What You Need to Know About Robinhood’s IRA
Robinhood offers IRA retirement accounts with matched contributions — but are they right for you? Here are the details on Robinhood IRAs.
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Updated · 6 min read
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Managing Editor Robinhood may be better known as a platform for active traders, but retirement investors will still find a lot to like about its IRA offering. One of the best parts? Robinhood offers a 1% match (3% match for Robinhood Gold members) on IRA contributions. That means free money as a reward for investing in a retirement account.
Pros
1% to 3% IRA match
Access to stocks, ETFs and options
24/7 chat support
Cons
No match on managed IRAs
No access to target date mutual funds
No SEP, SIMPLE, or custodial IRAs
Robinhood's IRAs — whether it's a traditional or Roth IRA — enjoy a 1% to 3% match on contributions, a decent range of investable assets and low fees. Robinhood also offers 24/7 chat support and phone support with extended hours during the week. Robinhood is known for its intuitive app and platform, and while retirement investors may not rely on its capabilities as much as active traders, anyone can enjoy a seamless investing experience.
Who can set up a Robinhood IRA?
There are two main requirements for setting up an IRA at Robinhood: Investors must have earned income and a Robinhood account.
The IRS allows only people with earned income to contribute to IRAs — that is, income from work, as opposed to passive income from investments or property.
You also need to be eligible for a regular, taxable Robinhood brokerage account to sign up for a Robinhood IRA. That means you need to be at least 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, lawful resident or visa holder with a valid Social Security number, and a U.S. address.
» Curious about Robinhood’s taxable accounts? Read our full Robinhood review.
What kind of IRA can you open with Robinhood?
You can open either a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA through Robinhood. The broker doesn't offer access to other types of IRAs, such as SEP, SIMPLE or custodial accounts. Some brokers, like Charles Schwab, give you access to a wider range of IRAs.
What types of investments can I invest in through my Robinhood IRA?
You can trade stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and options in a Robinhood IRA, but not cryptocurrency.
🤓 Nerdy Tip
Anyone with earned income can contribute to a traditional IRA, although the tax deduction from traditional IRA contributions is gradually phased out at higher incomes. People with high incomes may be ineligible to contribute to a Roth IRA.» Read more about IRA contribution income limits What special features does the Robinhood IRA have?
The Robinhood IRA comes with three features that are uncommon in other non-employer IRAs: instant deposit, matched contributions and investment recommendations.
Instant deposit
As with Robinhood’s regular accounts, you won’t have to wait one to five business days for deposits to clear before you start investing. Customers can enable “instant deposits,” which allow them to contribute up to $1,000 and buy stocks or ETFs with it immediately, assuming markets are open.
In a regular Robinhood account, this is made possible by the use of margin — which isn’t allowed for IRAs. Instead, Robinhood IRAs use something called “limited margin,” which is basically a short-term, interest-free loan in the amount of the uncleared deposit.
» Need to back up a bit? Check out our primer on how margin works.
Sam Nordstrom, the head of product management at Robinhood, says that if a customer makes an instant deposit that doesn’t clear because of insufficient funds or some other reason, they will incur a negative balance and will have to make another deposit to bring their account balance out of the red.
If they fail to do this, their account may be restricted from moving funds or trading.
1% to 3% IRA match
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Robinhood IRA is its contribution-match feature.
The match applies to all contributions up to the annual IRA contribution limit, which is $7,000 in 2025 ($8,000 if aged 50 and older). For 2026, the limit is $7,500 ($8,600 if aged 50 and older) . The matching funds are available to invest right away. So if you deposit $100 during market hours and you have instant deposit turned on, you can buy $101 worth of stocks that same day. But there’s a catch: You can only keep the matching funds if you hold the money in your Robinhood IRA for at least five years.
“If you need to take money out before five years … we will take back the corresponding amount of match that you withdrew,” Nordstrom says.
Robinhood Gold members earn a 3% match instead of just 1%. The Robinhood Gold membership costs $5 a month ($60 total, or $50 in paid annually) and comes with additional features, including a high-interest cash account, advanced data and $1,000 of interest-free borrowing.
To figure out if the Robinhood Gold fee is worth the 3% IRA match, imagine you contribute $7,000 to your IRA (the top of the contribution limit for those 50 and under in 2025). In that case, you'd earn $210 in interest. (And just to clarify, that interest doesn't count toward your annual contribution limit.) If you take away that $60 (or $50 annual) Robinhood Gold fee, you'd still net $150 (or $160).
That doesn't even factor in the high interest rate on uninvested brokerage cash and 3% to 5% cash back if you utilize the credit card — other Robinhood Gold perks. Say you only contributed $2,000, to your IRA instead of $7,000. Even that lower contribution would offset the $60 Robinhood Gold fee.
Long story short: If you can contribute at least $2,000 to an IRA it makes the membership well worth it. If you can contribute more you can make up to $160.
Automated investing
If you don't want to manage your investments yourself you can open either a traditional or Roth IRA through Robinhood Strategies. Robinhood Strategies is a robo-advisor that will manage your investments for you for a 0.25% fee. Unfortunately, if you opt to invest through a managed portfolio you won't be eligible for the IRA match.
Stephanie Guild, a chartered financial analyst and Chief Investment Officer at Robinhood, says that Robinhood's automated portfolios allocate between stock and bond ETFs in a way that fits customers’ retirement time horizons, while also minimizing expense ratios (the percentage fees charged by ETF managers).
If you're investing in ETFs on your own or through an automated portfolios you'll still have to pay fund expense ratios. Luckily, at Robinhood, those are minimal.
“The average expense ratios for the various portfolios are between 0.04% and 0.05%,” Guild says.
Customers can invest in recommended portfolios, pick their own stocks and ETFs, or do a little of both.
» Learn more about Robinhood Strategies
How does Robinhood make money from its IRAs?
Nordstrom says that Robinhood will make money from IRAs the same way that it makes money from its regular accounts. That includes routing customer orders through trading firms (payment for order flow), collecting interest on uninvested cash, and lending out stocks.
As with its brokerage and crypto accounts, Robinhood will not charge IRA users any fees or commissions.
Nordstrom says features such as the 1% match with a five-year minimum holding period make business sense for Robinhood because they’ll increase the amount of money customers invest — and the length of time they stay invested. That means more revenue for Robinhood.
“We think that if [customers] stick with us over the long run, it’ll end up being a good deal for both sides,” he says.
However, critics of payment for order flow say that it creates a conflict of interest. They say it incentivizes brokers to execute customer orders through the trading firms that pay them the most — not necessarily the firms that execute trades fastest or at the best prices for the customer. For most investors — especially long-term, buy-and-hold investors — these effects are generally too small to notice.
But if you’re a very active day trader, payment for order flow-related pricing and timing disadvantages could put a small dent in your returns. Those traders may want to consider working with a non-payment for order flow broker instead.
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The bottom line on Robinhood's IRA
Robinhood's IRAs with matched contributions could be useful tools for people who are self-employed or work in the gig economy — forms of work that don’t come with employer-sponsored retirement plans.
However, as with any financial product, potential customers should make sure to read the fine print and understand the conditions that come with the Robinhood IRA’s unusual perks. These include the minimum five-year holding period to keep the matching funds, the rules around instant deposits, and the ways in which Robinhood will make money off of IRA customers.
» Want to compare? See our list of IRA providers and find the best IRA account for you
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