Become a Referral Partner

Refer clients to Interactive Brokers and receive payouts of eligible client referrals.

Referral Partners

A Referral Partner is an individual or a firm that specializes in providing training and coaching, trading information, systems and tools, and professional services to clients through public or private channels. Professional services may include websites, forums, seminars, scheduled courses or direct personal contact. Referral Partners should not present themselves as financial advisors or brokers to the investors and should not provide direct buying or selling advice on any specific investment products.

IB Referral Program

Eligible individuals and entities (with or without IB accounts) can receive flat-fee or commission-based payouts by referring eligible clients to IB. We have two kinds of referral programs:

Commission-Based
Referral Accounts
Read More

Flat Fee-Based
Referral Accounts
Read More

Commission-Based Referral Accounts

As an IB Commission-Based Referral Partner, you can send invitations to potential clients and view the status of client accounts (open, funded, traded). Only clients can perform account administration, funding, trading access and user management functions for their accounts in Account Management.

A Commission-Based Referral Partner account is an account structure that consists of a Referral Master Account and linked client accounts. The Referral Partner sends client account invitations to interested clients who then register online with Interactive Brokers by opening and configuring their own trading accounts.

Commission-Based Referral Partners enjoy these benefits:

Send clients invitations and track client commissions.
View client account status (open, funded, traded).
Set up multiple users at the master account level to perform Account Management functions such as sending out client account invitations.

Who is Eligible?

A Commission-Based Referral Partner Account must be an organization¹:

Partnership
Corporation
Limited Liability Corporation
Unincorporated Business

Commission-based referred clients must be one of the following types of Interactive Brokers accounts:

Individual, Joint and Trust
Proprietary Trading Group (Pool Account or Single Trading Limit Account)

APPLY NOW

Restrictions

The Commission-Based Referral Program is not available to Referral Partners and referred clients from the US, Canada and Spain.
You cannot participate in both the Commission Markup Referral and IB Financial Advisor programs.

Commission-Based Referral Fee Schedule

Commission-based Referral Partners earn fees for each eligible client referral for up to three years. The fees are markups that are paid by the referred client according to the following schedule:

30% of commissions in Year 1
20% of commissions in Year 2
10% of commissions in Year 3

The program ends after three years.

Flat Fee-Based Referral Partners

As a Flat Fee-Based Referral Partner, you can refer clients to Interactive Brokers and earn a flat fee for each referred client who maintains an active IB account for one year.

Flat Fee-Based Referral Partners enjoy these benefits:

No special account structure required.
Three ways to refer clients.

Who is Eligible?

Flat Fee-Based Referral Partners are:

Individuals who reside in any country EXCEPT Spain¹.
You do not have to be a current IB client to qualify, but any current IB account holder with an Individual, Joint, Trust or IRA account is eligible to become a Flat Fee-Based Referral Partner.
IB account holders with Advisor and Broker accounts and Advisor and Broker clients are NOT eligible to become Flat-Fee Based Referral Partners.

Clients referred by Flat Fee-Based Referral Partners can open any type of Interactive Brokers account, including Advisor accounts.

Application Process

Once your application has been approved, you will receive a confirmation email with information about the three methods you can use to refer clients and earn fees:

A unique referral code. To use the referral code, you must ensure that prospects enter the referral code during the account application process.
Instructions to send personalized email invitations. Any accounts opened through the personalized email will be recognized as your referrals.
Instructions to generate a unique hyperlink to our account application page that you can use for referrals. Any accounts opened through the unique hyperlink will be recognized as your referrals.

In order to receive payouts, referred clients must meet all of the criteria listed in the Fee Schedule.

APPLY NOW

Restrictions

If you currently maintain an IB Advisor account, we will not accept your application. If you open an Advisor account with IB after you have been approved as a Flat Fee-Based Referral Partner, we will remove you from the program.

Flat Fee-Based Referral Fee Schedule

Flat-Fee Referral Partners earn payouts based on their country of residence.

Payouts² to Referral Partners in the United States are subject to the following rules:

The referred client must maintain at least $10,000 or USD equivalent in his or her account for a minimum of one year.
A payment of $200.00 will be sent when a referred client opens and maintains a funded account for one year.

Payouts² to referrers outside of the United States are subject to the following rules:

For each referral, IB will pay 30% of commissions up to $200.00.
The first payment of $100.00 will be sent when the referred account reaches $333.34 in commissions.
The second payment of $100.00 will be sent when the referred account reaches $666.67 in commissions.
Referred clients must maintain at least $10,000 or USD equivalent in their account.
Payouts are available for up to one year from the opening of the referred cus

Referral fees will be paid on a monthly (mid-month) basis.

Note:

We also offer a Trader Referral Program available only within Account Management that lets you send an invitation to somebody you know to open an account with us, and in return you receive a bonus of up to $200.

Disclosures

Due to regulatory restrictions, IB can neither accept referrers from Spain, nor pay referral fees for accounts originating in Spain.
Payments are subject to the terms and restrictions of the program. IB is under no obligation to pay out the referral bonus should all terms not be met.