5%). Interest accrues daily and is posted monthly. Borrowing at roughly benchmark plus 1.5% is the reason IBKR is the default choice for leveraged investors, as our Interactive Brokers review covers. Margin is not available in the ISA, and losses on a margin account can exceed your deposit.

Is there an inactivity fee or custody fee?

No to both on the general investment account. IBKR’s EMEA client communiqué for the third quarter of 2021 announced that inactivity fees were eliminated for most account types from 1 July 2021. Its UK pages state that IBKR charges no custody fees, although third parties can charge them on some foreign holdings.

How much does IBKR charge to withdraw?

IBKR’s other fees schedule says it “allows two free withdrawal requests per calendar month”. After the second withdrawal of any kind, it charges £1 for a GBP withdrawal by BACS or £7 by bank wire (USD: $1 by ACH, $10 by wire). Withdrawal times are counted on New York time. IBKR does not charge to receive a bank transfer deposit.

Does Interactive Brokers offer a stocks and shares ISA?

Yes. Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited is an HMRC-approved ISA manager (reference Z2056) and offers a stocks and shares ISA and a Junior ISA. According to its ISA page, commissions are the same as the general account, there is no custody or transfer-in fee, the ISA is cash only with no margin, and it must be funded in pounds.

The cost to watch is the minimum monthly activity fee: £3 for the adult ISA, £1 for the Junior ISA. Independent reviewers, including Money to the Masses, report that the commission you pay in a month counts towards it, so one Fixed-price trade a month covers it. An ISA you leave untouched costs £36 a year, which on a £5,000 pot is 0.72%. Trading 212 and XTB charge no ISA fee at all.

Verdict

Interactive Brokers is the cheapest platform we cover for US shares, large orders, currency conversion and borrowing. Its pricing punishes small UK share purchases, where the £3 Fixed minimum (or £1 on Tiered) loses to zero-commission apps, and small cash balances, which earn nothing below £8,000. Pick Tiered unless you have a reason not to, and convert currency manually once orders pass about £5,000. For a side-by-side view, see Trading 212 vs Interactive Brokers and XTB vs Interactive Brokers.

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