Can You Transfer Stock From One Broker to Another?

You can transfer stock from one broker to another without selling it. The move runs through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS), an electronic system that shifts your holdings directly between firms and preserves your cost basis and holding period. A clean transfer takes about six business days from start to finish, and the only cost is usually an exit fee charged by your old broker, generally somewhere between $0 and $150.

How the Transfer Works

ACATS is operated by the National Securities Clearing Corporation, which sits between the two brokerages as a central clearinghouse.¹ You do not call your old broker to start anything. The entire process is initiated at the receiving firm. Your new broker submits a Transfer Initiation Form (TIF) into ACATS, the system assigns a control number, and your old broker is notified that assets are being requested.² Both firms must be NSCC members for the electronic process to run; if one is not, the transfer has to be handled manually, which is slower.

You can move an entire account (a full transfer) or select specific holdings and a portion of your cash (a partial transfer). Either way, the mechanism is the same.

What Moves in Kind and What Gets Sold

ACATS handles stocks, corporate and municipal bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, options, annuities, and cash.² Most positions in a typical brokerage account move over exactly as they sit today. A few categories need attention before you begin:

Fractional shares. ACATS only accepts whole shares. Any fractional positions are liquidated by your old broker, and the cash proceeds follow to your new account.³
Proprietary mutual funds. If your current broker holds funds that the new broker cannot carry, those positions have to be sold. That creates a taxable event in a regular account.
Options near expiration. Open option positions expiring within seven business days of the transfer cannot go through ACATS. Your old broker also cancels any open orders on the account.⁴
Margin balances. If you carry a margin debit, you generally need to pay it off or request a partial transfer that leaves the margin positions behind. Any outstanding margin call has to be satisfied first, though the transferred margin account can be treated as if the new firm had maintained it from the original date.⁵

What to Line Up Before You Start

Most rejections come down to paperwork that does not match. Pull your most recent statement from your current broker and use it as the source of truth. The receiving firm will ask for your exact legal account name, your account number, and your Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number. These have to match precisely on both sides.¹

Registrations have to match too. An IRA moves into an IRA. A joint account with rights of survivorship has to keep the same ownership structure, with the same names and titles, at the new firm. Get the account type, owners, and beneficiaries set up correctly at the new broker first. If any of that is off, the delivering firm will reject the request.

One boundary worth noting: a Medallion Signature Guarantee is generally not required for a normal brokerage-to-brokerage transfer. It comes up mainly when you are moving or selling securities held as physical paper certificates.⁶ If your new broker needs one, they will tell you.

Step by Step

Open the receiving account. Set up the correct account type at the new broker with matching registration details.
Let pending trades settle. Unsettled trades can block the transfer. For stocks, that is typically one business day after the trade.
Turn off automatic activity. Disable dividend reinvestment and any recurring contributions at the old broker so new activity does not complicate the move.
Submit the Transfer Initiation Form. Complete the TIF at your new broker, usually through a secure online portal. The receiving firm enters your name, tax ID, account number, and asset list into ACATS.⁷
Wait for validation. Your old broker has three business days to validate the transfer or flag an exception. The account is frozen during this window.¹
Assets move. Once validated, the securities and cash arrive in the new account. Any residual cash from dividends or interest that hits during the transfer follows shortly after.

How Long It Takes

A clean ACATS transfer should take no more than six business days from the moment your new firm enters the TIF.⁸ The first three days belong to the delivering firm for validation. Manual transfers follow a similar structure but can run much longer.

Expect the account to be frozen for trading during the move. Your old broker locks it once the transfer is validated so the asset counts stay accurate on both sides. If you have positions you may need to trade in the meantime, a partial transfer lets you leave those specific holdings at the old broker while the rest moves.

Fees and Reimbursements

The receiving broker almost never charges to accept assets. The cost sits on the other side, in the form of an ACATS-out or account closeout fee from your current firm. Across the industry, expect $0 to $150 for a full transfer out. Partial transfers are sometimes free even at firms that charge for full transfers.

Many receiving brokers will reimburse your old firm’s transfer fee as a promotion. These offers usually require a minimum account balance, often $2,500 or more, and a copy of the statement showing the charge, submitted within 60 days. Read the terms: some firms will reverse the reimbursement if your balance drops below the minimum within 12 months due to withdrawals.

Moving an IRA or Other Retirement Account

Retirement accounts deserve extra care because how you move the money determines whether you owe tax. The safest route is a direct transfer, sometimes called a trustee-to-trustee transfer, where the money moves straight from one custodian to the other without ever landing in your hands. Direct transfers are not treated as rollovers and are not limited by the once-per-year rollover rule.⁹ A standard ACATS transfer of an IRA between brokers is a direct transfer.

An indirect rollover is the risky version. If your old custodian sends you a check, IRA distributions are subject to 10% federal income tax withholding, and distributions from employer retirement plans face a mandatory 20% withholding.⁹ You then have 60 days to deposit the full original amount, including the portion that was withheld, into the new account. Miss the deadline or come up short, and the shortfall is taxable income, plus a possible 10% early distribution penalty if you are under 59½.

Tax Consequences

A straight ACATS transfer is not a taxable event. Nothing is sold. Your shares move to a new custodian, and your new broker receives your original cost basis and acquisition dates along with the securities, because federal law requires the delivering broker to pass basis data to the receiving broker.¹⁰ Once the transfer settles, check that basis and acquisition dates on the new account match your own records.

Taxes only come in when something has to be sold during the transfer. Liquidations of fractional shares, proprietary mutual funds, or other non-transferable positions each generate a capital gain or loss. You will get a Form 1099-B for reportable proceeds, though brokers are not required to issue a 1099-B for fractional share sales with gross proceeds under $20.¹¹ If a large appreciated proprietary fund would be forced to sell, look at the tax hit before you file the TIF. Waiting for a lower-income year, or pairing the sale with losses elsewhere, may be worth a delay.

Why Transfers Get Rejected

When ACATS rejects a transfer, it is almost always a data mismatch that the system catches automatically. The common causes:

Account number not found. The delivering firm cannot locate the number as entered. Recheck the statement and resubmit.
Social Security Number mismatch. Verify and resubmit.
Account name discrepancy. Even a missing middle initial can trigger a rejection. Names must match exactly on both sides.
Account restrictions. Outstanding margin calls, legal liens, or pending regulatory actions block a transfer until they are cleared.
No signature on file. The delivering firm may need your signature on record before releasing assets.

If the issue is not resolved within six business days, ACATS deletes the request entirely and you have to start over.⁸ Fixing the paperwork the first time is almost always faster than filing twice.

1
FINRA. Customer Account Transfers
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DTCC. Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS)
3
SEC.gov. No-Action Letter – Financial Information Forum
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FINRA.org. FINRA Rule 11870 – Customer Account Transfer Contracts
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eCFR. 12 CFR Section 220.4 – Margin Account
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Medallion Signature Guarantees – Preventing the Unauthorized Transfer of Securities
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Transferring Your Brokerage Account
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Transferring Your Brokerage Account – Tips on Avoiding Delays
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Internal Revenue Service. Rollovers of Retirement Plan and IRA Distributions
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Internal Revenue Service. Basis Reporting by Securities Brokers and Basis Determination
11
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1099-B (2026)