Overview of TD Ameritrade fees and charges
When it comes to brokerage fees TD Ameritrade shows a mixed picture: some fees are high but some are low. First you need to figure out your approach or you should use our questionnaire to be able to tell whether TD Ameritrade fees are an advantage for you. Continue reading about TD Ameritrade fees and charges to see if this is the right brokerage for you or a similar broker like Interactive Brokers or Charles Schwab is better for you.
Here's a high level overview of TD Ameritrade's fees
| Assets | Fee level | Fee terms |
|---|---|---|
| US stock fee | Average | $6.95 per trade, there are also ~300 free ETFs |
| EURUSD fee | High | FX commission: $0.10 per 1,000 units and min $1; You can also choose to trade with no commission, but larger spreads |
| US tech fund fee | High | $49.99 per transaction, there are also ~4,000 free funds |
| Inactivity fee | Low | No inactivity fee |
TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade fees explained
Online brokerages in general charge much lower brokerage fees than traditional brokerages do - this is largely due to the fact that online brokerages' businesses can be much better scaled: From a purely technical standpoint it doesn't make that much of a difference for them if they have 100 or 5000 clients.
This is not to say however that they don't have any fees at all. They make money by charging you at various events for various rates. Usually you need to keep an eye on these 3 types of fees:
- Trading fees - these are brokerage fees that you pay when you actually do a trade, i.e. buying an Apple stock or an ETF. What you pay is either a commission, a spread or financing rate. Some brokers apply all of these.
- A commission is either based on the traded volume or it is fixed.
- A spread is the difference between the buy price and the sell price
- Financing rate or overnight rate is charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than one day.
- Non-trading fees. These occur related to some operations you make in your account, i.e. depositing money to your account, withdrawing money from it or not trading for an extended amount of time.
We compare TD Ameritrade fees with its closest competitors, Interactive Brokers and Charles Schwab.
TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade trading fees
We see TD Ameritrade's trading fees to be high because they charge more than most of its competitors.
Let's break down the trading fees into the different asset classes available at TD Ameritrade.
Trading fees
TD Ameritrade's trading fees are average.
Stock fees and ETF fees
TD Ameritrade has low stock trading fees.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $7.0 | $1.0 | $5.0 |
| UK | - | $8.7 | - |
| Germany | - | $4.6 | - |
Forex fees
TD Ameritrade's forex fees are high.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| EURUSD benchmark fee | $44.3 | $23.0 | - |
| EURGBP benchmark fee | $46.5 | $17.0 | - |
Fund fees
TD Ameritrade fund fees are high.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA tech fund buy | $50.0 | $15.0 | $24.8 |
| Europe stock fund buy | - | $4.6 | - |
Bond fees
TD Ameritrade has low bond fees.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $0.0 | $5.0 | $0.0 |
| Europe | - | $10.0 | - |
Options fees
TD Ameritrade's options fees are high.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $14.5 | $7.0 | $11.5 |
| UK | - | $24.7 | - |
| Germany | - | $19.4 | - |
Futures fees
TD Ameritrade's futures fees are low.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $22.5 | $8.5 | $15.0 |
| UK | - | $24.7 | - |
| Germany | - | $22.8 | - |
Financing rates
TD Ameritrade financing rates are high.
If you want to trade on margin and prefer to hold your positions long, financing costs can be significant.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple financing rate | 10.8% | 5.8% | 9.8% |
| Vodafone financing rate | - | 3.9% | - |
| EURUSD financing rate | 10.5% | 4.9% | - |
| EURGBP financing rate | 10.5% | 3.3% | - |
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TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade non-trading fees
When it comes to looking at all the non-trading fees TD Ameritrade is a cheap broker. This means that they don't charge you a lot for non-trading related activities on your trading account, like withdrawal fee.
Non-trading fees include various brokerage fees and charges at TD Ameritrade that you pay not related to buying and selling assets. Among some others, typical non trading fees are withdrawal fee, deposit fee, inactivity fee and account fee.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Withdrawal fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Deposit fee | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Inactivity fee | No | Yes | No |
| Account fee | No | No | No |
TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade deposit fee
Deposit fees are applied when you send money to your trading account from your bank account. Usually brokers don't charge money for that and TD Ameritrade is not different: you will see the exact same amount on your brokerage account that you sent by any of the deposit methods TD Ameritrade offers.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Credit/Debit card | No | No | No |
| Electronic wallets | No | No | No |
| Deposit fee | 0 | 0 | 0 |
TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade withdrawal fee
Unlike the majority of the online brokers we have reviewed TD Ameritrade does not charge a withdrawal fee. This means that you'll see the same amount of money on your bank account that you transferred from your brokerage account.
| TD Ameritrade | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Credit/Debit card | No | No | No |
| Electronic wallets | No | No | No |
| Withdrawal fee with bank transfer | $0 | $0 | $0 |
TD Ameritrade fees
TD Ameritrade inactivity fee
TD Ameritrade does not apply an inactivity fee which is great because your account will not be charged even if you do not trade for a longer time period (months or years).
