How to Transfer Stock From One Broker to Another: ACATS Steps and Fees

To transfer stock from one broker to another, open or identify your account at the new brokerage and ask them to pull your holdings over through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, known as ACATS. The move happens electronically between the two firms, your shares stay invested the whole time, and nothing is sold, so you don’t trigger capital gains. A standard transfer takes about 3 to 6 business days. The firm you’re leaving will usually charge $50 to $100 on the way out.

Start at the New Broker, Not the Old One

Every brokerage transfer is initiated by the receiving firm. You fill out a Transfer Initiation Form (TIF) at the new broker, and that firm reaches into your old account and pulls the assets over.¹ Most firms host the TIF inside a secure online portal and let you sign electronically. Larger or more complex accounts sometimes require a phone call or a branch visit.

Before you submit, clean up a few things at your old brokerage:

Cancel recurring purchases, dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs), and any automatic contributions. A transaction that fires while your account is frozen can hold up the whole transfer.
Close pending trades and open limit orders.
Leave some cash in the account to cover the outbound transfer fee so the firm doesn’t sell a position to collect it.

Once you submit the TIF, the receiving firm should give you a confirmation or tracking number. Expect automated status updates as the two firms coordinate. If something snags, the new broker contacts you to fix it.

Information You Need on the Transfer Form

Getting the paperwork right the first time is the single biggest thing you can do to avoid delays. The SEC warns that the carrying firm can reject a transfer if the form is filled out incorrectly or there’s a question about account ownership.¹ Have the following ready:

Your current account number at the old brokerage, exactly as it appears on your statements.
The account type: individual taxable, joint, traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or margin. Transfers go most smoothly when the account type is the same at both firms.
The account title. The name has to match precisely between the two firms. If your middle initial is on the old account, include it. Small discrepancies flag the transfer for manual review.
The Social Security number or Tax ID associated with the account.

Some firms use one TIF for everything; others have separate forms for IRAs, margin accounts, and standard brokerage accounts. Grab the right one before you start.

How ACATS Moves Your Assets

ACATS is the electronic rail that handles most brokerage-to-brokerage transfers in the United States, and it’s governed by FINRA Rule 11870. After you submit your request, the receiving firm enters your account details into ACATS. Your old broker gets notified and has three business days to validate the transfer or raise an objection.² Valid objections are narrow: an incorrect account number, a name mismatch, a dispute over share counts. The old firm can’t block the transfer because it doesn’t want to lose your business.

If your old firm doesn’t participate in ACATS, or if you hold physical stock certificates, the transfer has to be arranged manually between the two back offices. That takes longer and usually requires a medallion signature guarantee, a stamp from a participating bank or broker that verifies your identity on physical-securities paperwork.³

What Won’t Transfer in Kind

Not every holding will make the trip. A few categories regularly get left behind or need special handling:

Proprietary mutual funds. Funds created and managed exclusively by your old brokerage typically can’t move to a competitor. You’ll have to sell them and transfer the cash.⁴
Mutual fund share class conflicts. Even non-proprietary funds can be rejected if the new broker doesn’t support your specific share class. Institutional classes, for example, often aren’t available on retail platforms. The receiving firm may convert you to a comparable class or ask you to liquidate.
Fractional shares. Most ACATS transfers handle whole shares only. If you own 10.37 shares, the 10 whole shares transfer and the 0.37 share gets sold at the old brokerage. The cash follows separately.
Certain penny stocks and alternative assets. Many brokers refuse delivery of very low-priced stocks or specific alternatives. Anything that doesn’t meet the receiving firm’s acceptance criteria stays behind.

Expect your new account balance to look a little different from what you projected. Cash from fractional-share sales and liquidated proprietary funds usually arrives a few days after the main transfer settles.

Extra Steps for Retirement Accounts

Transferring an IRA adds tax complexity that doesn’t apply to a regular brokerage account. The safe route is a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer: the money moves between custodians and never touches your hands, no taxes are withheld, and the IRS doesn’t treat it as a distribution.⁵ That’s what an ACATS IRA-to-IRA transfer is, and you can do it as often as you want.

The alternative, an indirect rollover, is where people get hurt. The old custodian sends you a check, 10% federal tax is withheld unless you opt out, and you have 60 days to deposit the full original amount (including the withheld portion, which you’d have to replace from other funds) into the new IRA. Miss the 60-day window and the IRS treats the whole amount as a taxable distribution, with a possible 10% early withdrawal penalty if you’re under 59½.⁵

There’s also a once-per-year ceiling on indirect rollovers. You can only do one indirect rollover across all of your IRAs (traditional, Roth, SEP, and SIMPLE combined) in any 12-month period. Break that rule and the second rollover becomes a taxable distribution, with a 6% excess contribution penalty for every year the funds remain in the new IRA.⁵ Request a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer and none of this applies.

Extra Steps for Margin Accounts

Margin accounts are a common source of transfer delays because the receiving firm has to decide whether your account meets its own margin requirements before accepting it.¹ Each brokerage sets its own standards, so a portfolio that was comfortable at one firm might not clear the bar at another.

Your account is also frozen during the transfer, so you can’t respond to a margin call if the market drops. Many investors reduce or pay down their margin balance before starting the process. At minimum, make sure you’re well above your maintenance requirement before you submit the TIF.

What It Costs and How to Pay Less

The outbound transfer fee is the main cost. It’s charged by the firm you’re leaving and typically runs $50 to $100. Schwab, for example, charges $50 for a full account transfer and nothing for a partial transfer.⁶ That partial-versus-full split is worth knowing: at some firms you can move most of your holdings as a partial transfer, close out the rest separately, and avoid the full fee.

Other ways to shrink the bill:

Ask the new broker to reimburse the fee. Many will credit your account, especially for a sizable balance. It isn’t always advertised, so ask directly.
Watch for promotions. Brokers periodically offer free transfers, cash bonuses, or fee waivers for new accounts above certain thresholds.

The fee comes out of whatever cash is left in your old account. Leave enough behind to cover it so the firm doesn’t sell a position to collect.

How Long It Takes and What You Can’t Do During the Transfer

A straightforward ACATS transfer runs about 3 to 6 business days. Complex accounts (margin, options, mutual funds, retirement assets) can stretch toward two weeks. Manual transfers for physical certificates or non-participating firms take longer still.

Your old account is frozen the entire time. No buying, no selling, no withdrawals. That lockout is what keeps the share counts accurate while the two firms reconcile, but it also means you can’t react to market moves. If volatility worries you, try to time the transfer for a stretch when you wouldn’t be trading anyway.

Once the assets land at the new firm, trading access resumes right away for most securities. Options and mutual funds sometimes take an extra business day to become fully tradable while the new firm finishes its internal setup.

Check Your Cost Basis Before You Sell

Cost basis information should follow your shares to the new broker. Federal tax regulations require the delivering firm to send a transfer statement with basis data for securities purchased after certain coverage dates (generally 2011 for stocks and 2012 for mutual funds). In practice, that data sometimes arrives late or incomplete, especially for older positions or holdings that have moved before.

If basis doesn’t come through cleanly, the new broker may show a default or “unknown” basis. That doesn’t matter until you sell. When you do sell, the brokerage reports the sale to the IRS, and if no basis is on file, the IRS may assume it’s zero, meaning you’d owe tax on the entire sale proceeds instead of just your gain. Before you sell anything at the new firm, verify the basis for each position against your records. If something is missing, you can usually update it manually by sending in old trade confirmations or statements.

Wait Before Closing the Old Account

Don’t close the old account the moment the main transfer completes. Dividends declared before the transfer but paid after it, along with any interest accruals, can still land at the old brokerage. Most firms keep a link between the old and new accounts for several months to sweep these residual payments over. Close too early and that cash has nowhere to go.

Once residual payments have cleared and your cost basis checks out, you can formally close the old account. Keep the final statements. They’re your backup for any cost basis dispute or tax question that surfaces when you eventually sell the transferred positions.

1
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Transferring Your Brokerage Account: Tips on Avoiding Delays
2
FINRA. Customer Account Transfers
3
Investor.gov. Medallion Signature Guarantees: Preventing the Unauthorized Transfer of Securities
4
Investor.gov. Transferring Your Brokerage Account
5
Internal Revenue Service. Rollovers of Retirement Plan and IRA Distributions
6
Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Individual Investors