Ask fifty brokers what margin costs and most will not give you one number. In BrokerCompare's dataset of 50 US brokerages, verified on September 15, 2026, only 16 record a base margin rate at all. The other 34 publish tier schedules, promotional tiers or nothing a single figure can summarize, which is itself the first finding of any honest margin comparison: the rate is the fee brokers least like to state plainly. Here are the 16 that do, ranked, with what the spread costs in dollars.
The 16 recorded rates, lowest first
Public records the lowest base rate at 4.90 percent, followed by Interactive Brokers at 6.13, Alpaca Securities at 6.25 and Tiger Brokers at 6.63. The middle of the table runs from Cobra Trading at 8.00 and Webull at 8.74 through TradeZero at 9.00 and SoFi Invest at 9.50. The top end is crowded: Lightspeed Trading and tastytrade at 11.00, TradeStation at 11.75, Charles Schwab and Fidelity both at 11.825, Firstrade and Vanguard at 12.00, and E*TRADE highest at 12.45. The median of the 16 is 10.25 percent.
What the spread costs
Margin interest is quoted yearly but charged daily, so the clean way to feel the spread is one balance held for one year at simple interest. Borrow $10,000 and the recorded rates produce $490 of interest at Public, $613 at Interactive Brokers, $1,182 at Fidelity and $1,245 at E*TRADE. The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive of the 16 is $755 a year on the same borrowed ten thousand, before compounding, and it grows with the balance. That is why the margin cluster of searches keeps growing even while the brokers at the top of it compete on everything except this number.
Read the tier before you trust the rate
Each recorded rate is the entry tier of a schedule, not a promise. The Schwab and Fidelity records, for example, cover balances from $0 to about $25,000, and larger balances borrow cheaper at almost every broker. Our earlier guides cover the two halves of that story: margin loan rates by balance tier and why the headline rate is not the whole story. A broker whose schedule drops quickly can beat a lower headline rate at your actual balance, so compare at the amount you would really borrow.
Method and limits
Rates are BrokerCompare's recorded base margin rates from its 50-broker dataset, verified on September 15, 2026. Margin pricing moves with central bank rates and broker promotions, and 34 brokers record no single base rate in our data, including several large ones whose tier schedules resist summary. The SwitchCost Checker prices a broker switch from recorded fees, and the full comparison counts the rest of the schedule. Confirm the live rate, at your balance, before borrowing.