First, a broker

  • Fidelity - $0 OTC trades

  • Firstrade - $0 OTC trades

  • TradeStation - $0 per OTC trade (up to 10,000 shares)

  • TD Ameritrade - $6.95 per OTC trade

  • E*TRADE - $6.95 flat fee per OTC trade

Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers is an online brokerage that allows you to trade OTC stocks. The thing about online brokerages is that they often have low fees and Interactive Brokers follows suit on that. There is no account fee and their trading fees range from $1.00 to 0.5%, depending on the stock. Like most other brokerages, you can also use them from any other investments you would like such as:

  • ETFs

  • Bonds

  • Options

  • Currencies

  • Futures

  • Stocks on formal markets

Questrade

Questrade is a flexible, self-directed online trading platform. They also allow OTC trades as well as formal market stocks. Questrade also offers no account fees with trade fees ranging from $4.95 - $9.95 per trade. The list of securities that you can invest in with Questrade is a little bit longer.

  • ETFs

  • Bonds

  • Options

  • Mutual Funds

  • GICs

  • International Equities

  • Precious Metals

Qtrade Direct Investing

With Qtrade you may have to pay some account fees. How it works is there are some conditions in order to maintain the $0 fees. If those conditions aren’t met then you may have to pay $25 per quarter. Their trading fees are relatively low though at $6.95 to $8.75 per trade. Besides OTC stocks, on Qtrade you can trade:

  • Bonds

  • Options

  • Mutual Funds

  • ETFs

  • GICs

  • Stocks on formal markets

OTC Stocks and the Top 5 banks

We already know that you can purchase OTC stocks through some online brokers, but what about the top 5 banks? Can you purchase OTC stocks through the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Scotiabank, Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) or the Bank of Montreal (BMO)?

CIBC

CIBC Investor’s Edge doesn’t allow you to facilitate trades online. They only allow OTC market trades to be done with a live representative. There are also restrictions on how you can trade OTC stocks. With CIBC, they have to be done through a non-registered investment account.

RBC

While it is not as widely known as the options above, you actually can trade OTC stocks with RBC Direct Investing. You can purchase using bank transfer with RBC and on the plus side they are also known to have low fees of only $9.95 per trade unless you make more than 150 trades. If this is the case, the fee is then only $6.95.

TD

When it comes to purchasing OTC stocks from TD, they are also very limited. There are very few to choose from.

Scotiabank

Scotiabank allows trades of OTC stocks along with trades done on formal markets. The process is the same for both. You can open an account online or contact an advisor directly.

BMO

With BMO, you can also trade OTC securities. The options are more limited though then the more used markets above. The process for OTC stock trading works similarly to trades of other securities; you just may not be able to do them online, depending on the stock.