Best IRA Accounts for December 2025

More about why we picked these as the best brokers for IRAs

Best overall for IRAs: Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab is one of the leading providers of retirement accounts, including workplace plans, such as 401(k)s, so it's no surprise that it stands out for IRAs. The company offers a variety of different types of IRA accounts, including self-employed plans such as SEP and SIMPLE IRAs. Schwab stands out for having helpful retirement planning tools — including educational content and calculators — and a large selection of mutual funds. It earns five stars in our analysis across three categories that we heavily consider in our methodology: number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds, number of low-expense-ratio funds and number of low-minimum funds. That makes it easy and inexpensive for retirement investors to start an IRA.

Best for retirement planning: Fidelity

It's no surprise Fidelity is on our list — the broker's name is nearly synonymous with retirement investing and IRAs, and the company services many workplace retirement plans. In fact, that's an advantage that isn't factored into our analysis, but it may be factored into your decision about which IRA account to choose: If you have a 401(k) or other plan at work that's administered by Fidelity, opening an IRA under the same roof may be an easy decision. But Fidelity also stands out for other reasons — the company's website offers innovative tools and expertise to help you in your retirement planning, and it has a wide mutual fund selection, including several of its own index funds that charge no fees.

Best advisor access: SoFi

SoFi may not have all the bells and whistles of some of the other brokers, but if you're looking for a low-cost broker and access to a financial advisor, SoFi is the place to start. SoFi is unique in that it offers access to certified financial planners — a perk that often comes with a hefty price tag elsewhere. All members can schedule one appointment with an advisor; SoFi Plus members — which requires a checking and savings account with direct deposit or $10/month — can schedule as many as they need.

Best IRA match: Robinhood

Robinhood currently has the best IRA match. While the free version of Robinhood offers a 1% match, Robinhood Gold gives you a 3% match. Minus the $60 Robinhood Gold annual fee, you're still netting a $150 bonus just for contributing the maximum amount to your retirement account. Robinhood also offers a high rate on uninvested cash and crypto trading.

Best for advanced traders: Interactive Brokers

We'll be honest and say our testers were surprised by how well Interactive Brokers scored when it comes to its IRA accounts — the broker is known for catering to active traders. But there are plenty of investors who want to trade in their IRA accounts — and there can be tax benefits for doing so — and Interactive Brokers deserves a spot on this list for its mutual fund offering alone. The broker has one of the largest mutual fund selections available, and our testers found the user experience of opening an account surprisingly smooth, even for novice investors.

Best overall robo-advisor: Schwab Intelligent Portfolios

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios stands out for IRA investors because it's free, meaning there is no fee for getting your investments managed for you. Schwab also offers several types of IRAs (including traditional, Roth, Rollovers, Inherited, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs), tons of customizable portfolios and 24/7 customer support. The downside? Schwab doesn't offer an IRA match the way some other brokers do.

Best automated investing match: Acorns

Acorns is a low-cost robo-advisor with one big perk for IRA investors: A 1% to 3% match on your contributions. A Silver plan costs $72 a year. If you contribute $7,000 to your IRA — the current annual contribution limit for those under 50 — you would get a $70 investment match. That would essentially wipe out your account fee. Premium subscriptions cost $144 per year. But with Premium's 3% match, you'd earn $210, completely erasing the annual fee, and putting an extra $66 in your pocket. Acorns also gives you cash back at select retailers and a high interest rate on checking and savings accounts at some service tiers.

What to consider when choosing an IRA

Picking the best IRA account will depend a bit on what matters most to you. Below, we detail some criteria to keep in mind:

Low-cost investments: For long-term retirement savings success, make sure high fees don’t eat into your investment returns. Open your IRA at a broker or robo-advisor that offers low-cost investments. For many retirement investors, a smart investment is a low-cost mutual fund. Investing in a handful of mutual funds is an easy way to own a diversified portfolio, because each mutual fund invests in dozens, hundreds or even thousands of companies. With mutual funds, one of the main fees to focus on is the expense ratio. Ideally, you’re investing in mutual funds with an expense ratio of less than about 0.5%.

Low fees: While you’re keeping an eye on expense ratios, also keep other fees in mind. If you’re a do-it-yourself investor who plans to open an IRA at a broker, make sure you pick a broker with no trading commissions (or a high number of commission-free ETFs and no-transaction-fee mutual funds) and low transfer and other fees.

Investment help: If you want guidance picking investments, a robo-advisor probably is a better choice for you than a broker. All robo-advisors offer either ready-to-go investment portfolios or provide some help picking investments.

Customer support: Make sure the broker or robo-advisor offers customer support that meets your needs, whether that’s live chat, telephone support or access to human financial planners.

How to open an IRA

It’s a simple process: You can open an IRA online, at any broker or robo-advisor (though we’re partial to the ones above, for the reasons we outlined). It takes about 15 minutes, and you’ll need to provide some personal information, including your name, birthdate, mailing address and Social Security number. Here’s our guide to opening an IRA, which also includes information about how to fund and invest the account.

How IRA matches work

IRA matches borrow from a common feature of employer retirement savings plans like 401(k)s: When you contribute to the account, the IRA broker matches your contributions — up to a limit. This is a relatively new offering, originally initiated by Robinhood. Several other IRA account providers have jumped on the bandwagon, though it is still relatively rare for an account to offer this feature.

How it works: When you contribute to the account, the brokerage will match a small percentage of your contribution — generally 1%, though some brokers take that a bit higher, especially as a limited-time promotion. Let's say you contribute $5,000 to your IRA. If the broker matches 1%, you get an extra $50. That may not sound like much, but it's also not money you'd walk away from. And on an annual basis, it can really add up — especially when it starts earning investment returns.

Be sure to read the terms and conditions of the offer — in some cases, if you close or transfer out your account within a certain amount of time, the broker will claw back the matching contributions you've earned as a fee. This is true of Robinhood, which requires you hold the IRA with them for at least five years.

One common question we've seen about these programs is whether the IRA match counts toward your contribution limit. In most cases, the answer is no — the IRA match is considered a promotion or interest, not a contribution. But be sure that's the case with the IRA provider you choose.

Frequently asked questions about IRA accounts

Can you lose money in an IRA?

It is possible for an IRA account to lose value and even drop to zero (though that's unlikely). The key to sidestepping this risk is to make sure your investments are diversified. That means investing in a variety of companies — of different sizes and in different industries and locations — and in both stocks and bonds. That way, when any one slice of your investments faces trouble, the others are there to keep your overall portfolio on a steady course.

The easiest path to a diversified portfolio is with mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. One single fund can invest in thousands of companies, making it a simple one-stop shop for investment diversification.

How do you invest an IRA?

Unlike savings accounts, IRAs don’t pay a set interest rate or return. Once you’ve put money into the account, you need to select investments; otherwise, your money will sit in cash, which isn’t ideal for a long-term goal like retirement. Most IRA providers offer a wide range of investment options, including individual stocks, bonds and mutual funds. If that sounds out of your league, you can open your IRA at a robo-advisor, which will manage your investments for you for a small fee. The robo-advisors on this page are listed under the heading for hands-off investors — investors who want a robo-advisor to invest the IRA account for them.

Which bank has the best IRA?

You might have noticed we don’t include any bank IRA accounts in our roundup of the best IRAs. Generally, an investment broker or robo-advisor is a better option than a bank for an IRA account, because for a long-term goal like retirement, you want to tap into the power of the stock market to grow your money.

Bank IRAs generally offer access to savings products such as certificates of deposit. CDs are savings products that guarantee a rate of return as long as you leave your money in for a specific period of time. Historically, stock market returns average about 10% per year. CD rates are typically much lower. Yes, the stock market comes with the risk that, in any given year, your account may lose value — but investors who leave their money in the market, even through those down days, generally enjoy hefty gains over time.