Broker review

Robinhood review

Item: Robinhood
Rating: 6.4

The cheapest published options schedule in our set, attached to the heaviest recent enforcement record.

Written by: Juan Manuel Gonzalez
Published: August 28, 2026
Data verified: August 28, 2026

In summary

Robinhood Financial, LLC is an active SEC-registered broker-dealer and SIPC member. Stocks, ETFs and their options are commission-free, with a $0.04 per contract fee on equity options — the lowest we recorded. Against that, FINRA ordered Robinhood entities to pay $29.75 million in March 2025 over anti-money-laundering, supervisory and disclosure failures, and the firm settled separate SEC charges for $45 million in January 2025.

Editorial score, based on our methodology

How this is calculated

Safety1.8
Cost2.4
Selection1.3
Accounts0.9
Headroom3.6

How the total is built · Segment width = sub-score × weight. Widths sum to the total.

Legal entity and regulation

Read from FINRA BrokerCheck on August 28, 2026. Check it yourself — the reference number below is all you need.

Legal name: ROBINHOOD FINANCIAL, LLC
CRD: 165998
SEC: 8-69188
Registration status: ACTIVE
Regulators: SEC, FINRA
Investor protection: SIPC member — up to $500,000, including $250,000 for cash

Public enforcement matters we identified

2025 · FINRA · $29.75m
Robinhood Financial ordered to pay $3.75m in restitution to customers, with $26m in fines across Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities, for anti-money-laundering, supervisory and disclosure violations including inaccurate disclosure of order collaring. Settled without admitting or denying the findings.
2025 · SEC · $45m
Agreed to pay $45m in civil penalties to settle SEC charges covering recordkeeping, trade reporting and other rule violations.

Published fees

8 of 14 fields verified

Read from Robinhood’s own published schedule. Fields we could not find on the pages we read are marked not verified — we do not fill them with estimates, and a blank would read as zero.

Robinhood published fee schedule
US stocks and ETFs	$0Commission-free stocks, ETFs and their options
Options base commission	$0
Options per contract	$0.04Equity options. Index options $0.35 for Robinhood Gold, $0.50 otherwise
Account minimum	$0No fees to open or maintain an account
Mutual funds	Not offered
Bonds	Not verified
Futures	Not verified
Crypto	Not verified
Account service fee	$0
Inactivity fee	None published
Outgoing transfer fee	$100ACATS outgoing. Charged on partial as well as full transfers
Broker-assisted trade	Not offered
Margin rate	3.95%–5.00%Tiered by settled margin balance. Rates stated as of 11 December 2025 and track the upper bound of the federal funds target range
Currency conversion	Not verified

Where these costs sit

Against every other broker we publish that has a verified figure for the same field. Brokers whose figure we could not verify are left out rather than plotted at zero.

$0.04

$0cheapest$1most expensive

Options, per contract · 12 brokers with a verified figure

$0cheapest$2,000most expensive

Account minimum · 7 brokers with a verified figure

What you can hold

US stocksOffered
ETFsOffered
OptionsOffered
Mutual fundsNot offered
BondsNot verified
FuturesNot verified
Spot currenciesNot offered
CryptoNot verified
International listingsNot offered
Fractional sharesOffered
OTC equitiesNot offered

Account types

Individual taxable offered
Joint not offered
Traditional IRA offered
Roth IRA offered
Rollover IRA not offered
SEP / SIMPLE IRA not offered
Custodial not offered
Trust not offered
Solo 401(k) not offered
HSA not offered
Margin offered
Managed portfolio not offered

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

$0.04 per equity options contract — the lowest published per-contract fee in our set
No fees to open or maintain an account, and no account minimum
Fractional shares supported
Regulatory pass-through fees are itemised publicly at the per-share and per-contract level

Limitations

Two settled 2025 enforcement matters — $29.75m with FINRA and $45m with the SEC
No mutual funds, and no joint, custodial or trust accounts identified
Index options cost $0.50 per contract unless you pay for Robinhood Gold

Check these yourself

The FINRA matter included restitution for market orders that were collared, cancelled and re-entered at inferior prices — read the current order-handling disclosure before trading size
Robinhood Gold is a paid subscription; several published rates are better only for subscribers

How Robinhood scores

Under our default weights. Individual rankings re-weight these same sub-scores, which is why Robinhood sits in different positions on different pages.

Safety and regulationweight 30%
6/10
Fees and total costweight 30%
8/10
Investment selectionweight 22%
6/10
Account types and featuresweight 18%
5/10

Sub-scores by pillar · Each pillar scored 0–10 from published evidence

Safety and regulation6/10 · weighted 30%: Active SEC-registered broker-dealer (8-69188) and SIPC member, so custody protection is equivalent to the rest of the set. Scored well below its peers because of two settled 2025 enforcement matters totalling roughly $75 million, one of which involved disclosure to customers about how their orders were handled.
Fees and total cost8/10 · weighted 30%: $0 commissions on stocks and ETFs and $0.04 per equity options contract — the lowest per-contract fee we recorded — alongside the lowest margin rates in our set, from 5.00% down to 3.95%. Marked down from 9 on 30 August 2026 after we read the standard fee schedule, which charges $100 to move an account out, on partial transfers as well as full ones. That is the joint-largest exit charge among the firms we publish.
Investment selection6/10 · weighted 22%: Stocks, ETFs, options and fractional shares are confirmed. No mutual funds. Bonds, futures and crypto pricing were not confirmed from a primary source at this revision, so they are recorded as unverified rather than counted.
Account types and features5/10 · weighted 18%: Taxable, traditional IRA, Roth IRA and margin only. No joint, custodial, trust, SEP or solo 401(k) accounts identified, which rules it out for a large share of household situations.

Not scored

Access and eligibility — Not scored in v1.0. Requires per-country eligibility confirmed against each firm's own onboarding terms, which we have not completed.
Platform and usability — Not scored in v1.0. Requires hands-on use of a funded account, which we have not done.
Research and education — Not scored in v1.0. Requires logged-in access to the research suite, which we have not had.
Customer service — Not scored in v1.0. Requires timed contact tests across channels, which we have not run.
Execution quality — Not scored in v1.0. Requires analysis of Rule 605/606 order-execution reports, which is scheduled for a later release.

Robinhood compared

Sources

[1]Robinhood — Trading feesRead August 28, 2026
[2]FINRA — Robinhood ordered to pay $3.75m restitution; fines for AML, supervisory and disclosure violations (March 2025)Read August 28, 2026
[3]FINRA BrokerCheck — Robinhood Financial, LLCRead August 28, 2026
[4]Robinhood Financial — Standard Pricing Fee ScheduleRead August 30, 2026

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Risk warning

Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Nothing on this site is personalized investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or a solicitation. Figures are read from public sources on the dates shown and can change without notice — verify anything you intend to act on with the provider directly. Read the full risk disclosure.