Tiger Brokers Review 2026

What Tiger Brokers actually is

Tiger Brokers is the retail brand of UP Fintech Holding Limited, a Cayman-incorporated group founded in 2014 and listed on NASDAQ under TIGR since March 2019. It is not one company. It is a group of separately licensed entities, and the one that matters to a Singapore trader is Tiger Brokers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., UEN 201810449W, which holds a Capital Markets Services licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The proposition is straightforward: a single app that gives you SGX, Hong Kong, US, China A-share and Australian equities, plus listed options and around a hundred global futures contracts, with no minimum deposit and no custody or inactivity fees. In practice that is what makes Tiger the default first brokerage account for a large slice of Singapore and Hong Kong retail investors. UP Fintech’s own Q2 2026 earnings call put it plainly: more than 70% of new funded accounts in the quarter came from Singapore and Hong Kong, split roughly evenly.

What Tiger is not is a forex broker. There is no spot FX, no CFD book, and nothing on the MAS licence covering leveraged foreign exchange trading. If you trade currencies, this account gives you exactly one route in — exchange-traded FX futures — and nothing else.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

Tiger fits you if you are a Singapore-resident investor or swing trader building a multi-market portfolio, you place orders in the low four figures upwards, you buy higher-priced US shares rather than penny stocks, and you want SGX and US positions in the same statement without maintaining two brokers.

It also fits the trader who wants cheap listed options. At US$0.65 all-in per US contract with no per-order minimum, a ten-lot costs US$6.50 in Tiger fees before pass-through charges. That is competitive by regional standards.

Look elsewhere if:

• You trade forex or indices via CFD. Tiger Brokers Singapore has no such product. Nothing about the platform is designed for you.
• You want your SGX shares in your own CDP account. Buys settle into Tiger’s nominee sub-account. The CDP linkage is sell-side only.
• You trade high share counts of low-priced US stocks. Per-share pricing on both the commission and the platform fee makes this the wrong structure.
• You are a serious ASX trader. The A$8 per-order floor and 0.10% blended rate are not competitive.
• You need support while the US market is open. Singapore office hours only.

The real cost of a US trade

This is where most Tiger reviews go soft, so let us be precise. Tiger charges two separate fees on a US equity order, and then passes through a third set on top.

• Commission: US$0.005 per share, minimum US$0.99 per order, capped at 0.5% of trade value.
• Platform fee: US$0.005 per share, minimum US$1.00 per order, capped at 0.5% of trade value.
• Settlement fee: US$0.003 per share, capped at 0.5% of trade value.
• Sell side only: SEC membership fee at 0.0000206 × trade value, and FINRA Trading Activity Fee at US$0.000195 per share (min US$0.01, max US$9.79).
• 9% GST applies to Tiger’s own fees, per Tiger’s pricing page.

So the floor on a US order is US$1.99, not US$0.99, and the true minimum is closer to US$2.20 once GST and the settlement fee are counted. Tiger’s own US stocks landing page bundles this as “US$0.0099 per share, min US$1.99 per order” — that bundled number is the honest one, and it is the one to plan around.

Why the same position size can cost six times as much

Because both fees are per-share, the price of the stock decides your cost, not the size of your position. Two ways to hold US$20,000:

• 100 shares at US$200: commission US$0.99 (minimum applies), platform fee US$1.00 (minimum applies), settlement US$0.30. Buy side total US$2.29.
• 1,000 shares at US$20: commission US$5.00, platform fee US$5.00, settlement US$3.00. Buy side total US$13.00.

Identical exposure. Round-trip that second one and you have paid roughly US$26 plus GST and regulatory fees, or about 0.13% of the trade, before the spread. Tiger is cheap for large-cap US names and quietly expensive for cheap ones.

The promotion trap

Tiger runs commission-free offers more or less continuously — welcome bonuses, transfer-in offers, contra promotions, all currently dated to 31 December 2026 on Tiger’s own promotions page. Every one of them waives the commission. The platform fee is a separate line item and survives. On a US trade that means you are still paying US$0.005 per share, minimum US$1.00 per order, plus settlement and GST. Treat “US$0 commission” as “roughly half off”, not “free”, unless the terms explicitly name the platform fee.

SGX, Hong Kong, China A-shares and Australia

Outside the US, Tiger prices on a percentage basis, which behaves much more predictably.

Singapore (SGX)

0.03% commission (min S$0.99) plus 0.03% platform fee (min S$1.00), so S$1.99 in Tiger fees on any order up to about S$3,300, and 0.06% above that. On top sit SGX’s own charges: 0.0075% trading fee and 0.0325% clearing fee. A S$5,000 SGX buy therefore costs about S$3.00 to Tiger and S$2.00 to the exchange — roughly S$5, or 0.10%. The S$2 quarterly custody fee is waived, currently stated through 1 July 2027.

Hong Kong

0.03% commission (min HK$7) plus 0.03% platform fee (min HK$8), so a HK$15 floor. The government’s 0.1% stamp duty dwarfs everything else: on a HK$50,000 trade you pay HK$30 to Tiger and HK$50 in stamp duty, plus small HKEX, HKSCC, SFC and AFRC levies. Nothing Tiger does changes that arithmetic — it is the same for every Hong Kong broker.

China A-shares

0.03% commission (min CNH 7) plus 0.03% platform fee (min CNH 8), with handling, securities management and settlement fees on top and 0.05% stamp duty on sells. Note a change that took effect on 1 June 2026: a portfolio fee calculated as holding value × 0.008% ÷ 365 per day. It is small, but it is a holding cost that did not exist before, and it is the one A-share line item most reviews have not updated.

Australia

0.03% commission (min A$2) plus a 0.07% platform fee (min A$6). That asymmetry is deliberate and it is the single most expensive market on Tiger’s Singapore menu: an A$8 floor per order and 0.10% of value on anything above A$8,000. Tiger is a fine way to hold a couple of ASX names alongside everything else; it is not a way to trade ASX actively.

Options and futures pricing

US options. Tiger currently offers an ultra-low plan at US$0.35 commission plus US$0.30 platform fee = US$0.65 per contract, with no per-order minimum. Tiger’s own promotions page dates this at US$0.65 per contract for all users with an expiry of 30 September 2026. If it lapses, the alternatives on the pricing page are a regular plan with a US$1.99 commission minimum and US$1.00 platform minimum per order (US$2.99 floor), or a tiered plan running from US$0.80 down to zero commission by monthly contract volume, plus US$0.30 per contract platform fee with a US$1.00 per-order minimum. Pass-through charges apply either way: OCC clearing US$0.025 per contract, ORF US$0.012 per contract, FINRA US$0.00329 per contract sold, plus exchange fees.

If you write options at Tiger, put a note in your diary for the end of September 2026 and re-check your plan. A move from US$0.65 to US$2.99 minimum per order is a fivefold change on small tickets.

Hong Kong options are priced very differently: 0.2% of trade value (min HK$3) commission plus a flat HK$15 per order platform fee, with a HK$2 per contract exercise fee. The flat platform fee makes small HK option orders poor value.

Futures. Commission runs from US$0 to US$2.99 per contract depending on the product, with micro contracts at the bottom of that range and some at zero. But the US$1 per contract platform fee applies regardless (HK$7 on HKEX products), plus exchange, clearing and regulatory fees typically in the US$0.20 to US$2.50 range. So a “zero commission” micro E-mini is not free — it is about US$1.20 to US$1.50 per side once everything lands. Available venues include CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, SGX, HKEX, EUREX, OSE and CBOE.

Account types: Cash, Margin and Cash Boost

Three account structures matter, and the pricing difference between them is larger than most people realise.

The cash account is the default: fully funded trades at the standard fee schedule above. The margin account adds financing against your portfolio. Tiger publishes financing rates by currency (USD, SGD, HKD, CNH, AUD, EUR, GBP, JPY) on its interest rates page, but those rates are loaded live and reset daily — check the figure in the app before you borrow, because any rate quoted in a review, including this one, is stale the moment it is written.

The Cash Boost account is the Singapore-specific one and it does three things: contra trading, CDP-linked selling, and CPF-OA and SRS investing. New users get a default S$20,000 credit line, increasable on request. Contra settlement is T+3 (due date +1) for Singapore and Hong Kong, T+2 for US and China. If you fail to settle, interest accrues at 8.50% per annum from five trading days after the due date, Tiger force-liquidates at due date +2, and its FAQ warns of credit-limit freezes and potential inclusion on the SGX Delinquent List.

The catch is pricing. Cash Boost charges 0.10% commission (min S$4.99) plus 0.12% platform fee (min S$5) across SG, US and HK equities — a S$9.99 floor against S$1.99 in the ordinary account. Use Cash Boost for what it is uniquely good at (CDP-linked selling, CPF and SRS investing, genuine contra plays) and route ordinary buy-and-hold orders through the standard account.

For CPF and SRS: only SGX-listed, SGD-denominated shares and ETFs are eligible, agent banks are DBS, OCBC and UOB, contra trading is not permitted on CPF or SRS trades, and proceeds return to the CPF or SRS account at the agent bank rather than to your Cash Boost balance.

Markets and instruments: what you can and cannot trade

Available: US stocks and ETFs (Tiger advertises 9,500-plus, with fractional shares from around US$1), Hong Kong stocks, SGX stocks, ETFs, REITs, DLCs, structured warrants and listed bonds, China A-shares via Stock Connect, ASX stocks, US and Hong Kong listed options, Hong Kong warrants and CBBCs, 100-plus global futures contracts, unit trusts (Tiger advertises 1,500-plus), US Treasuries, fixed coupon notes, IPO subscriptions, the Tiger Vault cash management product and the Tiger BOSS debit card. Fractional trading of Singapore-listed stocks and REITs was added during 2026.

Not available: spot forex, CFDs, spread betting, and European, Japanese, Indian or other Asian cash equity markets beyond those listed. Cryptocurrency is not offered through the Singapore entity, though digital asset futures appear in the futures product categories.

One feature genuinely worth the attention: 24/5 US trading on over 500 US stocks and ETFs. Overnight session runs 8:00pm to 4:00am US Eastern, Sunday to Thursday, and the 24H session runs 8:00pm to 8:00pm the next day. Tiger states transaction fees are identical to regular hours. Read the limitations before you use it, though: no short-selling in these sessions, buy orders capped at 120% of the prior close and sell orders floored at 80%, no attached orders in the overnight session, and overnight fills belong to the next trading day (T+1). Extended-hours liquidity is thinner than the regular session; use limit orders and size down.

The Tiger Trade platform

Tiger Trade comes in three flavours: a mobile app (iOS and Android), a desktop client (Windows and macOS) and a web platform. The mobile app is the one most people use and it is genuinely well built — clean order entry, a decent watchlist, workable charting, and it does not fight you.

The desktop client is where the real work happens: multi-window layouts, a full indicator library, screeners, profit and loss analysis, option chains supporting up to four-leg strategies, bracket orders and bulk order entry. It is not a professional execution terminal and it does not pretend to be, but for a discretionary swing or position trader it is more than adequate.

Two things worth calling out. First, Level 2 US market data is free, which is not universal and is a real saving if you care about the book. Second, the Tiger Open Platform API is a proper offering, with SDKs in Python, Java, C++, C#, TypeScript, Go and Rust, covering market data, trading and push services, and supporting paper trading accounts. If you want to test a systematic idea without paying for infrastructure, that combination — free L2, a real API, a paper account — is a legitimate reason to open an account here even if you execute elsewhere.

Funding, withdrawals and currency conversion

Deposits are straightforward for Singapore residents. PayNow (SGD only, effectively instant), DDA fast deposit (minutes for DBS/POSB during business hours), ordinary bank transfer (one to three working days) and Wise are all supported. Tiger’s own FAQ states that neither Tiger nor its collection bank, DBS, charges a deposit fee, and there is no minimum or maximum deposit limit. Supported currencies include SGD, USD, HKD, AUD, EUR and offshore RMB.

Two hard rules to internalise before your first deposit. The remitting bank account must be in your own name. Deposits from someone else’s account, from a joint account, or from a third-party payment platform (Wise’s in-app link excepted) get refunded — and Tiger warns that refunds may take two to four weeks and can carry fees of up to US$100 borne by you. That is a genuinely painful mistake to make with your first S$10,000.

On currency conversion, be careful. Tiger’s help pages say conversion happens “at the real-time conversion rate” and give operational detail — conversion available 6:20am to 4:55am SGT on weekdays, maximum US$1,000,000 equivalent per order, generally instant — but they do not publish a spread or fee figure. Third-party reviews circulate a number; Tiger does not confirm one. Treat the conversion cost as undisclosed: before you convert a meaningful sum, compare the rate Tiger quotes you against the interbank mid-rate at that moment and decide from there. That takes ten seconds and is the only reliable way to know what you are paying.

Regulation and what MAS actually covers

Tiger Brokers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., UEN 201810449W, appears on the MAS Financial Institutions Directory as a Capital Markets Services licensee and an Exempt Financial Adviser. The regulated activities listed are dealing in capital markets products (securities, collective investment schemes and exchange-traded derivatives contracts), product financing, and providing custodial services, plus advising on and issuing analyses on those product categories. You can and should verify this yourself at the MAS Financial Institutions Directory rather than taking any review’s word for it.

Read that list carefully, because it defines the boundary. It covers exchange-traded derivatives. It does not include leveraged foreign exchange trading — which is consistent with Tiger not offering spot FX, and which means anyone marketing “MAS-regulated forex” at Tiger is describing something that does not exist.

Where your assets actually sit

Tiger’s own security and custody disclosure sets out the chain: US positions clear through TradeUp Securities, Inc. with shares at DTCC; Hong Kong positions clear through Tiger Brokers (HK) Global Limited with custody at CCASS; Singapore positions are cleared by the Singapore entity with shares held in a sub-account under Tiger’s nominee account at CDP. Client money and assets are held in segregated trust and custodian accounts under section 104 of the Securities and Futures Act.

Segregation is the substantive protection here, and it is real — segregated client assets are not available to Tiger’s creditors. What Singapore does not have is a broad deposit-style guarantee for brokerage clients. The SGX Fidelity Fund may compensate eligible retail investors up to S$50,000 per claimant and S$2 million per member firm, but it is aimed at fraudulent misappropriation of client money or property by an SGX member, subject to statutory conditions. It is not an FSCS-style insolvency backstop and should not be treated as one.

The group risk you should price in

On 22 May 2026, the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s Beijing Bureau imposed administrative penalties of approximately RMB411 million (about US$59.7 million) on certain UP Fintech subsidiaries. UP Fintech’s own filing attributes them to unlicensed cross-border securities business and illegal activity relating to the fund and futures business in mainland China. The group booked a US$26.9 million net loss for Q1 2026 as a result, implemented monitoring from 12 June 2026 restricting onshore activity by mainland users, and saw roughly US$500 million of net outflows from mainland retail clients in Q2. Mainland client assets fell from the 20–25% range to under 10% of the total.

None of that touches the segregated assets of a Singapore client, and the group returned to profit in Q2 2026 (US$39.4m net income on US$182.3m revenue, US$60.7bn total client assets). But it is a documented enforcement action against the parent’s subsidiaries, not a rumour, and you should know about it before you decide how much of your net worth to hold at one broker.

Which entity are you signing up with? A note for the region

This is the part that matters most to readers outside Singapore, and it is the part almost every review skips.

Every protection described in the previous section — the MAS licence, section 104 segregation, SGX Fidelity Fund eligibility, CDP nominee custody — attaches to Tiger Brokers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. and to clients of that entity. Tiger’s group licence page lists at least eight separate operating companies. Residents of Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and the United States are onboarded to their respective local entities. Residents of other jurisdictions are not.

If you are in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam or the Philippines and you sign up through Tiger’s global platform, you are contracting with a different company under different law. Tiger holds no Securities Commission Malaysia licence, no OJK licence, no SEC Philippines broker licence. You are an offshore client of an offshore entity, with whatever protections that entity’s home regime provides and no local recourse. That may be an entirely acceptable trade-off — plenty of regional traders make it deliberately — but make it consciously.

Before you fund anything, do this: read the entity name on your client agreement and the account statement, then look that exact legal name up on its stated regulator’s public register. If the name on your agreement is not “Tiger Brokers (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.”, nothing in the MAS section of this review applies to you.

Customer support

Tiger Brokers Singapore publishes a Singapore phone line (+65 6331 2277) staffed weekdays 8:30am to 6:30pm SGT, an email address, and WhatsApp support. There is a substantial self-service help centre, and for account opening Singapore residents can use MyInfo via Singpass, which removes most of the document upload friction.

The office-hours limitation is the honest criticism. The US regular session runs 9:30pm to 4:00am Singapore time, and Tiger has just spent considerable effort selling you 24/5 US trading. If an order behaves unexpectedly at 2am SGT, you are waiting until the following morning. For a buy-and-hold investor that is a non-issue. For anyone trading US names actively, it is a real operational risk you should plan around — know how to flatten a position from the app yourself, because nobody is picking up the phone.

The verdict

Tiger Brokers Singapore does the job AFM features it for: it is a low-friction, properly licensed entry point into multi-market investing for someone in Singapore or Hong Kong who does not want to run three brokerage accounts. No minimum deposit, no custody fee, no inactivity fee, a parent company you can read the accounts of, and genuine SGX, US, HK, A-share and ASX access in one app. For a first account, that combination is hard to argue with.

The discipline it demands is on cost. There are always two Tiger fees on an equity trade, promotions only ever waive one of them, the US per-share structure punishes cheap stocks, and the Cash Boost account costs five times the standard one for anything that is not genuinely contra or CPF/SRS. None of that is hidden — it is all on Tiger’s own pricing pages — but it is all easy to miss if you read the marketing and stop.

And be clear about what it is not. There is no spot forex, no CFDs, and no MAS authorisation for leveraged FX. If your trading is currency-based, this account is irrelevant to you regardless of how good the app is. If you need your SGX shares in your own CDP account, it is the wrong structure. If you trade ASX seriously, the platform fee will bleed you.

Open it for what it does well. Price the trades before you place them. And check the entity name on your agreement before you send a single dollar.