RetireJapan

Hello everyone,

My question's in subject, hope I can get some advices here.

I have an EU passport but live in Japan for many years, having permanent residentship.
I want to open an account with some non Japan-based broker, for general investment. Basically I am interested in buying US ETFs.
Japanese brokers such as SBI, Rakuten tec. won't do as they don't have English interface, among other reasons. I know I can use Google translate, friend's help etc., but Japanese brokers won't do anyway.
At the moment, the only known option for me is Interactive Brokers. I know I can easily open account with them living in Japan and being Japan resident.
I would like to find similar options EXCEPT Interactive Brokers. Are there any? US or Hong Kong brokers preferred.
If anyone has ideas - please share!
Thanks in advance!

OCBC and DBS in Singapore used to take on Japan residents as clients. The Japanese brokers have better online interfaces and lower costs though

Many thanks!!
Singapore brokers seem to take quite high fee indeed, though.
How about US brokers? Any idea if some US broker working with Japan residents? Or is it Interactive Brokers, only.
Or maybe any US broker does? They need customers, after all.

I started to open an account with Interactive Brokers but decide not to pursue it and looked into alternatives.

Most US brokers won't accept Japanese residents, but I have found a couple of online brokers that will.

Firstrade (https://www.firstrade.com/content/en-us/welcome) certainly will.

TradeStation (https://www.tradestation.com/) also will. They used to be very expensive unless you are a very active trader but they seem to have revised their pricing.

You can read full reviews of these brokers (and a few others which I dismissed) at the following site:
https://www.stockbrokers.com/guides/int ... naltrading

Hope that helps.

Wow! Thanks a lot

Yeah I heard too that "Most US brokers won't accept Japanese residents". What a shame.
Will check on those Firstrade guys, as well as the mentioned brokers review website.

BTW regarding Tradestation I think it's rather Tradestation Global you can open account with, being in Japan. And they are sort of collaborating with IB (maybe that's why they have revised prices). There's a good review of them here
https://brokerchooser.com/broker-review ... bal-review

Why did you "decide not to pursue" IB by the way?

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:20 am Wow! Thanks a lot

Yeah I heard too that "Most US brokers won't accept Japanese residents". What a shame.
Will check on those Firstrade guys, as well as the mentioned brokers review website.

BTW regarding Tradestation I think it's rather Tradestation Global you can open account with, being in Japan. And they are sort of collaborating with IB (maybe that's why they have revised prices). There's a good review of them here
https://brokerchooser.com/broker-review ... bal-review

Why did you "decide not to pursue" IB by the way?

Going through the application with IB, while they were quite helpful, I just got a feeling that customer service was not a big priority for them, and they seemed rather inefficient; too many divisions and poor communication between them. It just didn't feel a comfortable fit for me.