US Brokerages That Accept Expats (and What to Do If Yours Doesn’t)

The email arrives politely enough: “We’ve noticed your address has changed. Please be advised of the following restrictions on your account…” Depending on the brokerage, what follows ranges from a mild inconvenience to a full eviction.

The spectrum of brokerage reactions

When a US brokerage learns you live abroad, it lands somewhere on this spectrum:

• Full service: a small group of institutions maintain genuine international programs and keep serving you normally — sometimes through a dedicated international arm.
• Hold-and-sell: the most common middle ground — you keep the account, can sell and often buy stocks/ETFs, but lose access to mutual fund purchases and some features.
• Restricted: no new purchases at all; the account becomes a slowly melting museum of your old decisions.
• Exit: a deadline to transfer out. Rare from the biggest names, but it happens, especially from smaller firms and robo-advisors.

Which brokerages sit where changes over time and can even vary by destination country — some firms treat an address in one country differently from another. That’s why the golden rule is: get your brokerage’s expat policy in writing before you update your address — ideally before you move at all.

What actually trips the wire

Brokerages don’t go looking for expats. They react to data, and the piece of data that matters most is the address. The moment a foreign residential address lands on your profile, a compliance rule fires and the account is re-bucketed into whatever category that country falls under. Other tells can start the same process: a foreign mobile number replacing your US one, a fresh W-9 with a foreign address on it, a request to link a non-US bank for funding. Each is a signal, and the address is the loudest.

Which of the four reactions you get depends on the country as much as the broker. One of the best-known expat-friendly names currently declines new applications from residents of France — and of Italy, Canada, Japan and most of Eastern Europe — while residents of Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK can apply. That list will have moved by the time you read this. “Does this broker take expats?” is the wrong question; “does this broker take residents of Portugal?” is the right one, and the broker’s own country list is the only answer that counts.

Being accepted is also not the same as being able to buy what you need. Some international brokers carry EEA residents through a European entity, where a retail client cannot buy US-listed ETFs because those ETFs have no Key Information Document. Same brand, same app, different rulebook. Ask which entity will hold your account before anything else.

Choosing an expat-friendly brokerage

Historically, the names that come up constantly in expat communities include the major full-service brokerages with international divisions — though note that some of them book EU-resident clients to a European entity, where US ETFs are blocked under PRIIPs; the US-entity account is the one expats actually want. Verify current policy yourself; what matters is the checklist:

• Accepts your specific destination country (policies are country-by-country).
• Allows purchases, not just holding — ideally including ETFs.
• Supports non-US phone numbers or app-based two-factor authentication.
• Handles W-9/W-8 and tax documents cleanly for expats.
• Reasonable wire/transfer costs for funding from abroad.

If your brokerage restricts or evicts you

• Don’t sell in a panic. A transfer “in kind” (ACATS) moves your holdings to a new brokerage without selling — no taxable event, no time out of the market.
• Open the new account first, confirm it accepts your country, then initiate the transfer from the receiving side.
• Watch the mutual funds: some can’t transfer in kind and may need converting to ETFs or selling — sequence this with tax in mind.
• Retirement accounts move too: IRAs transfer between custodians without tax consequences when done properly (more here).

Automated portfolios: the quietest eviction

Robo-advisors are the most likely to send the exit letter, and some state outright that they cannot serve US citizens living abroad. They are built around one domestic customer profile; a foreign address doesn’t fit the model, so the model asks you to leave. A robo portfolio is also awkward to move: it typically holds a long list of ETFs plus fractional shares, and fractions generally don’t survive an in-kind transfer — they get sold, creating small taxable gains you never asked for. If a move is on the horizon, transfer to a conventional brokerage while you still have a US address.

Sequencing an in-kind transfer

ACATS is painless when the account is tidy. This order prevents most of the grief:

• Download everything first. Statements, cost-basis records, trade confirmations. Cost basis usually travels with the transfer, but not always cleanly.
• Switch off dividend reinvestment a few weeks before you start. A dividend that reinvests mid-transfer creates a straggler position that has to be moved separately.
• Deal with mutual funds before anything else. Ask the receiving broker whether each one is transferable. If not, the choice is sell now (a taxable event you can at least time) or leave the fund behind in a shrinking legacy account.
• Move retirement accounts as a separate transfer. An IRA goes custodian to custodian, never through your hands.
• Don’t trade during the window. A pending order can stall the whole transfer.
• Leave the old account open for a while. Residual dividends and tax forms arrive after the fact.

None of it is difficult. It is simply easier done calmly from a US address than under a deadline from a Spanish one.

A word on European platforms

Tempting as a local investing app may be, most European platforms either refuse US persons (FATCA) or offer exactly the funds you must avoid (PFICs). For most Americans abroad, the US brokerage remains the engine room — the European side is for banking, not investing.

Which institutions fit your country, assets and timeline — and in what order to make the moves — is exactly what the Expat Money Assessment and Financial Relocation Roadmap map out.

This article is general information, not investment advice or a recommendation of any institution. Policies change frequently — verify directly before acting.