Customer Service

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

Send an Inquiry to IB Customer Service
	Staffed Sunday 16:00 - Friday 20:00 Eastern Time to send an inquiry.

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, 08:00 – 18:00 EST Sunday 15:00 – 19:00 EST German Language: Montag - Freitag, 9:00 – 17:30 CET

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 (877) 442-2757 Option 6, and then Option 3 Secure Transaction Program 1 (312) 984-1019 Fax 09:00 - 20:00 Eastern Time Monday-Friday* Condensed Services**** 1:00 – 19:00 Eastern Time Sunday Canada 1 (877) 745-4222 Toll free Customer Service within Canada 1 (514) 847-3499 Direct Dial Customer Service 1 (514) 287-0152 Fax 08:00 - 17:30 Eastern Time* Australia +61-2-9240-5143 Direct dial customer service 10:00 - 19:00 Australian Eastern Standard Time*** China Hong Kong +86 (21) 6086 8586 +852-2156-7907 Direct dial customer service Direct dial customer service 09:00 – 18:00 China Standard Time*** Fax: +852-2509-4102 08:00－17:00 Hong Kong Time*** Interactive Brokers provides Mandarin support during the following times: 08:00 – 18:00 China Standard Time: Hong Kong / China Office (+852-2156-7907 / +86-21-6086-8586) 21:00 – 06:00 China Standard Time: US / Canada Office (+1-312-542-6901 / +1-514-847-3499) Office is open from 20:00 during US Daylight Savings Time (approximately March to October inclusive) 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.

**** Please note that Sunday Customer Service operations are limited in scope and response times may vary in comparison to those of standard weekday operations. Sunday staffing is primarily intended to support new account and funding inquiries and inquiries regarding trade activity and/or technical matters are best addressed during regular weekday hours.

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: Free format email communications are no longer supported due to the proliferation of spam, phishing, and other forms of fraudulent communications. If you do not already have an IB account, we kindly ask you submit your inquiry using the form available on our website: http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/contact/newContact/contact.php.

Existing customers should take advantage of the secure inquiry/trouble ticket system accessible through the Message Center within Account Management. Existing customers may also submit inquiries using the form above, with the response being routed to their Message Center. Urgent or time sensitive questions should never be submitted via this form.

• 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. Click here.
• TWS Live Demo: see the TWS in action! Click here.

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.

Limitation of Liability

IB CANNOT AND DOES NOT ACCEPT LIABILITY FOR ANY TRADE CANCELLATION (“BUST”) REQUEST THAT IS DENIED FOR ANY REASON BY THE APPLICABLE EXCHANGE OR MARKET CENTER. EXCHANGES AND MARKET CENTERS OFTEN SET TIGHT TIME LIMITS WITHIN WHICH BUST REQUESTS MUST BE SUBMITTED AFTER A TRADE IS EXECUTED. IT IS OFTEN IMPRACTICAL OR IMPOSSIBLE FOR IB TO EVALUATE A BUST REQUEST FROM A CUSTOMER AND TO CONTACT THE EXCHANGE OR MARKET CENTER IN TIME. IB WILL ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE AND FORWARD APPROPRIATE BUST REQUESTS TO THE EXCHANGE OR MARKET CENTER BUT IB WILL NOT COMPENSATE CUSTOMERS FOR BUST REQUESTS THAT ARE DENIED FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING THAT THE BUST REQUEST WAS NOT MADE TO THE EXCHANGE OR MARKET CENTER IN A TIMELY FASHION.

Customers who receive an execution which they believe to be clearly erroneous¹ and who wish to have IB petition the exchange or market center to have the trade cancelled on their behalf are strongly encouraged to submit their request using the Trade Cancellation Request tool located within Account Management. While requests received via telephone will also be processed, such requests may involve connection wait times and entail information collection on the part of IB which, in the aggregate, may lessen the likelihood that the petition is submitted in time. Please note that IB does not support free format email communications and requests sent through the Help & Contacts link on the website are not intended for matters of urgency.

Exchanges and market centers often impose a fee for trade cancellation requests in addition to fees charged by IB. Customers are also encouraged to familiarize themselves with all fees associated with cancellation requests prior to initiating a request.

As exchanges and market centers generally opt not to rule on cancellation requests involving customers of the same brokerage firm, IB will, when appropriate, apply the transacting venue’s policy to such requests. Given the highly subjective and varied nature of these policies, IB has adopted the policy below in order to provide a level of certainty and predictability for our customers.

IB will make a determination only when the transacting exchange or market center refuses to rule on a trade and will abide by the trade cancellation policies of such organization whenever possible. Please consult the website of the respective exchange or market center for specific trade cancellation policies. Decisions involving trades not specifically defined in the respective organization’s trade cancellation policy will be made on a case by case basis and if a clear policy for a specific execution in question does not exist, 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:

• Timeliness of Notification: Requests for trade cancellations must be made within the time limits set by the relevant venue preferably via the Trade Cancellation Request tool.
  
  
• Company or industry specific news/events.
  
  
• Recent volatility of stock.
  
  
• Change in broad market indicators at time of execution.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Time of order submission and subsequent execution. (Pre/Post market vs. during the Trading Day).
  
  
• Opening indication.
  
  
• Adjacent transaction reports or indications. For example, Previous Day’s Close Previous reported trade price, subsequent reported trade price Last Prints.
  
  
• Next consecutive prints.
  
  
• Liquidity issues.

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.

IB will generally consider cancellation or price adjustment for any Forex trade which is executed greater than ½% away from the fair market value at the time of the execution. Requests for trade cancellations must be received within a reasonable timeframe following execution and communicated preferably via the Trade Cancellation Request tool. IB will maintain sole discretion for determining the reasonableness of the reporting timeframe, taking into consideration the circumstances surrounding the trade in question. 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.