About Paper Trading Accounts

How Paper Trading Accounts Work

  • It works just like your production account. You can use most order types, trade all instruments available through IBKR TWS, our trading platform, and experiment with almost every aspect of the platform.
  • The PaperTrader interface clearly indicates that you are working in a simulated account. If you do not see this, you are trading in your production account and will be liable for all trades that fill.
  • New individual account holders automatically receive a paper trading account. Existing account holders with a paper trading account can log in to TWS with their production account and select either production or paper trading account without having to use their paper trading account login credentials. Note that Advisors, Brokers, Advisor and Broker clients, Hedge Funds, Administrators, Referrers and residents of India and Japan will still have to log in to their paper trading accounts with their paper trading account credentials.
  • Trades entered into this paper trading account will not actually execute on any exchange or settle at a clearing house. However, the price of your executions will be determined by real market prices and sizes.
  • Trading permissions, market data subscriptions, base currency, and other account configurations are the same as specified for your regular account.
  • A paper trading account statement will be provided each day and is available by logging into broker portal with your Paper Trading Account login and accessing the Reports menu.
  • All paper trading accounts start with USD 1,000,000 of paper trading Equity with Loan Value, and this equity will fluctuate as if the trades had executed in the real market.
  • You may reset your cash equity at any time in broker portal for your Paper Trading Account. You can reset your paper trading cash equity to up to five times your production account value. Please note that reset requests should be entered before 16:00 ET in order to take effect for the next business day.

Limitations

Although a Paper Trading Account simulates most aspects of a production account, you may encounter some differences due to its construction as a simulator with no execution or clearing abilities. These differences include but are not limited to:

  • No support for some order types including: VWAP, Auction, RFQ, and Pegged to Market.
  • Fills are simulated from the top of the book; no deep book access.
  • Limited combo trading.
  • Stops and other complex order types are always simulated in paper trading; this may result in slightly different behavior from a production account.
  • Penny trading for US Options is not supported. You will be able to submit the order but it will not receive a penny fill.
  • The trade simulator will reject the remainder of any exchange-directed market order that partially executes. This may or may not match behavior of a real-world exchange. Market orders received while there is no quote on the opposite side will be held until the market data arrives (i.e. until the first partial fill).
  • Mutual Fund trading is not supported in a Paper Trader Account.