Rating foreign stock brokers 2025

World brokers — best online stock brokers, comparison of tariffs, trading services, pros and cons, tax.

Rating stock brokers

The best world brokers for clients from Europe, America, Asia and other continents.

The list includes only time-tested brokers with licenses from national regulatory government organizations.

Table of contents

• Pros and cons foreign brokers account
• Tariffs, services, comission — comparison brokers
• Which broker to choose? — conclusions from comparison

• European brokers
• American brokers
• Asian brokers
• East and CIS brokers

Pros and cons foreign brokers account

Advantages and disadvantages of opening a foreign brokerage account for clients of different countries and tax jurisdictions.

Questions and Answers

• Best brokers in Europe and the USA for trading?
• Conditions for deposits/withdrawals, terminals, instruments, products
• Why do you need an account with a foreign stock broker?
• Deposit and withdrawal of money from a foreign stock broker
• How to choose the right foreign stock broker?
• Criteria for choosing a foreign broker
• Algorithm for choosing a foreign broker
• Best investment products of brokers
• How do we compare brokers?
• Reviews and comments

• News
• FAQ
• Tax
• Digital currency & crypto

Services, rates, commissions, pros and cons

Which broker to choose? Conclusions from the comparison table

We recommend TOP-3 foreign brokers

Favorable commissions, reliability, a wide range of markets and instruments, quality of support from these brokers:

• Interactive Brokers
• Just2Trade
• Freedom24

These brokers allow you to have assets of less than $10,000 on your account without additional fees. Brokers, which have American and Cypriot jurisdiction respectively, have demonstrated their reliability, customer focus and service convenience over a long period of time.

InteractiveBrokers

Interactive Brokers - largest American discount broker, the most popular broker among non-American clients in the USA

The lowest commissions among trading on American exchanges. The advantage of tariffs for traders (more than 3 transactions within 5 days) starts from assets in the amount of more than $ 25,000. The broker does not accept payments in rubles. There is a risk of blocking the accounts of Russian citizens. The broker strictly complies with all sanctions and regulatory restrictions.

After tens of millions of dollars in fines from American regulators, Interactive Brokers began cleaning up client accounts. In case of suspicious, non-standard activity on accounts, they begin blocking accounts or suspending withdrawals until they receive evidence of the origin of the client's money!

Just2Trade

Just2Trade - previously an American broker, bought by structures of the financial group "FINAM", subsequently transferred under the Cypriot jurisdiction and is a partner of the large American broker firm "Lime Financial".

One of the best offshore brokers for non-Euro-American investors and traders. Provides the most comprehensive set of investment solutions: from foreign exchanges to digital currencies. Provides reliable access infrastructure through American upstream brokers of the Lime financial group (member of FINRA & SIPC, NFA).

The investment product capabilities of this broker are the best among European offshore brokers: many auto-following strategies (J2T Copy), simple and clear robo-advising (J2T Robo-advisor), favorable conditions for structured products with capital protection (J2T IIP), professional trading terminals (Metatrader, Lightspeed, Sterling, CQG), regular offers to buy shares of companies on the pre-IPO, IPO and OTC market, favorable commissions on the foreign exchange market, access to trading cryptocurrencies, and other investment services.

Trading in cryptocurrencies is carried out within the personal account or the broker's trading terminal through its own exchange J2T Cryptoexchange.

Freedom24 (ex.Freedom Finance Europe)

Freedom Finance Europe brokerage holding listed on the American Nasdaq stock exchange. They have about 100 offices in cities in 12 countries: the USA, Germany, Cyprus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Spain, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece and Ukraine. One of the fastest growing brokers in Cyprus with American shareholders.

The broker's key services are: direct access to 15 of the world's largest exchanges in the USA, Europe, and Asia via the Tradernet and CQG terminals. Also, a profitable service for placing free balances on savings and savings accounts with increased interest on the balance in EUR (3-5%) and USD (5-6%) per annum. Interesting services include daily company research with the publication of investment ideas, as well as lessons from the broker's interactive academy.

European stock brokers

List of European Brokers

• Just2Trade — the best European broker for trading on international markets with a full list of investment instruments
• Freedom24 — the best conditions for accrued income on the free balance in the account (from 4% per annum)
• Exante — for professional trading on European exchanges (from 10,000 EUR)
• EToro — social network of copytrading users and access to international markets
• CapTrader — german universal broker for retail investors
• Saxo Bank — one of the oldest Danish universal broker and bank in Europe

Market regulation

The European jurisdiction of a broker implies the presence of a license from a financial regulator. The regulator supervises the activities of brokers.

European regulators:

• CySEC — Cyprus (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission)
• ESMA — United Europe (European Securities and Markets Authority)
• BaFIN — Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany
• FCA — United Kingdom (Financial Conduct Authority)
• other countries

Insurance

Clients' accounts are insured in specialized compensation funds. Depending on the country of registration, the insured amount is from 20,000 to 100,000 euros.

How is the brokerage market structured in Europe?

The European broker market can be divided into 4 types of brokers:

1. Brokers-banks
2. Brokers of each country - working for the domestic market
3. Brokers of world brokerage holdings
4. Offshore brokers

Which brokers provide services to clients from non-European countries?

The most suitable for opening a brokerage account are offshore brokers. These are brokers with licenses:

• Cyprus
• Malta
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Why offshore brokers?

The fact is that the requirements of international financial regulators lead to the fact that the countries of the Eurasian continent have become jurisdictions with increased supervisory requirements for European brokers. Of course, clients with large capitals can open accounts in the oldest European banks such as Raiffeisen, Credit Swiss, Saxo Bank and others, but whether such investors will be able to withdraw money back without additional control, anti-money laundering procedures and confirmation of the origin of capital is unknown.

Therefore, a compromise option is European brokers from countries with preferential tax regimes (offshore brokers of Europe). Such brokers have to really compete (fight) for the client with large international financial holdings in strict supervision conditions and budgets incomparable with classic banks.

Conclusions and features

Offshore brokerage structures have been operating in Cyprus for many years. There have been no cases of intentional failure to fulfill obligations due to the fault of brokers.

Sanction requirements and increased supervision have to some extent complicated interactions with investors from non-European countries.

For example, Exante, popular with traders and previously specializing in the IPO Freedom Finance Europe, as well as the broker with the social network of social trading Etoro, have suspended remote account opening for residents of Russia, some CIS countries, the Middle East and Asia.

A universal European broker where you can open an account without restrictions on the country of residence is Just2Trade (part of the American Lime Financial). This broker continues to work efficiently with any category of clients.

Reviews, comparison, pros and cons of European brokers are presented in the table with services and commissions

Investment opportunities from stock brokers

American brokers

Advantages of American Brokers

Brokers licensed by US regulators have $500,000 in insurance coverage for client accounts.

American brokerage firms are historically the largest and most technologically advanced companies providing access to financial markets. Unfortunately, not many of the largest American brokerage firms open accounts for non-American citizens.

List of top US brokers

• RobinHood — trading via a streamlined mobile app with Zero comission
• Interactive brokers — the most popular American broker for international clients
• Charles Schwab — broker one of the investment gurus
• ETrade — Morgan Stanley bank broker
• Fidelity — universal TOP broker and asset manager
• Firstrade — for commission-free options trading
• Merrill Edge — Bank of America
• Webull — high interest on uninvested cash
• JP Morgan Chase — TOP 3 among American investment banks
• SOGOTRADE — options broker for American clients
• TD Ameritrade — one of the best trading platforms
• Tradestation — British subsidiary of Interactive Brokers, which accepts wealthy clients
• Ally — syndicate Ally+Tradeking family

Best American Broker

Unfortunately, in accordance with the requirements of US legislation, not all American brokers are ready to work with third-party clients with capital of less than $100,000. The most popular among non-US investors and traders is Interactive Brokers (IB). To compare IB with other brokers, you can use table with services and commissions of foreign brokers

This discount broker has the best foreign market commissions among US brokers, but the real benefit starts at account sizes of $25,000 and above.

Risks of investing through Interactive Brokers

Recent trends in the regulation of the American brokerage services market in relation to non-US residents have shown that in case of suspicious and non-standard activity on accounts, IB begins to suspend operations up to blocking and forced closure of accounts.

It should be noted that foreign subsidiaries of offshore brokers and brokers from Europe have shown in recent years that they can create effective and convenient investment platforms operating at acceptable commissions and transparent conditions. They are no worse, and in some places even better, than their competitors from the USA.

Brokers for trading in Asian markets

Asian Brokers and access then Asian Exchanges

An ordinary individual from third countries will not be able to remotely open a brokerage account with a Hong Kong or Chinese broker. And even if you come to Hong Kong or mainland China, the likelihood of opening a brokerage account with a local broker is also not high. To access Asian exchanges, it is easier to use brokerage accounts of American, European or Russian brokers that have agreements with brokers and exchanges in Asia. We will discuss the access process from the standpoint of possible risks.

Legal Risks of Owning Shares in Chinese Corporations

Under Hinse love, persons who enter are not citizens of Maine China or Hong Kong are not able to acquire owner-management rights in Hinse shares.

All these companies: Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, JD.com, Geely and many other Chinese multinationals, in order to circumvent the Chinese government's restrictions on foreign investment and optimize the taxation of investors, issue shares to foreign investors on behalf of special VIEs (Variable interest entities). The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is an offshore market, VIE structures are usually registered in offshore zones in the Cayman Islands.

What are investors actually buying on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange?

In these special companies, internal agreements stipulate the interaction of Chinese structures, but not guarantees and obligations to foreign investors. An analogue can be found in SPV (Special purpose vehicle/entity) - corporate currency bonds of national companies in each country registered in European jurisdictions. This is done to attract foreign capital to national companies according to the rules of European legislation.

But China has made the property rights structure of its companies much more rigid. In essence, foreign investors can one day, at the will of the Chinese government, cease to be owners of shares in Chinese corporations. Of course, it is unlikely that this will happen, because China is very interested in having foreign capital in its companies, but such a risk exists.

In principle, this is a global trend: protectionism and protecting one's markets from the influence of foreign capital. After the stories with European depositories blocking Russian currency bonds, one can either accept infrastructure risks or stop investing in foreign jurisdictions altogether.

Infrastructure risks and access costs of Hong Kong-listed stocks

If you agree to accept the "indirect rights to income" format in Chinese corporations, then the following options are available:

1. Buy Hong Kong shares on your country's domestic exchange or broker (if the exchange offers this option)

To buy Chinese stocks, you can open an account with a broker in your country with access to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange or the local exchange where the Chinese company is listed.

With this option, you need to take into account that this is not direct access to companies and commissions increase. If this is a broker, then you need to clarify in which depository the securities of Chinese companies you bought will be stored and through which sub-broker your broker carries out transactions. Most likely, your broker carries out transactions on the Hong Kong exchange and takes higher commissions from you, increases the risk of counterparty chains and provides low speed access to trading.

2. Direct access to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

American and European brokers offer direct (sub-broker access) to the Hong Kong stock exchange. With this option, the investor eliminates the risk of the counterparty of the national exchange and the local broker, but the risk of the sub-broker and the legal risk of owning Chinese shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange remain. At the same time, the broker's commission increases and the minimum order size increases depending on the lot of the stock being traded (minimum $ 1000).

For example, for a Cypriot broker Just2Trade:

Purchase of $1,000 worth of Xiaomi shares:
Brokerage commission: 0.3% of the transaction, but not less than 6 USD. Exchange fees for purchasing shares: 0.1377%, minimum 1 HKD. Clearing fees: 0.092%, minimum 40 HKD (the same will be for selling.)
In this case, the clearing commission is included in the brokerage. The minimum purchase lot, for example for shares, will be 100 shares.
As a result, the commission will be on average: 0.6 - 0.8% of the transaction. In the case of dividends, the commission for payment on the European and Asian markets is 3% of the volume of incoming dividends, minimum 3 USD for each issuer.

For other European and American brokers, the commission for direct access to the Hong Kong exchange will be slightly higher, in the region of 1-1.5% of the transaction.

Currency risks

Almost always, conversion from one national currency to another is technically carried out through the US dollar. Why? Because the most developed system of correspondent bank accounts is in US dollars. The yen, yuan and even the euro cannot boast such an account system.
Settlements in national currencies are a long process and not always profitable for the parties to the transaction. Any attempts to create alternative settlements to the dollar system are a confrontation with the US or it is simply not profitable because in order to buy goods, you will need to buy dollars anyway.

The currency of settlements on the Hong Kong exchange is the Hong Kong dollar (HKD).

• The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar
• 7.75–7.85 HKD per $1 — this rate has been maintained by the local Central Bank since 1983 with the help of currency interventions
• The Hong Kong dollar rate may currently differ from the world rate, but the difference will decrease as trading volumes increase

It is known that Hong Kong is very sensitive to its status as a global financial center, therefore it complies with all legislative and regulatory requirements of the EU and the USA. But this also means that difficulties with dollar circulation in the world may also affect the Hong Kong dollar circulation.

Conclusion: If you want to invest in Asian and particularly Chinese corporations for the long term, then taking into account the legislative peculiarities of registering property rights, the risks and costs exceed the potential profitability. This is due to the legal structure of the issuers of shares, the currency risk of the Hong Kong dollar and the long chain of intermediaries.

On the other hand, given the rapid growth and development of the Asian region, the deep interpenetration of the interests of global investors and the development of communication channels, Asia is perhaps the most promising alternative diversified market among developing ones.

The question of choosing an operator for access to Asian exchanges can be reduced to the following logic:

If you are a citizen of a country outside the European Union or the United States and you do not have large amounts, for the purposes of short-term and medium-term investments, it is advisable to invest through the infrastructure of national brokers or European offshore brokers.

If your citizenship is in the European Union or the USA and you are a medium-term or long-term investor with capital over $10,000, then American or European brokers with direct access to the Hong Kong or other Asian stock exchanges are suitable for you.

List of brokers for access to the Hong Kong stock exchange

• Core Pacific - Yamaichi — opening an account in person at the office
• Interactive Brokers — remotely, but recommended assets from $10,000
• Saxo Bank — remotely, but recommended assets from $10,000
• Just2Trade — the best offshore european broker
• Freedom Finance Europe — the best European broker for savings and savings accounts in dollars and euros
• Finam — Russian broker with direct access to HKSE remotely opening accounts for all CIS citizens

Reviews, comparison, pros and cons of brokers for access to the Hong Kong stock exchange are presented in table with services and commissions

Which brokers remotely open accounts for citizens of the Russia, CIS and the ex. USSR?

Unfortunately, for popular European and American brokers, clients with passports of former republics that were part of the Soviet Union attract at least increased attention from the point of view of procedures for monitoring the origin of funds, combating money laundering and compliance with sanctions. We are talking about passports of citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia. The Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), which joined the European Union, inspire greater confidence in large brokerage companies.

CIS citizens with large capitals are a desirable client for any broker - but only at the entrance (the stage of depositing money into the account). But when withdrawing this money, in accordance with the directives of the US and EU financial regulators, brokers can request documents confirming the origin of these funds or otherwise create ambiguous barriers. Another issue is that ordinary citizens from the CIS countries who have no relation to state or sanction lists are of little interest to the controlling units of foreign brokers. In this regard, brokers with licenses from offshore jurisdictions (Cyprus, Malta, Belize, Estonia, the Grenadines, the Virgin Islands, the Marshall Islands and other jurisdictions with a special tax regime) are much more loyal.

Of course, the question of the reliability of offshore brokers arises here. There is only one answer - at present, even the largest American brokers do not provide a 100% guarantee of the reliability of funds. It is important to pay attention to the broker's work experience, which supervisory authority regulates it, reputation, reviews and many other parameters.

There are a small number of brokers in the world licensed by European and American financial regulators - the founders (shareholders) of which are citizens of the former USSR. In practice, oddly enough, it is these brokers who know, are able and work well with clients from the CIS. It so happened that after the collapse of the USSR, native Russian speakers dispersed all over the world and began to create successful businesses, including in investments. For example, the founder of the trading company XTX Markets, Alex Gerko, who was born in Russia, became the largest taxpayer in Great Britain. Or the founder of the Russian Finam and the Cypriot Just2Trade - Viktor Remsha created the American investment holding Lime Financial, which successfully competes in the American brokerage market. Or the founder of the investment holding Freedom Finance Timur Turlov, who created the only Russian-Kazakh broker that managed to pass the listing on the American exchange - Nasdaq.

The largest foreign brokers created by people from the USSR: Just2Trade, Freedom 24, Exante – have licenses from the Cyprus Securities Commission and representative offices in all major countries. These international investment and brokerage companies have been working with CIS citizens for a long time, know the specifics and offer reliable and high-quality service, proven by many years of practice.

For citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan - the most technologically advanced Russian broker Finam has created a separate service - remote opening of a brokerage account in 24 hours using passport data.

More about brokers from the EU and the US for investors from the CIS and Central Asia

Foreign stock brokers for traders

Traders are the most profitable client for a broker. Therefore, brokers try to provide active investors and traders with access to instruments and trading terminals that meet the best world standards of professional high-frequency trading.

What is the most important thing for a trader?

For a trader, the main thing is his trading system (strategy). Most strategies are based on robotic trading algorithms (trading robots, both semi-automatic and automatic).

The trading robot processes market data and, depending on the trading algorithm, sends trading orders to the exchange through the broker.

Trading algorithms of robots are programmed on the basis of trading platforms and terminals. Trading platforms execute trading algorithms of traders on brokers' servers.

The broker must meet the following needs of the trader:

• provide access to most popular trading platforms and terminals
• have a fail-safe infrastructure for accessing the exchange with backup servers
• provide access to data analysis and processing services for building and testing strategies in any interface convenient for the trader
• provide minimum margin loan rates and low transaction fees
• have competent technical support for users

Table: Brokers' conditions for depositing/withdrawing money, terminals, instruments, products for traders working with clients from Europe, America, Asia, East and CIS.

More details about European, American and Asian brokers for traders are described in our article: "The best brokers for trading on stock exchanges"

More information about foreign stock brokers for investors and traders

Why do you need an account with a foreign broker?

A stock market broker is an intermediary between an investor and the Stock Exchange. On foreign stock exchanges, this principle is the same as in your country.

Therefore, first of all, an investor needs to decide whether he really needs a foreign broker?

• — If you just need to buy stocks of large international corporations like Apple, Facebook or McDonald`s, then it is enough to open an account with any broker in your country with access to one of the American exchanges or if such securities have been listed on the national exchange of your country, then buy them on it
• — If foreign jurisdiction, account insurance, high liquidity, a large number of investment products and financial instruments are important to you, then you can consider the conditions of foreign brokers

Deposit and withdrawal of funds from a foreign broker

A feature of the process of transferring funds to a foreign account of a foreign broker is the close attention of any bank in accordance with the requirements of the Government of your country. As a rule, most banks have limits on amounts above which the Bank through which you transfer funds may require supporting documents. (In many European countries, this amount is more than $ 10,000 per transaction). There is a possibility that your bank or payment system, when transferring funds to a foreign broker, may ask for: a copy of the agreement with the foreign broker in which you have an account. You can easily send an electronic version of the agreement received in the broker's personal account, after which the Bank will transfer funds for a commission established by the tariffs of your bank, and possibly without commissions.

Let's note the features:

For brokers located in jurisdictions with preferential tax regimes (offshore brokers), there is an opportunity to transfer money in digital currencies and even cryptocurrencies.

For large American or European brokers, stricter KYC (Know Your Client) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) rules apply. Funds are accepted using bank details. And then, depending on the amount, you may be asked to provide documents confirming the legal origin of your funds. For example, a contract of sale of an apartment or a certificate from the place of work on average earnings.

Withdrawing money from a brokerage account:

European and American brokers, as a rule, require that funds be withdrawn to the bank account from which the money was deposited into the brokerage account. (Thus, almost all brokers will refuse you the withdrawal of funds to third-party accounts or to other accounts in other banks). At the same time, the process of withdrawing funds may also be accompanied by control by the control and “anti-money laundering” internal departments of brokers or banks.

On the other hand, there are foreign brokers registered in countries with preferential tax regimes. For example, offshore brokers in Cyprus are more loyal to control over the withdrawal of money. Of course, it is unlikely that you will be able to withdraw amounts over 100,000 dollars per hour, but in general, even with supervisory checks, the withdrawal time is from several hours to two days.

Minimum fees for withdrawals from foreign accounts range from 0 to $30. For large amounts, fees can reach several hundred dollars.

Again, we repeat that brokers registered in jurisdictions with preferential taxation allow you to quickly withdraw funds through digital currencies, with a total withdrawal fee of about 2%, anonymously, decentralized within the time set by the brokerage regulations. The transactions themselves in digital currencies have long been safe and take minutes, depending on the blockchain (network) of such a currency.

Note that well-known and large brokers may request additional documents when withdrawing a sum of money of several tens of thousands of dollars at a time. For example, well-known American and European brokers from the USA (Interactive brokers), Denmark (Saxobank), Great Britain (TradeStation) have mandatory "anti-money laundering" AML control procedures and if the payment raises questions, it may be stopped until additional proceedings are appointed.

Conclusion: Of course, citizens leading a lawful way of life and paying all taxes have no reason to worry. But the modern world is changing so quickly that even very wealthy and law-abiding citizens can, simply through carelessness or due to a technical failure or other reasons beyond their control, become the target of inspections by authorities and regulators of the countries where foreign brokers are registered. This does not include political risks between countries or simply attempts at fraudulent actions by third parties. Therefore, the process of choosing a broker and conducting transactions must be approached responsibly and diversified.

How to choose foreign broker?

The key parameters when choosing a broker are its:

• Reliability — will the broker go bankrupt or will the regulator revoke its license?
• Services and products — what investment products does the broker offer for all categories of investors and traders
• Commission size - what are the rates, how much commission will you pay for transactions, margin loans, storage, terminals, access to markets
• User support — the quality of the broker's consulting and technical support, including in the client's native language
• Personal account and account management — how to quickly and conveniently deposit and withdraw funds, receive account reports
• Trading software — convenience, practicality and variety of broker trading terminals for traders' tasks, mobile versions, additional modules for algorithmic, high-frequency and robotic trading

Criteria for choosing a foreign broker

1. Availability of licenses from regulators and the country of registration of a foreign broker. Each country has its own supervisory and regulatory body that monitors compliance with investors' rights. For example, in the USA, brokers are supervised by: SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). In Cyprus: CySec (Cyprus SEC), in Britain: FCA (Financial Services Authority), in Germany: Bafin (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) and others.

2. Insurance of clients' funds (for example, in the USA all accounts and securities are insured by the regulator for up to $500,000, in Cyprus up to 20,000 EUR, but it is true that in the event of the collapse of large brokers and banks in the Russian Federation the state came to the rescue)

3. Methods of depositing and withdrawing money from the account, their speed of crediting and withdrawal. The more banks from different countries, methods of interaction, payment systems, digital currencies, the better and indicates that infrastructure organizations are ready to work with the broker, which have even more regulatory oversight than the brokers themselves.

4. Clear regulations and commission rates (a document similar to General Terms and Conditions for the Provision of Investment Services is available, which sets out the terms, rules and procedures for the broker's work in the main investment areas. Rates and commissions are transparent, simple and accessible without any non-obvious features)

5. Multilingual support, its availability and competence. All brokers have customer support, for example, European languages and Russian are available to almost all brokers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not all of them are online. It is difficult to assess the level of competence of support until you become a client, but calling / writing a letter to support in your language and simply inquiring about the services will already give you some information about the quality of the broker's specialists.

6. Interface, format and speed of managing funds on your account. You can try to deposit several hundred dollars and check how quickly they will arrive and be displayed in the client's personal account. Then conduct test purchase and sale transactions for the instruments of interest, receive a brokerage report and then withdraw funds. This will give you an understanding of the speed of your personal account, its convenience, formats and types of broker reporting.

7. Versions, types and technologies of trading terminals and applications, as well as their cost. As a rule, brokers have trading terminals in versions on brokers' websites via Internet browsers, personal computers, mobile devices. Paid and free. They are usually divided into popular (Metatrader, CQG, and others) and proprietary (TWS, TigerTrade, LightSpeed, and others)

Below are the main questions, the answers to which will help you choose the broker that best suits your needs.

Algorithm for choosing a foreign stock broker

Every investor needs to answer the following questions - this will give you an understanding of what your personal priorities are when choosing a broker:

1. Decide on the purposes of using a foreign account? For example, diversification of the risk of the country of residence, in other words, storing assets in another country or the convenience of services for trading or the reliability of the foreign infrastructure of property rights to investment assets.

2. Broker reliability. How critical is this factor for you? Reliability, guarantees, brand, asset insurance, experience in the market - these are all relative concepts. Even large banks go bankrupt, and offshore brokers can work for decades. But at least a license, five years of experience in the market, regulation and supervision of the broker should be there.

3. Decide which jurisdiction of a foreign broker suits you? An offshore jurisdiction implies lower tax and regulatory costs, as well as verification of the origin of the investor's funds. On the contrary, a large international broker will ask many questions about you and your funds, bureaucratize processes and formalities.

4. Decide what amounts you will invest? If we are talking about hundreds of dollars, then we need to take into account the minimum asset lots, commissions depending on the volume and minimum deposit amounts with brokers. For large and well-known international brokers, clients with amounts up to $ 10,000 are not interesting.

5. Decide how often you will make purchase/sale transactions of financial instruments? If you are inclined to speculative and frequent transactions, then it is worth studying the brokers' tariffs specifically for traders and favorable conditions for trading contracts on the Futures markets. For long-term and fundamental investors, it is worth paying attention to tariffs with minimal monthly write-offs and direct access to exchanges so that the property rights to securities are recorded for you and securely stored in the depository records.

6. Decide what types of financial instruments you will work with? Stocks, bonds, contracts, ETFs, currencies. Not all brokers provide direct access to exchanges or specific types of assets, and do not register the property rights to company securities for you personally. Basically, those brokers who register on exchanges, as a rule, work with clients with amounts from $ 10,000. However, it is not convenient for companies and exchanges to regularly record the daily transfers of property rights of millions of small exchange speculators, so they shift this work to brokers or set high tariffs. As a result, many brokers actually execute transactions with clients within themselves, without sending transactions to the exchange. This is neither good nor bad. If the broker is reliable, then for the client, it is much more convenient and cheaper, otherwise small clients of brokers would have to pay many times larger commissions.

7. Decide on the broker's services and products that you would like to use? The product line, their profitability, convenience and quality are what brokers compete with each other for clients' money. The same product or service can vary greatly between two brokers in terms of quality, commissions and potential profitability.

8. Decide whether you will trade with borrowed funds? Terms and fees of margin trading, risk rates, carrying over positions to the next day, playing for a fall (short), risk management parameters - all this is for experienced investors and traders, but the potential profitability is significantly higher than trading only with your own funds.

9. Decide whether you will open short positions and take securities from the broker for short sales (short)? Here you also need to study in the broker's working conditions a number of features related to credit rates, the broker's ability to take your securities for other short sellers, and most importantly, the liquidity of the broker's assets.

10. Determine how important is broker support for you? Brokers have many clients, all of whom have their own questions that require highly qualified customer support staff, prompt response, regular and complete notifications about changes in working conditions, 24/7 availability, multilingualism, and the level of training of technical consultants on the operation of services and applications.

Based on your personal needs, you can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each broker and roughly understand which one is most suitable for you.

We recommend using our comparison table of foreign brokers.

Brokers' investment products

The most popular services for investors and traders among broker clients are:

• Trading on exchanges and Margin trading
• Investment Securities, Funds, ETF
• Global Futures, Options, CFD
• Robotrading and algotrading, high-frequency trading
• Invest planning, financial adviser
• Robo-advisors
• Asset management
• Copy trading, autofollowing
• Capital protected structured products
• Pre-IPO, OTC, SPAC)
• Cryptocurrency trading

How do we compare brokers?

To obtain an assessment and rating, the main parameters are compared: reliability, favorable commissions, customer support, access to markets, trading terminals and services.

Products and services for investors and traders are considered separately. This is necessary for an accurate and high-quality choice of the best broker.

What parameters, products, services are taken into account?

General parameters

• Broker Reliability
• Application
• General Fees
• Customer Support
• Markets

Investors:

• Copytrading
• Individual Investment Products
• Structured Products
• Robo-Advisors
• IPO, pre-IPO
• World ETF

Traders:

• Trading terminals
• Margin loans
• Algo trading / High-frequency trading
• Access to exchanges
• Options, futures
• Commissions for traders

Foreign Brokers News

Freedom24 Freedom has implemented an economic calendar in the freedom24 app

01.04.2025 News Freedom24

Freedom24 has been upgraded with an important new feature — the Economic Calendar is now available not only on the web platform but also on the mobile app! This allows our clients to monitor key market movements and price-driving events at any time and from anywhere.

Since its launch on the Freedom24 web version last year, the Economic Calendar has become an invaluable tool, helping investors make well-informed and timely decisions. Now, with its integration into the Freedom24 app, keeping track of key financial events has never been easier.

How to access the Economic Calendar?
The Economic Calendar is available via Security Card in the Freedom24 app. Simply open the card of a stock you’re interested in to view all relevant upcoming events related to that security.

• Key events covered in the Economic Calendar
• Dividend record date: The deadline for shareholders to qualify for an upcoming dividend payment.
• Stock splits: Details on changes in share quantity and value following a stock split.
• Ticker changes: Updates on any modifications to stock ticker symbols.
• Earnings release date: The scheduled announcement of a company’s financial results.
• US stock exchange closing days: Non-trading days on major exchanges like Nasdaq and NYSE.

The Economic Calendar is your personal investment assistant — keeping all essential market events right at your fingertips. Stay ahead of the market, make informed decisions, and explore the latest tools on Freedom24 to take your trading experience to the next level!

Just2Trade Just2Trade integrated MT5 Automation for fast Access to 20 Exchanges with 128,000 Instruments

02.05.2025 About Just2Trade

Global regulated broker Just2Trade has significantly expanded the range of instruments available to traders thanks to MetaTrader 5 Automations. Automation has allowed the company to optimize processes, increase the speed and accuracy of operations, and minimize risks. Most importantly, the service allows you to solve more problems without additional resources and time.

“We specialize in providing high-tech solutions,” says Georgios Argitakis, CEO of Just2Trade. “From the moment of launch until today, the MetaTrader 5 platform has helped us take a leading position in the market. And thanks to MetaTrader 5 Automations, we were able to offer traders a record number of instruments - more than 128,000 symbols on 20 major exchanges around the world, including NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, FSE, CME, NYMEX, ICE and others.”

The service offers more than a hundred ready-made scenarios for automating client communications, managing accounts, transactions and parameters of trading instruments. All this allows companies to flexibly scale, ensuring the processing of thousands of transactions at the same speed.

“By automating all routine operations, we have eliminated human errors,” adds Georgios Argitakis. “Moreover, not only the number of errors has decreased, but also business costs. Automation has allowed us to offer traders a greater number of high-tech services and has become a competitive advantage for us.”

Just2Trade is a transnational brokerage brand that provides clients with the opportunity to trade a unique set of over 128,000 financial instruments: stocks, currencies, commodities, futures and other trading products. The broker also provides the opportunity to invest in IPOs. Services are provided to both retail and institutional investors.

Frequently Asked Questions about Foreign Brokerage Accounts

Where should you start investing?

Investing should start with setting goals, deadlines, selecting instruments and accepting risks for the period of achieving this goal.

To do this, you need to answer 4 questions

• What profit goal do I set for myself?
• For what period do I invest money?
• What types of assets (instruments) are suitable for my goals and deadlines?
• What risks am I willing to take in connection with this process?

What do you need to start trading on the stock exchange?

The main tasks are to choose a broker and open a brokerage account.

There are 5 main criteria by which a broker is chosen:

• Broker reliability in terms of financial condition and process fault tolerance
• Commission size and access to the necessary markets
• Competent and prompt user support service
• Convenient and understandable personal account for account management 
• Simple and functional software for conducting trading operations and transactions. More details are described in the article: 4 steps to start trading stocks and bonds

What is the advantage of investing through foreign brokerage accounts?

1. Money and assets are in foreign jurisdictions and protected by international law
2. The number of intermediaries between your money and investment instruments is minimal (you have direct access: Broker - Exchange - Financial instrument with registered property rights with registrars and depositories without unnecessary intermediaries)
3. High regulation of investment markets (financial legislation, and most importantly its real law enforcement, has been worked out for years)
4. Brokerage accounts are insured by supervisory regulators (if a broker is issued a license by a financial market regulator, then such a broker undergoes inspections, has high-quality supervision and liability insurance)
5. Possibilities for tax optimization, especially for brokers registered in jurisdictions with a preferential tax regime (Cyprus, Malta, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Estonia and others)

What are the disadvantages of investing through foreign brokers?

1. Low commissions are achieved through large trading volumes and frequent transactions, long-term investors may have their commissions increased, as they are less profitable for brokers
2. Non-residents of countries where the broker is registered are required to declare foreign accounts and transactions on them to the tax service of the country where the client is a resident
3. The regulator is an organization different from your country, so it will be more difficult for non-resident clients to complain and go to court at the place of registration of the broker
4. Not all foreign brokers have support in the client's language support
5. Large American and European brokers have a biased opinion about the toxicity of clients and the illegality of money from emergent countries

What taxes must be paid on foreign brokerage accounts?

Income tax

In many client jurisdictions, the owner of a foreign brokerage account is required to notify the tax service of his country about opening an account, changing details, and movement of funds.

In addition, the investor annually fills out a tax return in which he shows his tax service the profit or loss from transactions with assets in foreign brokerage accounts.

A report on the movement of funds is not required under two conditions

• The broker is located in a country that exchanges financial information with the country of your residence (the full list is on the tax service website)
• Insignificant amount of income (each country has its own limit)

What is the liability for failure to notify the tax authorities about the existence of foreign accounts?

Failure to comply with legal requirements will result in fines and additional charges

How will my country's tax office know about my brokerage account in the broker's country of registration?

1. Will not know if there is no automatic exchange.
2. Even if the country of registration of the broker has an automatic exchange in the Federal Tax Service of your country, it is not a fact that the exchange is carried out correctly.

For example, Cypriot brokers do not always verify tax identifiers, and accordingly, the exchange of data by your tax service may not be validated.

It should be noted that the tax service of your country will see your money transfers from your banks to the current account of a foreign broker. Of course, there are ways to anonymously transfer funds, for example, through cryptocurrencies (digital financial assets), but many countries are also starting to require reporting on the presence of cryptocurrencies among citizens

What are the risks of a foreign broker not returning clients' money?

The basis for rejecting the withdrawal of funds from a brokerage account may be questions or doubts regarding the information provided by the client.

In this case, the broker may request additional information or documents, including information on the origin of the funds received in the brokerage account.

During the verification, the client's account may be blocked on legal grounds. But this does not mean that the account will be automatically closed or the funds in it will be seized.

The broker has the right only temporarily (during the verification of the client) to restrict the client from withdrawing funds from the account and performing trading operations.

If the verification does not reveal any violations, the account will be unblocked. If there are violations, the case will be sent to court for further consideration. There have been cases of temporary freezing of operations to withdraw clients' funds. But this only applied in the case of suspicions from law enforcement agencies and concerned large sums of hundreds of thousands of dollars and above.

Deposit and withdrawal of funds through digital currencies

How to deposit and withdraw cryptocurrency to a stock brokerage account?

If you need to transfer funds to a foreign brokerage account in cryptocurrency, then this opportunity is provided by offshore brokers (licenses of Cyprus, the British Isles, Malta, St. Vincent and other preferential tax jurisdictions)

Among them, there is a reliable and time-tested broker that has long and successfully worked with citizens of any country except the United States - Just2Trade.

Previously, there were several brokers working with cryptocurrencies, but the risks of sanctions and claims from financial regulators scare many brokers from working with both clients of developing countries and cryptocurrencies.

What is the scheme for using cryptocurrencies in brokerage accounts?

• You deposit funds into a brokerage account in cryptocurrency
• exchange for currency (dollars or euros)
• choose any of the many available foreign exchanges and trade stocks, bonds, futures contracts and other international financial instruments
• if you sell exchange instruments and go into dollars or euros, you can convert them into cryptocurrency on the broker's internal cryptocurrency exchanger and withdraw to your anonymous cryptocurrency wallet.

What are the benefits of depositing and withdrawing funds from a cryptocurrency brokerage account?

This may be interesting

• Investors and traders who want to trade on the largest international exchanges while receiving anonymity of the origin of funds
• Investors and traders who want to bypass restrictions of banks and payment systems on cross-border transfers

For example, clients of those countries where international payment systems are blocked or investors who have fallen under sanctions or simply clients concerned about their anonymity

Which stock brokers accept cryptocurrency?

Offshore brokers(licenses of Cyprus, the British Isles, Malta, Belize, etc., jurisdictions with preferential tax regimes)

For example, the Cypriot broker Just2Trade (previously affiliated with the Russian Finam) or the Israeli Etoro (with a Cyprus license).

Unfortunately, Etoro stopped opening brokerage accounts for tax residents of many countries six months before the introduction of tough financial sanctions against Russia. The same was done by the technological Maltese broker for traders Exante.

Forex brokers (but they do not provide access to international exchanges, but offer their clients trading in contracts for difference of exchange instruments (CFD) without withdrawing transactions on the exchange, which does not imply obtaining ownership of securities. For example: Alpari, Roboforex, Forex Club and others.

What risks does a client bear when transferring cryptocurrency to a brokerage account?

Broker licensing risk

Stock market regulators are still skeptical about the cryptocurrency market. Not every offshore broker undertakes the procedures for depositing/withdrawing cryptocurrency from their clients, and large brokers prefer not to openly offer such operations to their clients. For example, Exante, popular with professional traders, stopped accepting client funds in cryptocurrency and closed access to its crypto exchange.

Risk when checking a client by a broker

As a rule, depositing and withdrawing from brokerage accounts in cryptocurrency is offered by brokers with offshore tax jurisdictions (Cyprus, Malta, Belize, the British Isles and other offshore countries). But they also value their license as professional participants in the Stock Market. Therefore, persons suspected of money laundering or top officials from the sanctions lists may at least be asked to withdraw funds or not accept money from such clients. Supervisory and regulatory organizations are not interested in ordinary investors with amounts up to several tens of thousands of dollars. Investors with larger capital may be asked to provide documents confirming the origin of the money.

If the investor is not included in suspicious or other lists, then there should be no problems with withdrawing money from brokerage accounts.

For example, the Cypriot broker Just2Trade requires client verification, but not necessarily a tax ID. Increased control by brokers over investors' funds is associated with the requirements of national and international financial market regulators, as well as tightening international control and standards for combating terrorism, money laundering, KYC (know your client) procedures, audits, due diligence and many other control and supervisory mechanisms of financial markets. Naturally, these requirements of exchange and banking regulators have to be extended to the procedures for replenishing and withdrawing funds from brokerage accounts in cryptocurrencies.

Operational risk of the client itself

These are human errors of the clients themselves when using payment methods of the cryptocurrency infrastructure.

For example, losing passwords for access to a crypto wallet or an error when entering the details (address) of your crypto wallet. Of course, access to the cryptocurrency market for an ordinary citizen is becoming easier and the most popular tokens (Bitcoin, Etherium or stablecoins USDT, USDC) have convenient access interfaces, but no one is insured against banal manual errors.

So, if in the banking system a transaction can still be somehow rolled back and incorrectly sent money can be returned, then in cryptocurrencies, coins sent to an incorrectly entered address cannot be returned. Be careful when entering the details!

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