The Largest Online Brokers by Client Assets (2026)

By Kai Schukowski · Investor and founder of MatchMyBroker
Last updated: 29 May 2026

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When people ask which online broker is the biggest, they usually mean one of two things: who has the most customers, or who holds the most money. We think the second question is the more useful one. The total value of client assets a broker holds, what the industry calls assets under administration (AUA) or assets under custody (AUC), is the clearest signal of scale, trust and staying power. A broker does not accumulate hundreds of billions in client money by accident.

So we pulled the latest official figures from 17 of the world's largest retail online brokers, straight from their investor relations reports, earnings releases and regulatory filings, and ranked them by total client assets. The field runs from Interactive Brokers at roughly $870 billion down to XTB at around $12 billion, with a cluster of European platforms filling the middle.

One honest caveat up front, which most rankings quietly skip: these figures are not perfectly like-for-like. We have labelled the exact metric and the reporting date for every broker, so you can see precisely what you are comparing.

With that established, here is the picture. The chart below shows total client assets in US dollars, and the steep drop after the top two tells its own story: two global giants, a band of established European platforms, and a long tail of fast-growing challengers.

The full ranking, with each broker's exact metric date, year-on-year growth where it is officially disclosed, and the average assets per client, is below. Where a broker has not published a comparable prior-year figure, we have left growth blank rather than estimate it.

Trading 212: when investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.

One column in that table rewards a closer look. The biggest brokers by assets are not the biggest by number of customers. The average Interactive Brokers account holds around $179,000 and the average AJ Bell account roughly $202,000, because both attract serious, long-term and pension money. At the commission-free neobrokers the average account is a fraction of that, about $5,000 at eToro, Webull and XTB, and around $17,000 at Trade Republic. Robinhood is the clearest example: it has nearly six times Interactive Brokers' customers but well under half the assets. Size in assets and size in users describe two very different businesses.

The two global giants

Interactive Brokers sits comfortably at the top. Its client equity reached roughly $870.9 billion at the end of April 2026, across 4.86 million accounts, up 48% in a year. Founded in 1978 and listed on Nasdaq, it is the broker of choice for serious, cost-conscious investors and the one most likely to be holding the assets of other brokers' customers behind the scenes.

Robinhood is the surprise of the ranking in second place, with $307 billion in total platform assets and 27.4 million funded customers, up 39% year on year. A word on the metric: Robinhood's figure includes client cash and crypto held in custody, and its customer base is overwhelmingly United States based, so it is large by assets but narrow by geography.

If you are weighing up the largest broker for your own account, the card below sums up where Interactive Brokers stands today.

Europe's biggest platforms

Behind the two giants, the middle of the table is almost entirely European, and it is where most readers will recognise their own broker. Hargreaves Lansdown is the largest in the United Kingdom, with £172.7 billion in assets under administration across more than two million clients. Italy's Fineco Bank follows at €160.6 billion, though its total financial assets figure bundles in €31.7 billion of bank deposits alongside investments.

Trade Republic is the standout growth story and the largest pan-European neobroker by client assets, having grown from €100 billion in January 2025 to €150 billion by December across more than 10 million customers. Saxo Bank (€133 billion) and the United Kingdom's AJ Bell (£108.7 billion, up 20%) round out the upper-middle group.

The Nordics punch well above their population size: Nordnet (about $130 billion in savings capital, up 23%) and Avanza (about $115 billion, up 15%) together administer the savings of nearly five million customers across Sweden and its neighbours. Switzerland's Swissquote (CHF 88.7 billion, up 16%) and Germany's flatexDEGIRO (€94.5 billion in assets under custody, up 25%) complete the European core.

The fast-growing challengers

The lower half of the table is where the growth rates get interesting. Webull was the fastest grower of the entire group, with customer assets up 81% to $24.6 billion. Trading 212 reported over £25 billion in client assets and 4.5 million clients, and eToro held $18.5 billion in assets under administration across 3.81 million funded accounts, up 11%.

IG Group appears at around $24 billion, but that figure is its non-CFD investment platform only (and now includes Freetrade), so it understates the size of IG's overall client relationships. Germany's Scalable Capital last officially reported over €20 billion in client assets back in December 2024, and XTB closes the ranking at around $12.5 billion, having crossed 2.16 million clients.

Who didn't make the list, and why

Two names you might expect are deliberately absent. Revolut has more than 68 million customers, but it does not disclose an investing-specific client-assets figure. Its headline $67.5 billion of customer balances is overwhelmingly a banking-deposits number, not money invested through its trading product, so placing it in an assets ranking would compare current-account cash against other brokers' invested portfolios. The same logic keeps neobanks like N26 and Wise out. As Revolut's newly approved wealth arm grows and starts reporting invested assets, that may change.

At the other extreme, the United States custody giants dwarf everyone here but belong to a different category. Charles Schwab holds around $11.8 trillion in client assets, Fidelity roughly $17.9 trillion and Vanguard close to $12 trillion. These are custody and wealth-management businesses rather than the self-directed retail trading platforms this ranking covers, which is why we have noted them only for scale.

Size is a signal, not a guarantee

A large balance sheet tells you a broker is popular and stable, but it is not what actually protects your money. That job falls to regulation, the segregation of client assets from the firm's own funds, and the compensation schemes that step in if a broker fails. Before you choose on size alone, it is worth checking how a broker is regulated and where your assets would sit. If you are not sure which broker fits your situation, our BrokerMatch tool and our guide to choosing a broker are the best places to start.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the largest online broker in the world?

Among retail online brokers, Interactive Brokers is the largest by client assets, with roughly $870.9 billion in client equity across 4.86 million accounts as of April 2026. The genuinely bigger names in finance, Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Vanguard, hold trillions, but they are asset-management and custody firms rather than self-directed trading platforms.

Which is the biggest broker in Europe?

It depends on how you count. By client assets, Hargreaves Lansdown (£172.7 billion) and Fineco Bank (€160.6 billion) are the largest home-market platforms, while Trade Republic (€150 billion) is the biggest pan-European neobroker. Interactive Brokers serves European clients through its Irish entity but is headquartered in the United States.

Is a bigger broker safer?

Not automatically. Size signals stability and popularity, but your protection comes from regulation, the segregation of client assets, and investor-compensation schemes, not from the size of the broker. A smaller, well-regulated broker can be just as safe as a giant.

What happens to my money if my broker goes bust?

Your assets are held separately from the broker's own money, so they do not form part of a failed firm's estate and are normally returned or transferred to another broker. Compensation schemes cover shortfalls from failure or fraud: in the United States, SIPC protects up to $500,000 (including $250,000 in cash); in the United Kingdom, the FSCS covers up to £85,000 of investments per firm; and across the EU, national schemes provide a minimum of €20,000 under the Investor Compensation Schemes Directive. None of these schemes cover losses from your investments simply falling in value.

What is the difference between AUM and AUA?

Assets under management (AUM) are managed on a discretionary basis by the firm. Assets under administration (AUA), or assets under custody, are simply held and administered for clients who make their own decisions, which is what most execution-only brokers report. That distinction is why a neobroker's client-assets figure is not directly comparable to a wealth manager's AUM.

Is Interactive Brokers the biggest broker?

It is the largest broker in this retail ranking and one of the largest electronic brokers in the world, with around $870.9 billion in client equity and 4.86 million accounts across more than 150 markets. It is not the biggest financial firm overall, since the large asset managers operate on a far greater scale.