How do I sign up for Robinhood?

The Easy Way to Sign Up for Robinhood

Robinhood, the investing app that lets you trade stocks without paying trading fees, has made it easier than ever to sign up and start using their platform with just your mobile phone number or email address.

But if you’re not sure how to use Robinhood once you’ve signed up, you might be left in the dark. That’s why we put together this guide on how to sign up for Robinhood and what you need to know about using the app once you do! Here’s what we’ll cover:

Creating an account

Before you can buy a stock, you have to first create an account with one of its exchanges. Robinhood’s exchange is called Robinhood Securities LLC.

It operates as a member of FINRA and SIPC (the same organizations that oversee Coinbase and other platforms), which means your assets are protected for up to $500,000 if something goes wrong.

On top of that, all deposits made into an exchange are federally insured by NCUA (the National Credit Union Administration). This ensures that your money will be safe if anything happens on their end. The reason you should care about being insured is that it means that you get your money back if something bad happens.

If you don’t know what I mean by bad, check out our list of worst-case scenarios below.

Verifying your identity

When you sign up for an account, you have to submit your name, address, date of birth, and other personal information. Robinhood then sends a physical postcard with a verification code on it. Once you enter that code, your account is approved.

It’s important to verify yourself (and triple-check all of your data) because in addition to improving account security it gives Robinhood more confidence that it will be able to contact you if there are any issues down the line.

And although Robinhood makes investing accessible and easy, they don’t want people who can’t handle their finances responsibly or who don’t take investing seriously using their service. So, by verifying your identity, you’re helping ensure that only serious investors use Robinhood.

Funding your account

If you’re not able to fund your account with a credit card, there are a few other ways you can get cash into your Robinhood account: Bank transfer - Deposit funds directly from your bank account when opening an account with Robinhood.

Bank transfers typically take 3-5 business days and some banks charge a small fee. However, if your bank supports ACH transfers (check under Debit transactions in your checking/savings), it’s usually free. If you want more control over how fast money gets transferred into and out of your account, choose to deposit funds manually.

Cash - You can also purchase stocks using cash at any time by selecting Cash as your payment method at checkout. When placing orders through our website or mobile app, we will send you a prepaid envelope along with instructions on where to mail your check or money order.

Check - You may also pay for stock purchases by check at any time by selecting Check as your payment method at checkout. We will send you instructions on where to mail your check once we receive it.

Placing orders

This is where you set parameters and tell Robinhood what you’re looking to do. From buying stocks, options, or cryptocurrencies to investing in a fund, putting your money in a margin account, or selling an asset for cash—it all starts here.

For example, if you want to buy 500 shares of Ford stock at $15/share (or $7,500 total), that’s considered a market order.

If you want instead to buy 500 shares of Ford at $15 with an initial investment of $7,500 and finance the rest over 4 months with no interest charges (with an equity credit line)—that’s a limit order. At Robinhood, you can buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency using limit orders.

If your limit order is placed below or above where other market participants are willing to transact, it will likely not be filled immediately and could remain in that state for some time.

Please note that when you place a new buy (or sell) limit order, we first attempt to fill all of your existing open limit orders before we match any of your new orders against other clients’ limit orders on Robinhood Markets.

This may cause some of your previous open limit orders that were not filled before placing a new order to be filled by us.

A few more details about Robinhood

You can use your smartphone, tablet, or computer to trade stocks on Robinhood. Before signing up, you’ll want to know a little bit about investing. That way you can decide how you want to invest your money and how much you're willing to take.

Think about what type of investor you are. Do you want long-term growth or short-term gains? Are you interested in dividend stocks or focused more on growth? Once that's figured out, sign up through a simple process of filling out basic information like name and email address.

After submitting that info, some other details will be gathered regarding whether or not it is your first time investing and so forth. And then in under two minutes, bam!

Conclusion

So let’s review: if you have a bank account and can get by with just $100 in your pocket, you can open a brokerage account. If you already have a brokerage account, signing up for Robinhood is straightforward.

Create an account, then verify your identity through one of two options. If all goes well, that money will be in your account within two business days. This all sounds simple enough;

it’s certainly easier than going down to your local bank branch and setting up a new checking or savings account—which is exactly what I did when I opened my very first brokerage accounts. But that process took longer—much longer than two business days—and involved more paperwork. So why make things so hard?