Deposit Fee

A deposit fee is a charge applied when money moves into a trading account, either taken by the broker or passed through from the payment provider. Many firms advertise deposits as free and then carve out exceptions — a percentage on card funding, a flat charge on international wire transfers, or a fee below a minimum amount — so the useful question is not whether deposits are free but which method is free. Two costs travel with the deposit and are easy to miss. If the funding currency differs from the account's base currency, a conversion is applied on the way in as well as on the way out. And correspondent banks can deduct their own charge from a wire in transit, so the amount credited is smaller than the amount sent without the broker having charged anything at all. Comparing funding costs therefore means comparing the method, the currency and the route together.