FINRA’s trading activity fee is $0 from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026. Will your broker stop charging it?

When you sell a stock, an ETF or an option, most brokers pass along two small regulatory fees: the SEC's Section 31 fee and FINRA's Trading Activity Fee (TAF). FINRA has set the TAF to zero for three months. Your broker decides whether you see the difference.

As of October 24, 2026 (Eastern time):

• FINRA charges brokers no TAF on trades from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2026. Its filing, published by the SEC, says the TAF rates “would temporarily be set at $0.00”, and FINRA's rule page now lists every TAF rate at $0.00 for those three months. The fee comes back on Jan. 1, 2027 at the rate charged until Sept. 30: $0.000195 per share sold, up to $9.79 a trade.
• Whether you pay less is up to your broker. The filing says “whether their customers accrue any of those savings depends on individual firm practices and competitive conditions”. By Oct. 24, seven of the 15 brokers had changed what their fee pages say about the TAF.
• Robinhood now says no TAF is charged from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026. Its support article still gives $0.000195 a share but adds a note that the TAF is temporarily paused for those three months.
• Five brokers' fee pages show the TAF at $0: Ally Invest, eToro US, Interactive Brokers, moomoo and Webull. Interactive Brokers calls it a fee holiday through Dec. 31, 2026. E*TRADE removed its TAF line and now lists only the SEC fee.
• Public still lists FINRA's 2024-2025 rate in a schedule updated Oct. 13, 2026. At brokers with a TAF line, the confirmation for a sale shows whether the zero reaches you.
• Five fold the TAF into a wider fee with no TAF amount shown: Charles Schwab, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Edge and Vanguard. None of their pages mentions the pause, and Schwab says it does not notify clients when that fee changes. SoFi names the TAF without a rate, and Firstrade's fee pages do not name it.
• The amounts are small: $0.195 on a sale of 1,000 shares. The SEC's own fee, $20.60 per $1 million sold, does not pause.

What the TAF costs on one sale

From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026, FINRA's rule charged its member firms “$0.000195 per share for each sale of a covered equity security, with a maximum charge of $9.79 per trade”, and $0.00329 per option contract sold. The same rates return on Jan. 1, 2027. Buying is not charged. At that rate, before any broker's rounding:

Brokers round these amounts in their own ways. FINRA bills firms on their total volume each month, and its FAQ says “Rounding rules do not apply because the Trading Activity Fee is calculated and reported in aggregate.” At the regular rate, a sale of 40 shares comes to $0.0078. Robinhood charges nothing on it (it skips sales of 50 shares or less), while Public's schedule rounds each fee to the nearest penny with a one-penny minimum, which makes it $0.01. Until Sept. 30, moomoo and Webull also listed a $0.01 minimum.

The SEC's Section 31 fee is separate and keeps going. The SEC set it at $20.60 per $1 million of sales from April 4, 2026, and said the rate stays until 60 days after Congress sets the SEC's budget for fiscal year 2027. On a $10,000 sale that is $0.206, or $0.21 at brokers that round up.

FINRA puts the TAF at “about 1% of the transaction costs to the end investor (assuming that the fees are passed through to the end investor)”. For most investors the three months are worth cents. A trader who sells 10,000 shares a day saves about $1.95 a day, if the broker passes the zero along.

Sources: FINRA By-Laws, Schedule A, Section 1; FINRA, Trading Activity Fee FAQ (Q100.10); SEC, Section 31 Transaction Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2026 (Feb. 27, 2026); SEC Release No. 34-106409 (Sept. 18, 2026), FINRA filing SR-FINRA-2026-021 (PDF).

What to look for after Oct. 1

• If your broker lists the TAF on its own (Ally Invest, eToro US for options, Interactive Brokers, moomoo, Public, Robinhood and Webull, and E*TRADE until Sept. 30), look at the confirmation for a sale made on or after Oct. 1. FINRA's filing says “Typically, TAF pass-through fees are reflected in the confirmation statement received by customers.” A TAF of $0, or no TAF line, means the zero reached you. A fee page that shows $0 is what the broker publishes; the confirmation shows what you were charged.
• If your broker folds it into a wider fee (Schwab's Industry Fee, Fidelity's Additional Assessment, Merrill's and Vanguard's transaction fees, J.P. Morgan's regulatory offset fees), there is no TAF line to check. Compare that fee on similar sales before and after Oct. 1, or ask the broker.
• The SEC fee will still be there. A fee line that does not drop to zero may be the SEC fee, not the TAF.

Why FINRA is doing this

FINRA is funded by fees on its member firms, and the TAF is one of its three core fees. The filing says the pause “is designed to address surplus TAF revenues for 2026 driven by higher trading volumes.” FINRA budgeted $438.6 million of TAF for 2026, and trading in the first half of the year ran above 2025. It “estimates that the TAF fees that would be waived under the proposed rule change amount to approximately $160 million.”

The filing also describes how the fee usually reaches investors. It says it is “common practice among clearing firms” to pass the TAF through to the firm that executed the trade, and that FINRA's earlier study of about 25 retail brokers found “the majority of the retail focused firms did pass through the TAF to their customers.”

The change took effect when FINRA filed it with the SEC on Sept. 15, 2026. The SEC issued its notice on Sept. 18, and the Federal Register printed it on Sept. 23. The SEC can still act: “At any time within 60 days of the filing of the proposed rule change, the Commission summarily may temporarily suspend such rule change”.

FINRA's rule page now has a version for each period. It opens on the version that takes effect in 2031; the one in force now, chosen as Oct 01, 2026 - Dec 31, 2026 in its versions list, begins “Trading Activity Fee rates from October 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 are as follows” and lists every rate at $0.00.

Sources: SEC Release No. 34-106409 (Sept. 18, 2026), FINRA filing SR-FINRA-2026-021 (PDF); Federal Register, 91 FR 60435 (Sept. 23, 2026); FINRA By-Laws, Schedule A, Section 1.

The TAF rate, 2024 to 2031

In a separate filing the same day, FINRA postponed the TAF increases it had scheduled for 2027 and 2028. After the pause the rate returns to the 2026 level and stays there through 2028. The increases now start in 2029.

Broker by broker

Each section quotes what the broker itself publishes and links the page we read.

Ally Invest

Ally's commissions and fees page has a table of regulatory fees with a separate line for the Trading Activity Fee (TAF). On October 1, 2026 the line showed $0.00 per equity share, $0.00 per option contract and $0.00 per bond, on sells only, next to the SEC fee of $20.60 per $1,000,000 of principal. The page also reprints FINRA's rule, now with every rate at $0.00. Until September 30 the line showed $0.000195 per share and $0.00329 per contract, and the reprinted rule gave a maximum charge of $9.79 per trade. The page does not say how the fee is rounded or when the rates go back up.

Source: Ally Invest, commissions and fees.

Charles Schwab

Schwab does not list the TAF as a charge of its own. Its pricing page says Schwab collects an Industry Fee “to offset an array of charges assessed on us directly or indirectly by self-regulatory organizations”, and that the Industry Fee “is collected to offset, as applicable, some or all of the following SRO and foreign government fees”. The list that follows includes the SEC's Section 31 fee and the FINRA Trading Activity Fee. The Industry Fee shows under that name on trade confirmations and statements.

The page gives no rate for it. It says “Schwab will determine the amount of its Industry Fee in its sole and reasonable discretion” and that the fee may differ from, or exceed, the fees Schwab actually pays. It also says: “Please note that Schwab does not notify clients when it increases or decreases the Industry Fee or when the component fees change.” On October 1, 2026 the page's note on ETFs had a new sentence: “An industry fee applies to sell transactions.” The page does not mention the TAF pause.

Source: Charles Schwab, pricing (footnote 5).

E*TRADE (Morgan Stanley)

Until September 30, E*TRADE's pricing page had a line for the FINRA Trading Activity Fee (TAF): $0.000195 per share with a per-transaction cap of $9.79, and $0.00329 per option contract, which it said it passed through to customers. On October 1, 2026 that line and its explanation were gone. The table where it sat now lists only the SEC's Section 31 fee, $0.0000206 times the principal, and still says “All fees will be rounded to the next penny.” The page also still says the fees E*TRADE charges on a transaction “are designed to offset third-party fees generally charged to E*TRADE in respect of such transactions”, including fees assessed by FINRA, and that they “may differ from or exceed the actual third-party fees properly paid by E*TRADE in connection with any transaction”. It does not mention the TAF pause.

Source: E*TRADE, pricing and rates.

eToro US

eToro's US fee page says two things. For stocks: “When you sell a stock, we pay the regulatory transaction fees on your behalf.” In its section on regulatory fees for eToro Options, it says sales of securities incur a TAF and an SEC fee “which are passed on to the client”. On October 24, 2026 it listed the equity TAF at “$0.00 per share for each sale of a covered equity security, with a maximum charge of $8.30 per trade” and the options TAF at “$0.00 per contract for each sale of an option”. On October 1 the same lines gave $0.000166 per share and $0.00279 per contract, FINRA's rates in 2024 and 2025; the $8.30 maximum that is still on the line belongs to that rate. From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026 FINRA's rates were $0.000195, $9.79 and $0.00329, and from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 they are $0 (see the rate history). The same section lists the SEC fee at $8.00 per $1,000,000, not the $20.60 the SEC has set since April 4, 2026. The page does not mention the pause or say when the fee returns.

Source: eToro US, fees.

Fidelity

Fidelity's commission and fee schedule does not name the TAF. It charges a fee on all sell orders that it calls the “Additional Assessment”, which “typically ranges from $0.01 to $0.03 per $1,000 of principal”. Fidelity says it uses the assessment “to pay certain charges imposed on Fidelity by national securities associations, clearing agencies, national securities exchanges, and other self-regulatory organizations”; FINRA is a national securities association. The schedule says “Fidelity determines the amount of the Additional Assessment in its sole and exclusive discretion”, and that on your trade confirmation it is shown “as a part of the Activity Assessment Fee.”

Sources: Fidelity, Brokerage Commission and Fee Schedule (PDF); Fidelity, commissions and margin rates.

Firstrade

Firstrade's pricing page and its help article on regulatory transaction fees both say “The fees are passed through to customers as part of normal transaction processing.” Both go on to describe the SEC fee and the options regulatory fee. Neither names the FINRA TAF or gives a rate for it.

Sources: Firstrade, pricing; Firstrade Help Center, regulatory transaction fees.

Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers' stock commissions page lists the TAF among U.S. third-party regulatory fees. On October 1, 2026 the line read “FINRA Trading Activity Fee: USD 0.00 * Quantity Sold”, next to the SEC transaction fee of USD 0.0000206 times the value of sales, and its footnote read “Fee Holiday of Trading Activity Fee for trades from Oct 1, 2026 through Dec 31, 2026.” Until September 30 the line gave USD 0.000195 times the quantity sold, and the footnote gave a maximum of USD 9.79 per trade and counted each partial execution as one trade.

Source: Interactive Brokers, stock commissions.

J.P. Morgan (Chase)

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing's pricing page and its commission and fee schedule both say “Other fees and charges may apply, including, but not limited to, fees intended to offset fees charged by certain regulatory bodies.” Neither names the TAF or gives an amount.

Sources: J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing, pricing; J.P. Morgan, Self-Directed Investing commission and fee schedule (PDF).

Merrill Edge

Merrill's pricing page says “Sales are subject to a transaction fee of between $0.01 and $0.03 per $1,000 of principal.” It does not say what the fee covers or name the TAF.

Source: Merrill Edge, pricing.

moomoo

moomoo's US pricing page lists the Trading Activity Fee (TAF) as a fee charged by FINRA. On October 1, 2026 it showed the TAF at $0 on stock sales and at “$0.00 per contract” on option sales. Until September 30 it listed $0.000195 a share, with a $0.01 minimum and a $9.79 maximum per trade, and $0.00329 per option contract. The page does not mention the pause or say when the fee returns.

Source: moomoo, US pricing.

Public

Public's fee schedule, marked “Last updated as of October 13, 2026”, lists the TAF at “$0.000166 per share (equity sells)” and $0.00279 per contract on equity option sells, and says “Equity fees are capped at $8.30 per trade”, with a separate cap for bonds. Those were FINRA's rates in 2024 and 2025. From Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026 they were $0.000195, $9.79 and $0.00329, and from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 they are $0 (see the rate history). The schedule also says “Each fee is rounded to the nearest penny, with a one penny minimum, unless stated otherwise.” On October 1, 2026 the schedule was dated September 23, 2026; the new date did not change the TAF rates.

Source: Public, fee schedule (PDF).

Robinhood

Robinhood's support article on trading fees says of the TAF: “We pass this fee to our customers, except for sales of 50 shares or less.” It gives the rate as $0.000195 per share on equity sells and $0.00329 per contract on options sells, and says “This fee is rounded to the nearest penny, which will be no greater than $9.79 per trade.” It adds that an order filled in several trades can be charged more than $9.79 in total. On October 24, 2026 the article had a note under these rates: “The trading activity fee (TAF) is temporarily paused from October 1, 2026, through December 31, 2026 per FINRA.” It goes on: “No TAF will be charged during this period.” On October 1 the article gave the same rates without the note.

Source: Robinhood, Trading fees on Robinhood.

SoFi

SoFi's help article on regulatory trading fees lists the FINRA Trading Activity Fee (TAF) among fees that apply and says it is “charged on the sale of covered equity securities and options.” It gives no rate and points readers to SoFi's fee schedule, which we did not read.

Source: SoFi, What are the regulatory trading fees at SoFi?.

Vanguard

Vanguard's investment fees page and its commission and fee schedule (effective July 10, 2026) say “All stock and ETF sales are subject to a securities transaction fee.” Neither gives the amount, says what the fee covers or names the TAF.

Sources: Vanguard, investment fees; Vanguard Brokerage Services, commission and fee schedules (PDF).

Webull

Webull's pricing page says some regulatory fees are “passed from the broker dealer to clients as a pass through transaction” and “Webull does not profit from these fees.” On October 1, 2026 its fee table showed the FINRA fee at $0 on sells only, and its note on the TAF said “Current rates are: $0 per share for each sale of a covered equity security, with a maximum charge of $0 per trade.” Until September 30 the table charged $0.000195 times the shares sold, with a $0.01 minimum and a $9.79 maximum. The note still says the TAF “will be assessed at a rate consistent with Section 1 of Schedule A” of FINRA's By-Laws, the section FINRA's filing sets to $0.00 for October to December 2026. The page does not say when the fee returns.

Source: Webull, pricing.

How we checked

• Each broker's fee page, fee schedule or help article was read on October 24, 2026 (Eastern time) and compared with our earlier readings. We did not open accounts or place trades, and we did not use other websites' lists. FINRA's pages do not load for automated reading, so we read them in a browser.
• Where a broker does not name the TAF, we name the pages we read.
• FINRA's rates come from Schedule A to its By-Laws and from FINRA's filings as published by the SEC and in the Federal Register.

What this page does not cover

• Other per-trade fees, such as the options regulatory fee and ADR fees, and commissions. The consolidated audit trail (CAT) fee, which applies to buys as well as sells, has its own page: the FINRA CAT fee at 15 brokers.
• Which broker to use. We report what each one publishes. For what brokers pay on uninvested cash, see our cash sweep rates.

Rechecks and changes

We read every broker's page again on Oct. 1 and Oct. 24, 2026. We will read them again in early November and after the TAF resumes on Jan. 1, 2027. Every change will be listed here with its date. If a rate is wrong, tell us.

• October 24, 2026. Robinhood's support article now has a note that the TAF is temporarily paused from October 1 through December 31, 2026 and that no TAF will be charged during that period; its rate line still gives $0.000195 a share. eToro's US fee page now lists the TAF at $0.00 per share and $0.00 per option contract (the line still gives a maximum of $8.30 per trade). Public's fee schedule is now dated October 13, 2026, with the same 2024-2025 rate. Firstrade moved its help article on regulatory fees to a new address with the same text, and moomoo's pricing page loads for automated reading again. The TAF lines of Ally Invest, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Edge, SoFi, Vanguard and Webull did not change.
• October 1, 2026. FINRA's rule page now lists every TAF rate at $0.00 for trades from October 1 through December 31, 2026. Ally Invest, Interactive Brokers, moomoo and Webull now show the TAF at $0 on their fee pages, and Interactive Brokers calls it a fee holiday through December 31. E*TRADE removed its TAF line and now lists only the SEC fee. Robinhood's support article still gives $0.000195 a share, and Public's fee schedule still gives FINRA's 2024-2025 rate. Charles Schwab's pricing page added a note that an industry fee applies to ETF sales. The pages we read for Fidelity, Merrill Edge, Vanguard, J.P. Morgan, eToro, Firstrade and SoFi did not change. We also added FINRA's scheduled rates for 2030 and 2031 to the rate table.
• September 23, 2026. First published.

This page reports what brokers and regulators publish about the FINRA Trading Activity Fee. It is not a recommendation of any broker, and it is not financial advice. We have no business relationship with any firm on this page.