How to Fill Out and Submit a Schwab Gift Stock Transfer Form

To gift securities from your Charles Schwab account, you’ll use one of two Schwab gift stock transfer forms depending on where the recipient’s account sits. If both accounts are at Schwab, use “Move Assets from My Schwab Brokerage Account,” which you can also initiate online through the Transfers and Payments portal.¹ If the shares are going to Fidelity, Vanguard, a charity’s brokerage, or any other outside firm, use “Transfer of Assets Out — Partial Account or Charitable Gift Transfers” instead.² Both forms list securities by ticker and share count, both restrict transfers to whole shares, and both bounce back if account details or signatures aren’t right the first time.

Picking the Right Form

Internal Schwab-to-Schwab transfers are the simpler path. The form is on Schwab’s Forms and Applications page, and many of these transfers can be handled entirely online without printing anything.³ Because the shares never leave Schwab’s system, these generally settle faster.

Outgoing transfers travel through the Depository Trust Company (DTC) system to the receiving institution. The outgoing form requires the receiving firm’s DTC number and a contact there. The same form handles charitable gifts to nonprofits that hold investment accounts somewhere other than Schwab.²

What to Gather Before You Start

Your Schwab account number and the exact account title as it appears on your statements.
The recipient’s full legal name, account number, and brokerage name. For a Schwab-to-Schwab transfer, you only need their Schwab account number and registration name.
For outside transfers, the receiving institution’s DTC number and a contact name or phone number at that firm.
Each security’s ticker symbol or CUSIP and the exact number of whole shares you’re gifting.

Schwab will not let you specify a dollar amount. You must list whole shares, and fractional shares cannot be transferred at all. If you own 10.37 shares and ask to transfer “all,” the 0.37 stays in your account.² On the internal form, when you split a position between accounts, you also designate which account receives any odd-share remainder.⁴

Cost Basis Method

The internal form asks which cost basis method to use. Leave it blank and Schwab defaults to whatever your account is already set to, such as first-in-first-out or specific identification. You can attach lot instructions if you want particular tax lots moved rather than the default. This matters because the basis traveling with the shares determines the recipient’s eventual tax bill when they sell.⁴

Medallion Signature Guarantee

Transfers to a third party or to an account at a different brokerage almost always require a Medallion Signature Guarantee stamped on the form. A notary seal is not a substitute. A notary verifies your identity; a Medallion stamp does that and backs the signature with a financial indemnity, so the guarantor institution assumes liability if the signature turns out to be forged. SEC Rule 17Ad-15 governs which institutions qualify.⁵

In practice, go to a bank, credit union, or brokerage where you already have an account. Bring a government-issued photo ID and the unsigned form. The officer watches you sign and then applies the stamp. Institutions that don’t know you may refuse. Each stamp carries a dollar coverage limit, so confirm that the stamp’s prefix covers the market value of the shares you’re moving.

Simple transfers between two accounts in the same person’s name, or between spouses with linked accounts, often don’t need a Medallion stamp. Any gift to a non-spouse third party, even inside Schwab, almost certainly will. When in doubt, get the stamp. A form rejected for a missing guarantee means starting over.

Submitting the Form

The internal transfer form goes in through Schwab’s Secure Messaging portal on Schwab.com or by fax to 888-526-7252.⁴ The outgoing transfer form faxes to 877-824-3726, marked “Attention: Outgoing Transfers.”² If you work with an investment advisor through Schwab, hand the form to your advisor rather than faxing it in yourself.

Keep a copy of the completed form and the fax confirmation. Outgoing transfers take longer because they have to clear DTC and coordinate with the receiving firm. If the shares haven’t landed within a week, call Schwab’s transfers department. The usual holdups are a mismatched DTC number or a Medallion stamp that didn’t meet the coverage threshold.

Gift Tax: Annual Exclusion and Form 709

The IRS treats an uncompensated stock transfer as a gift under 26 U.S.C. § 2501.⁶ For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient.⁷ You can give that much to any number of people without any filing requirement. Spouses who consent to split a gift of jointly held property double the combined exclusion to $38,000 per recipient.⁸

The gift’s value is the stock’s fair market value on the transfer date, not what you paid. For publicly traded shares, the IRS uses the average of the day’s highest and lowest selling prices. A high of $52 and a low of $48 means a per-share value of $50.⁹ Write that number down. You’ll need it if the gift exceeds $19,000.

If a gift to any single person tops $19,000 in a calendar year, you must file IRS Form 709 by April 15 of the following year. Spouses electing to split gifts also file, regardless of amount. Filing doesn’t necessarily mean owing tax. The excess over $19,000 counts against your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption, which for 2026 is $15,000,000.⁷ For most people, Form 709 is paperwork, not a bill.¹⁰

Skip the filing when it’s required and penalties follow. The IRS charges 5% of unpaid tax per month the return is late, up to 25%. A return more than 60 days overdue carries a minimum penalty of $525 or 100% of the tax due, whichever is less.¹¹ Even when no tax is owed, filing starts the statute of limitations clock. Without it, the IRS can revisit the gift indefinitely.

What the Recipient Inherits

Gifted stock does not come with a clean tax slate. In most cases, the recipient takes your original cost basis and your holding period. Buy a stock five years ago at $30, gift it when it’s worth $80, and the recipient’s basis is still $30. When they sell, they owe capital gains on the difference between $30 and their sale price, and because your holding period carries over, the gain is long-term.¹²

Depreciated stock follows a different rule. If fair market value on the gift date is below your basis, the recipient uses FMV to calculate any loss. Say your basis is $10,000 and the stock is worth $8,000 when gifted. A later sale at $7,000 produces a $1,000 loss (using the $8,000 FMV). A sale at $12,000 produces a $2,000 gain (using your $10,000 basis). A sale anywhere between $8,000 and $10,000 produces neither gain nor loss.¹² This double basis rule catches people off guard. Tell the recipient what they’re inheriting.

Gifting Stock to a Minor

You cannot send shares directly into a standard brokerage account for a child. Minors lack legal capacity to hold investment accounts in their own name, so the gift goes into a custodial account under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) or Uniform Gifts to Minors Act (UGMA). Schwab offers custodial accounts with no minimum deposit and no maintenance fees.¹³

An adult custodian manages the account until the child reaches the age of majority, which ranges from 18 to 25 by state. Control then transfers automatically and permanently. Funds used before then must be spent solely for the minor’s benefit, and the gift itself is irrevocable the moment you make the transfer.¹³

Kiddie Tax

Dividends and capital gains inside a custodial account trigger the kiddie tax. For 2026, the first $1,350 of a child’s unearned income is tax-free, the next $1,350 is taxed at the child’s rate, and anything above $2,700 is taxed at the parent’s marginal rate. If unearned income exceeds $2,700, the child files their own return with Form 8615 attached. If total gross income stays under $13,500, parents can report the child’s investment income on their own return using Form 8814. Gifting a large block of dividend-paying stock to a minor doesn’t shift the tax burden as much as many people assume.

Records to Keep

Once the transfer settles, hold onto the confirmation statement showing the debit from your account. Also document the fair market value on the transfer date (the high-low average), the share count, your original cost basis and purchase date, and the recipient’s name and relationship to you. Those records back up a Form 709 filing if one is required, and they give the recipient the cost basis they’ll need years later when they sell. The recipient has no easy way to reconstruct your purchase history on their own. Passing that information along at the time of the gift saves everyone the headache later.

1
Charles Schwab. How to Transfer Stock from One Account to Another
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Charles Schwab. Transfer of Assets Out Partial Account or Charitable Gift Transfers
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Charles Schwab. Forms and Applications
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Charles Schwab. Move Assets from My Schwab Brokerage Account
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Final Rule – Acceptance of Signature Guarantees from Eligible Guarantor Institutions
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2501 – Imposition of Tax
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Internal Revenue Service. Whats New – Estate and Gift Tax
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Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions on Gift Taxes
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Internal Revenue Service. Publication 561 – Determining the Value of Donated Property
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 709
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Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Penalty
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Internal Revenue Service. Publication 551 – Basis of Assets
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Charles Schwab. Schwab One Custodial Account