I am an International Student. I do have SSN but I am not a permanent resident. I was wondering if I could open an account to purchase stocks in places like eTrade, or Charles Schwab. Also, I am not working at this moment, so my income is close to 0. If you know that I can open up an account and do some sort of investment trading, can you please help me describe where and how I can do it? Thank you!!
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4 Comments on “Can non-US Citizen buys stocks online?”
C 12th March 2010
The short answer is yes.
The SSN is basically a tax ID but with no income, you don’t have to declare taxes. I’m a bit fuzzy on what you are allowed/can make as a foreign student.
Basically what you can do is sign up for scottrade.com ($7 trades, instant, not pooled trades etc – I use them, thus the example) and deposit some money in there, then just research some stocks and buy a bit.
I would definitely consult with an attorney or tax expert to ensure that you don’t fall into some odd tax trap or break any fancy laws.
My *guess* is that your gains will be taxable earnings, just like the rest of us. I’m not sure how well you’d be able to deduct any losses.
If you’re not planning on becoming a permanent resident/citizen, then you’d probably have to fill out a form W-8BEN, which I *believe* is to stick you with the taxation rate from your country, instead of US taxes.
You could also open a brokerage account in your home-country that can trade in US/International stocks.
Randy 12th March 2010
Sure you can as long as you can prove who you are. Here are the steps to start trading.
The stock market is doing well right now but should go up in the coming up months. Not only is it a good way to make money but it is a blast.
1. Go to Scottrade.com and open an account
-$7 online trades (cheapest on the web, yet very reliable) GREAT SITE
2. Deposit your money into your Scottrade account
3. Research companies
- if you dont know anything about stocks there is a knowledge center that will teach you all you need to know about basic stocks. I didnt know anything when I started, I taught myself.
4. Bid on a stock with how many shares you would like.
5. Make money out of money.
If you really do the research and stick to it, you can really make some money. Its a blast! I’ve been using them for a while so if you have any questions feel free to email me at b.alexander68@hotmail.com. It might sound hard but it really isn’t.
Scottrade.com $7 Stock Trades
If you want 3 FREE TRADES when you sign up, just use this code:
****** QDOB2020 ******
Best of luck to you!
Devil 12th March 2010
yea, you can, u must have ssn though..if you are looking for cheap broker adn good service. Personally, I think sogotrade is best among all online brokerages. You can get a lot of free trades: about 100 free trades with 500 minimum deposits. It has very good customer services, it also has live help, and you can chat with representatives about any question. After that, only 3 dollar for each trade, pretty sweet when compared with other online brokerages.
Referral code: 453934
Wilaiporn 12th March 2010
You should be able to do it as you have SSN number. Contact some online brokers for more detail informations, but I do not think you will have any problems to do it.