Firstrade Promotion
Get up to $250 transfer fee rebate at Firstrade.
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Firstrade Promotion Details
Eligible accounts to move to Firstrade include Individual Brokerage Accounts, Joint Accounts, and Custodial Accounts.
New money or investments must be transferred into a Firstrade Brokerage Account from another financial institution using ACATS (full or partial). The transfer request must be started during the promotion period (September 2, 2026, at 12:00:00 AM ET to September 30, 2026, at 11:59:59 PM ET). Transfers completed after this time still count, as long as the request was submitted during the promotion window. Requests outside of this period will not qualify.
To take part, you need to transfer at least $5,000 via ACATS. You can move more, but Firstrade will only calculate the match up to $1 million in assets. This high limit means you can earn a large payout by switching to Firstrade.
Ineligible transfers include:
- ACH deposits (bank transfers)
- Internal transfers between Firstrade accounts
- Wire transfers or checks
- DTC transfers
To qualify, the account must be opened through
Firstrade’s special 1% match page.
Applicants must be U.S. residents, and the transfer must be an ACAT transfer.
Once Firstrade gets the transfer and calculates your bonus, the money will be credited within a few days.
If you withdraw funds that cause the balance to fall below the qualifying level (the transferred amount plus the bonus), or if you close the account within two years of receiving the bonus, the full bonus will be taken back.
Cost of Trading
Firstrade has joined the ranks of $0 commission brokers. Stock, ETF, and closed-end fund trades cost nothing, and this includes penny and over-the-counter securities. Even option trades cost nothing, as Firstrade has eliminated per-contract charges (exercises and assignments are still $14.95).
All mutual funds trades are now commission-free as well. Some funds may impose a load, however. The broker-dealer charges a short-term redemption fee on mutual fund sales that occur less than 90 days after purchase. The fee is $19.95.
Fixed-income products continue to carry trading fees. Most debt securities are priced on a net yield basis, which means purchases have a markup priced in, while sales will be marked down. Primary market CD’s are a rare exception with a $30 commission.
All of these prices assume online order submission. Broker-assisted trades over the phone are a different story. Equity and no-load mutual fund trades submitted through this avenue are $19.95. Option contracts are priced at 50¢ each plus the base $19.95 commission.
A securities account at Firstrade comes with zero fees. We found no annual, low-balance, or maintenance charges. Moreover, the company does not require any deposit to open an account.
Mutual Funds
Firstrade’s mutual fund screener provides a lot of search criteria that can be used to scan the securities markets for potential
investments. Some of the variables we found include portfolio turnover, total assets, minimum purchase (both in dollar amount and number of shares), load status, fund category, and risk rating.
Using the screener, we found 10,340 funds that were open to new investors
It is a much better offering than at any other zero-commission broker. Furthermore, 3,213 of these funds have no load (and of course no transaction fee).
Fund profile pages at Firstrade are simply populated with data from Morningstar. Even the format is the same. The advantage of this system is that traders get good information. A fund can be added to a watchlist, and a link to a fund’s prospectus is included on the profile.
Firstrade’s mutual fund order ticket allows for the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains (not dividends or capital gains). A dollar amount must be used on a mutual fund order (share amount is not possible). The order ticket also restates several important features of the fund, such as load status.
ETF’s
As we have already mentioned, every exchange-traded fund in the United States is commission-free at
Firstrade. That’s the first advantage the brokerage firm brings to the table in this category. The
next is its very good ETF screener, which offers many search criteria. We found
2,190 ETF’s available for purchase.
Once again, Firstrade simply pulls information from Morningstar to populate ETF profile pages. We found information on portfolio composition, news articles, ratings, and performance history. Funds that have option chains will have a link to contracts.
Trading ETF’s is a different process than trading mutual funds. Instead of using web pages, ETF trades must be submitted on the broker’s trade bar, which will be discussed next.
Updated on 2/1/2026.
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