The Best Brokers for Stock Lending
Stock lending can help you earn extra passive income from your investments, but not all brokers are created equal when it comes to stock lending programs.The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.
In periods of volatility, some traders bet against certain stocks via short selling — a maneuver in which they borrow shares, sell them, and then try to buy them back at a lower price later, pocketing the difference. But who lends them the shares in that situation? Well, you do — if you participate in your broker’s stock-lending program.
The four best stock lending programs
Four of the brokers reviewed by NerdWallet offer stock lending programs that share at least 50% of revenue from stock lending with investors and have account minimums of $100,000 or less. They're listed below.
Company | NerdWallet rating | Options contract fee | Promotion | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
4.3/5 | $0 | None no promotion available at this time | Read reviewon NerdWallet | |
Read reviewon NerdWallet | ||||
Read reviewon NerdWallet | ||||
Best App for Investing | 5.0/5 | $0.65 | None no promotion available at this time | Learn moreon Fidelity's website |
Learn moreon Fidelity's website | ||||
Learn moreon Fidelity's website | ||||
5.0/5 | $0.65 | None no promotion available at this time | Learn moreon Interactive Brokers' website | |
Learn moreon Interactive Brokers' website | ||||
Learn moreon Interactive Brokers' website | ||||
Best Online Broker for IRA Investors | 4.9/5 | $0 | Up to $500 when you make a qualifying net deposit. | Learn moreon Charles Schwab's website |
Learn moreon Charles Schwab's website | ||||
Learn moreon Charles Schwab's website | ||||
TastyTrade
The stock lending program: TastyTrade stands out among the brokers we review that offer stock lending programs, because it offers a 50-50 stock lending revenue split with investors and has no minimum account balance to participate.
Other things to know: TastyTrade offers cheap options trades and a powerful interface for advanced traders, but it's a bit weak in the research department, pays little interest on uninvested cash, and can be hard-to-navigate for beginners.
Tastytrade is a unique broker that offers a highly advanced trading experience. Investors will like the broad investment selection and advanced trading features, but beginners should be aware that this is not the platform for them.
Fidelity
The stock lending program: Fidelity has among the most generous revenue splits of any stock lending broker we review — it keeps just 40% of stock lending revenue, and gives you the other 60%. Its minimum balance for stock lending is slightly higher than TastyTrade's, at $25,000, though many brokers still have higher minimums.
Other things to know: Fidelity often wins several of NerdWallet's Best-Of awards for investing products due to its wide investment selection and easy-to-use platforms. However, it has somewhat high fees for options trades and broker-assisted phone trades.
2026 Best-of Award winner: Fidelity is NerdWallet's pick for the best online broker for beginning investors and the best app for investing. Fidelity is one of the largest and most well-established brokerages, and it shows. Fidelity charges no trading commissions, offers an extensive set of no-fee, no-minimum index funds. It also stands out for its top-notch research tools, a renowned trading platform and very strong customer service.
Interactive Brokers
The stock lending program: Interactive Brokers splits revenue from stock lending 50-50 with investors and requires a $25,000 minimum balance to participate.
Other things to know: Interactive Brokers often wins NerdWallet's Best-Of award for advanced trading brokerages due to its absurdly wide investment selection, deep research library and powerful, customizable platforms. However, those platforms are geared toward seasoned investors and can be intimidating for beginners.
2026 Best-of Award winner: Interactive Brokers is NerdWallet's pick for the best online broker for advanced traders. Interactive Brokers' IBKR Lite is a strong option for frequent traders: The broker offers international trade capabilities, no stock-trading commission and a quality trading platform.
Charles Schwab
The stock lending program: Schwab offers a 50-50 stock-lending revenue split and has a minimum balance of $100,000 for stock lending.
Other things to know: Schwab is another frequent NerdWallet award winner, especially in the IRA account and robo-advisor categories, largely due to the diversity of funds it offers. However, it pays little interest on uninvested cash, and has an Android app that has gotten mixed reviews.
2026 Best-of Award winner: Charles Schwab is NerdWallet's pick for the best online broker for IRA investors. Charles Schwab is one of the best overall IRA providers, with high-quality customer service, no account minimum and low fees. The company offers a large selection of no-transaction-fee funds, gives users access to extensive research and charges no commission for stock, options and ETF trades.
Other brokers that offer stock lending
The brokers above are not the only ones that offer stock lending — they just have the lowest minimums and best revenue splits among the brokers reviewed by NerdWallet. In fact, most of the brokers we review offer a stock lending program. Here are all the others (which may have higher minimum balances, or keep more than 50% of stock lending revenue):
SoFi
Ally
TradeStation
Webull
Robinhood
J.P. Morgan
Vanguard
Public
E*TRADE
M1 Finance
Firstrade
Here's how stock lending works
Stock lending, also known as fully paid securities lending, is an opt-in program that lets you earn interest by lending investments you own to your broker, who in turn lends them out to short sellers.
Most brokers offer it on an all-or-nothing basis, meaning you can’t choose which stocks you’re willing to lend — you can only turn stock lending on or off for your entire account. That said, your broker might not lend out your stocks if there isn’t enough demand for them.
If you opt into stock lending, you still have control over the shares or other assets you’ve lent out, and can sell them at any time. What you don’t have control over are changes to your voting rights, how your investment income is taxed, and the amount of protection you have in the event of broker insolvency. (More on that below.)
I recently got interested in stock lending after Robinhood prompted me to turn it on, plying me with the promise of extra returns. I ultimately did so — but not until I had dug through the terms and conditions and risks of the practice. Here’s what I learned.
Stock lending's fine print
Depending on which broker you use, stock lending may not be available to you if you have a small balance (many brokers set a minimum of $5,000 or more), and even if you qualify, there are some caveats to consider before turning it on:
Rates vary, and are usually pretty negligible. I’ve had stock lending enabled in Robinhood for about six months, and I’ve earned $0.03 from it. A few things affect the amount you can earn from stock lending. One is the percentage of revenue your broker keeps. (Robinhood is on the greedier side here, keeping 85% of stock-lending revenue, while other brokers, such as Charles Schwab, do a 50-50 split with the user.) Another is the demand for loaned shares of the particular stocks you own. Some highly volatile stocks, such as Lucid Motors (LCID), can pay rates of 5% or more per year via stock lending, but many other stocks pay only a fraction of a percentage point.
You may temporarily lose your voting rights. When you lend out a stock, the borrower gets your voting rights on the company board for the duration of the loan. I don’t think I’ve ever voted as a shareholder in any company, so this isn’t a major concern for me.
If you receive dividends on loaned shares, they’re taxed as ordinary income. There are special tax rates on most dividend payments that are lower than typical income tax rates, but if you’re lending out a dividend stock, you receive a cash payment in lieu of your dividends. It’s the same amount of money, but it doesn’t qualify for that reduced tax rate; it’s taxed at your normal income rate.
Loaned shares aren’t subject to Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) coverage. In a typical brokerage account, investors are protected against the risk of losing their money due to broker insolvency by SIPC insurance, which covers up to $500,000 per account, of which up to $250,000 can be cash. However, if your broker goes belly-up and you have shares out on loan at the time, those loaned shares are not covered by SIPC.
A heads up: Whenever we mention SIPC coverage in a NerdWallet article, we like to emphasize that it also does not cover losses due to unsuccessful investments — only losses due to your broker going out of business. But again, you may not even get coverage for that if you’re doing stock lending.
Methodology
How do we review brokers and robo-advisors?
All NerdWallet reviews and lists of the best investing products are created by our editorial team of full-time writers and editors, independent of any business relationships. In this case, our investing team's comprehensive review process evaluates and ranks the largest U.S. brokers and robo-advisors. Our aim is to provide an independent, balanced assessment of investment accounts to help arm you with information to make sound, informed judgements on which ones will best meet your needs. We adhere to strict guidelines for editorial integrity.
We collect data directly from providers through detailed questionnaires, and conduct first-hand testing and observation through provider demonstrations. The questionnaire answers, combined with demonstrations, interviews of personnel at the providers and our specialists’ hands-on research, fuel our proprietary assessment process that scores each provider’s performance across more than 20 factors. The final output produces star ratings from poor (one star) to excellent (five stars).
For more details about the categories considered when rating providers and our processes, read our full broker ratings methodology and our full robo-advisor ratings methodology