Customer Service

To get the best and most effective service from IB, we recommend the following

Contact IB via Email
	Send an email to IB Customer Service: Staffed Sunday 16:00 - Friday 20:00 Eastern Time Current IB Customers to send an email. Prospective Customers to send an email.

Contact IB via Chat
	Current Customers: Please use our new authenticated chat service available through Account Management. For security reasons, any inquiries relating specifically to your account can only be answered via the Account Management chat. Topic Rooms are available for: General Inquiries: Sunday 16:00 – Friday 20:00 EST (Chat is not available between 19:30 – 20:30 EST Sunday to Thursday) Funds & Banking: Monday – Friday, 09:00 – 17:00 EST Technical Assistance: Monday – Friday, 03:00 – 18:00 EST German Language: Montag - Freitag, 8:15 - 17:30 CET
Prospective Customers: For security reasons, we are no longer able to support Chat assistance unless you are a client and can access IB’s new Chat service via the Account Management control facility. We will be releasing a special chat service for prospective customers by the end of the year. We apologize for any inconvenience and can recommend our email support (help@interactivebrokers.com) or phone support (numbers below) in the meantime.

Contact IB via Telephone
	IB offers 24-hour customer service via our different customer service locations in America, Europe and Asia. Please find below a list of countries where we offer toll free customer service. All other countries please use one of the direct dial customer service numbers.
United States 1 (877) 442-2757 or 1 (877) 4IB-BRKR Toll free customer service within the United States. 1 (312) 542-6901 Direct dial customer service 1 (203) 618-4006 Secure Transaction Program Hotline 1 (312) 984-1019 Fax 09:00 - 20:00 Eastern Time Monday-Friday* 16:00 – 20:00 Eastern Time Sunday Canada 1 (877) 745-4222 Toll free Customer Service within Canada 1 (514) 287-0152 Fax 08:00 - 17:30 Eastern Time* Australia +61-2-9240-5143 Direct dial customer service 08:00 - 17:00 Hong Kong Time*** Hong Kong +852-2156-7907 Direct dial customer service +852-2509-4102 Fax 08:00 – 17:00 Hong Kong Time**** Europe • France • Germany • Italy • Netherlands • Spain • Switzerland • United Kingdom 00800-IB-BROKER or 00800-42-276537** Toll free customer service +41-41-726-9500 Direct dial customer service +41-41-726-9599 Fax 08:00 - 20:00 - Central European Time United Kingdom: - 07:00 - 19:00 Greenwich Mean Time

* The Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for software issues is available through the main telephone number from 08:00 to 17:00 Eastern Time.

** This is a special international toll free number. Please use the exact number as shown.

*** All times are local. Please make appropriate adjustments for summer/winter hours in your time zone.

A minority of prospective Interactive Brokers Customers are sometimes required to send paper documentation. If you are in this minority you will be notified during the application process or by email.

IB offers a variety of ways to get assistance and information including phone support, email, and chat. While you can ask the same question using any of these channels, depending on the nature of your inquiry, you will get the best and most efficient service by using the methods recommended below.

Phone inquiries: recommended where there is time sensitivity, for example, a problem with an order or trade. In general, IB will answer our phone lines within a minute. Funding/Banking inquiries usually take longer. We suggest Ticket or Chat instead of phone for the following areas: funding, tax, statements, dividend & corporate actions

Inquiry/Trouble Ticket: a new secure form system, enables a question to be sent from Account Management that is delivered directly to our main Customer Service database system. From here, the question is routed to the specialist or team within IB’s Customer Service that is certified in the particular area of inquiry. It is SMART routing for questions.
You will get an immediate reference number for the ticket, and your question will be allocated to a service agent usually within 2 hours. Where possible, we will also provide an answer within this timeframe, but even if additional research is needed, you will know who is handling your case, and be able to track its progress.

IB-Chat: our new chat service is accessible via Account Management. It is designed to connect you to the service specialist best qualified to answer your question. Because it is authenticated and uses secure communications, IB staff are able to provide account specific information in a secure manner. Web page content, conferencing, and feedback are all features of this new system; transcripts are available on demand. We particularly recommend IB-Chat for Funding/Banking and Account Application inquiries.

Email: help@interactivebrokers.com. Old and slow technology, but it works. We will continue to support email inquiries, but email will always receive lower priority than the other service channels. Urgent, or time sensitive questions should never be submitted by email.

• Contract Information: find out symbols, exchanges, quoting rules, and a whole database of information about the instruments available through the IB Trading platform. Click here.
  
  
• IB Trader Workstation Tutorial: an introduction to basic TWS concepts. Click here.
  
  
• TWS Quickstart Reference Guide: covers basic usage to get started quickly. Click here.
  
  
• TWS Users Guide: complete users guide, particularly useful for learning how to use the advanced features of the TWS.
  
• TWS Live Demo: see the TWS in action! Click here.

As current ECN/Exchange trade cancellation policy stands, the ECN’s/Exchanges will generally not rule to cancel transactions between customers of the same brokerage firm unless the transaction is substantially outside the bounds of reasonability. As a result, IB will, whenever possible, apply the ECN/Exchange policy to such trades as the situation warrants. Note that trade cancellation policies are highly subjective and vary between ECN’s/Exchanges. Therefore, rather than trying to interpret highly subjective criteria, IB has adopted the following policy, in order to provide a level of certainty and predictability for our customers.

IB will make a determination only when an ECN/Exchange refuses to rule on a trade. IB will abide by the trade cancellation policies of the respective exchange whenever possible. Please consult the website of the respective exchange for specific trade cancellation policies. Decisions involving trades not specifically defined in the respective exchange’s trade cancellation policy will be made on a case by case basis. If an exchange does not have a clear policy for a specific execution in question, or refuses to rule on an execution between two IB Customers, IB will evaluate a range of data including, but not necessarily limited to, the considerations outlined below. We will review all information considered to be relevant in determining the nature of a fair and orderly market and on those grounds, we will make a decision on a specific execution on a best efforts basis:

1. Timeliness of Notification: Requests for trade cancellations must be made within the time limits set by the relevant exchange. Many equity exchanges have a notification period of 30 minutes or less. Derivative exchanges have notification periods as short as 5 minutes. Requests for trade cancellations should be made by telephone (no email or other non-realtime method) to IB within 15 minutes of the erroneous transaction. IB requires sufficient time to prepare the necessary information required by the exchanges and this time is included in the exchange-specified reporting period. Requests for cancellation are always handled on a best-efforts basis and IB cannot guarantee the reporting time requirements.
2. Company or industry specific news/events.
3. Recent volatility of stock.
4. Change in broad market indicators at time of execution.
5. We will consider the length of time the order was live before execution. IB may be more inclined to break a trade if the order hits/lifts an existing bid/ask and less inclined to break if the order becomes the best bid/ask before execution.
6. Time of order submission and subsequent execution. (Pre/Post market vs. during the Trading Day).
7. Opening Indication.
8. Adjacent Transaction Reports or Indications: Example: Previous Day’s Close Previous reported trade price, subsequent reported trade price Last Prints.
9. Next consecutive prints.
10. Liquidity Issues.

One of the single most important factors in the consideration of trade cancellations is the timeliness of the reporting. It is extremely important that requests for trade cancellations be communicated as quickly and efficiently as possible to the Help Desk. Transactions that might be considered within a reasonable period of time may not be considered outside of that reasonable period of time. In general, requests for trade cancellation should be made, by telephone, within 30 minutes of the transaction in question. Please note that many exchanges have a notification period considerably shorter than 30 minutes.

1. Stocks under $10.00

   a. Outside of Regular Trading Hours* - < 10% away from prevailing market**
   b. Regular Trading Hours* - < 5% away from prevailing market

2. Stocks $10.00 and above

   a. Pre & post market - < 5% away from prevailing market
   b. During market hours - < 3% away from prevailing market

1. Trades executed greater than 3% away from the Fair Market Value at the time of the execution will be considered for cancellation or price adjustment.
2. Trades executed greater than ½% away from the Fair Market Value at the time of the execution may be considered for cancellation or price adjustment.
3. Trades executed less than ½% away from prevailing prices are not usually considered for cancellation.
4. With all trade cancellation requests, it is extremely important to contact IB as soon as possible. Requests should be communicated by phone or by chat; email communication is not recommended for this or any issue requiring real-time response and we will only consider the time of notification to be when the email is processed, not when it was sent. In the event that a trade meets the price guidelines for cancellation but there is a delay in reporting/requesting the cancellation, IB may deny the request for cancellation or may apply other algorithms to determine a price adjustment, for example, taking into account the trading range of the instrument in the time interval from execution to cancellation request.

*Regular Trading Hours (RTH) may be defined by region, by exchange or by product. As an example, RTH for US equity markets is defined as 9:30 am EST to 4:00 pm EST. Note that for issues other than trade cancellation requests, these hours may or may not reflect the actual trading hours for a specific product. Pre & post market times for listed products are defined as outside of the official trading hours on the primary exchange. As an example, for US markets, listed pre & post market times are defined as outside of official opening trade on primary exchange and after 4:00pm EST.

**Prevailing market is defined as last trade, last relevant National Best Bid/Offer (NBBO) (1 bid, at 99 doesn’t count), or opening indication. If no trades have yet taken place or no relevant market is displayed, then the previous day closing price may be used.

The guidelines outlined above are designed to provide a level of protection for our customers. However, no policy can anticipate every conceivable situation. IB reserves the right to make determinations in the interest of maintaining a fair and orderly market.