Alpaca Securities Charge: Regulatory Fees, Margin, and Crypto

Alpaca Securities fees are minimal on the surface: stock and options trades carry no commission. What you actually pay comes from a handful of other places, including regulatory pass-throughs on every sell, per-contract charges on options, tiered pricing on crypto, margin interest, and service charges for wires, transfers, and market data. The schedule below reflects Alpaca’s last revision in May 2026.

Regulatory Fees on Every Sell Order

Two federal assessments come out of the proceeds every time you sell a stock or option. These aren’t Alpaca charges; every broker is required to collect them.

The SEC’s Section 31 fee funds market oversight. As of April 4, 2026, the rate is $20.60 per $1,000,000 of principal sold, which works out to roughly two cents on a $10,000 sale.¹ The SEC adjusts the rate periodically based on projected market volume, so it can move mid-year.

FINRA’s Trading Activity Fee is $0.000195 per share on equity sales, capped at $9.79 per trade.² For options, the TAF is $0.00329 per contract, sell side only.³ Both fees round up to the nearest penny and appear as line items on your confirmations.

Extra Per-Contract Fees on Options

Options trades pick up two more charges that stocks don’t. The Options Regulatory Fee runs $0.02295 per contract on both buys and sells. The Options Clearing Corporation adds $0.025 per contract on both sides, uncapped.³ On a 10-contract trade, those two together come to about 48 cents each way. Small per trade, but they compound quickly if a strategy opens and closes dozens of positions a day.

Crypto Trading Is Not Commission-Free

Crypto is the exception to the no-commission model. Alpaca uses a maker-taker structure with volume tiers based on your prior 30-day trading. Maker orders add liquidity to the book; taker orders remove it, which is what market orders almost always do.⁴

Tier 1, under $100,000: 0.15% maker / 0.25% taker
Tier 2, $100,000–$500,000: 0.12% / 0.22%
Tier 3, $500,000–$1,000,000: 0.10% / 0.20%
Tier 4, $1,000,000–$10,000,000: 0.08% / 0.18%
Tier 5, $10,000,000–$25,000,000: 0.05% / 0.15%
Tier 6, $25,000,000–$50,000,000: 0.02% / 0.13%
Tier 7, $50,000,000–$100,000,000: 0.02% / 0.12%
Tier 8, over $100,000,000: 0.00% / 0.10%

The fee is deducted from whichever asset you receive. Buy ETH with dollars and the fee comes out in ETH.⁴

Margin Interest

Borrowing to buy securities costs 6.25% annually on the default margin account. Alpaca Elite 100k accounts pay 4.75%.³ These are flat rates, not a spread over a benchmark, though Alpaca reserves the right to change them if monetary conditions shift.

Interest accrues only on the end-of-day debit balance, so intraday margin that gets repaid before the close costs nothing. The daily charge equals your settlement-date debit balance times the annual rate divided by 360.⁵ Using 360 rather than 365 days pushes the effective rate slightly above the stated annual figure. If your cash won’t cover the end-of-cycle interest debit, it gets added to your margin balance.

Transfers, Wires, and Withdrawals

Moving assets out of Alpaca is where costs tend to catch people off guard.

Outbound ACAT transfer, full or partial: $100³
Inbound ACAT transfer: free
Outbound domestic wire: $25
Outbound international wire: $50
ACH return: $25
Internal transfer between Alpaca accounts: $50

Physical share movements are considerably steeper. DWAC transfers cost $250 per security in either direction. DRS transfers run $125 per security each way. A rejected DWAC is $100 and a rejected DRS is $200.³ Worth verifying every detail before you submit.

ADRs and Corporate Actions

American Depositary Receipts carry a pass-through custody fee of $0.01 to $0.03 per share, charged by the depositary bank rather than marked up by Alpaca.³ Large ADR positions feel this over time.

Voluntary corporate actions, like electing into a tender offer or picking a merger option, cost $100 per unique election.³ Mandatory actions such as stock splits process at no charge.

Short Selling

There are no borrow fees on easy-to-borrow securities for Trading API users, which is a real advantage for strategies that short large-cap stocks or liquid ETFs.⁶ Hard-to-borrow names are not currently available to short on the platform at all.³ If your strategy needs small-cap or heavily shorted tickers, that constraint matters more than the price.

Market Data Subscriptions

The free plan gives limited quote and trade data suitable for development and research. Algo Trader Plus is $99 per month and provides deeper real-time data with higher API rate limits.⁷

Your professional or non-professional classification sits on top of that. Exchange rules define a professional user broadly: managing money for others, acting in a business capacity, or using data beyond personal investing. Professional status raises exchange-level data fees substantially, separate from what Alpaca charges you.

Tax Reporting

Alpaca issues a 1099-B with cost basis and wash sale adjustments, but those adjustments cover only identical symbols within a single Alpaca account. The IRS requires wash sale tracking across all your accounts, including IRAs, and across substantially identical securities such as related options. If you trade the same ticker at another broker, or trade options alongside the underlying shares, the reconciliation is on you. High-frequency algorithmic traders are the most exposed here; the 1099-B numbers can differ meaningfully from what proper adjustments produce. A separate trade log or dedicated tax software earns its keep.

1
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fee Rate Advisory 2 for Fiscal Year 2026
2
FINRA. FINRA Fee Adjustment Schedule
3
Alpaca Securities LLC. Brokerage Fee Schedule
4
Alpaca. Crypto Spot Trading Fees
5
Alpaca. What Determines the Margin for My Account
6
Alpaca. What Are the Fees for Short Selling
7
Alpaca. Real-Time Stock, Options and Crypto Market Data