Market Data Subscriptions

While working with Interactive Brokers’ APIs, most* securities require a Level 1, top of book, market data subscription to receive market data. This is required for all users at Interactive Brokers retrieving market data through the API.

*Forex and Cryptocurrencies do not require any additional market data subscriptions to receive market data.

In order to receive market data through the API, there are a few minimum requirements before data can be received.

1. Opened IB Account (Demo accounts cannot subscribe to data).
2. Must use an IBKR PRO account type
3. Clients should have $500 USD in their account in addition to the cost of all market data subscriptions.
4. Please be sure to subscribe to the market data through the Client Portal before requesting market data through the API.

Notes:

• The minimum requirements plus the cost of the subscription are required to have the data activated.
• Indian resident is an individual who resides in India for more than 182 days per year.
• Market Data services will be terminated once clients receive Market Data Violator notice provided the equity falls below USD 500.00 (or non-USD equivalent)

To maintain Interactive Brokers compliance with regulatory and exchange mandates, there are a handful of market data questionnaires that must be completed in order to retrieve market data through the API. The details listed below showcase two of these that must be completed, otherwise your user will automatically be set to deny API market data access.

The Market Data API Acknowledgement is required for all users who intend to request market data through any API platform. Proceeding without this form being acknowledged, users will receive errors from their market data requests stating that market data is not subscribed.

This will effect users who trade programmatically with either the TWS API or the Web API.

This will also effect those that use Third Party software.

Most exchanges and data vendors classify clients as either non-professional or professional. By default, organizations such as corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and any account where the data is used for more than personal investment purposes is deemed to be professional. In addition, private persons may be considered professional if they are registered as a security or investment advisor, or act in a similar capacity. A trader who is employed by a financial services business may also be considered a professional. Click here for more information about non-professional qualifications.

Market data is provisioned on a per-user basis. This means that even though you may have a market data subscription on one user in an account, a second user on the same account does not gain those permissions.

Some individuals may choose to have multiple users under a single account. This is quite common particularly for traders who may wish to use the API and the Trader Workstation or Client Portal at the same time. Alternatively, institutions may have a dedicated machine for an automated trading algorithm that a developer would supervise while other individuals are manually trading on the account.

It is important to note that in the last case, individuals can create a limited-permission user which has restricted access from the standard. This would allow somebody like a developer to build out an implementation with the live account without having withdrawal access, or direct trading access. Users interested in creating reduced-permission users can contact the Interactive Brokers Account Configuration team, as listed on our Customer Service Contacts page.

Market data may also be shared between a live and paper username so that both can retrieve data using the same market data subscription. Each Live user can share data with one (1) Paper account, with one Paper account allowed per live account. Please see our Market Data Considerations page for additional insight into the behavior of shared market data.

Each Live account structure has access to a Paper account with unique credentials. While the Live username can typically be used for Trader Workstation, accessing Third Party Platforms or the Client Portal API require the direct Paper credentials. The steps to find your Paper account credentials are as follows:

IBKR allows for free on-platform data; however, data on the API is considered off-platform. Exchanges maintain different licensing requirements and agreements for off-platform market data viewing.

While you may receive live pricing through the Trader Workstation for some securities like US Stocks in your Trader Workstation, this may not be the same through your API. This is because this data is often provided for free to our customers under our existing market data agreements. In some IB accounts, clients may see there are 2 different data bundles with same names, but one is free while another one is not free.

For example,  Hong Kong Securities Exchange (Stocks, Warrants & Bonds) (L1) HKD 0/month is free while Hong Kong Securities Exchange (Stocks, Warrants & Bonds) (L1) HKD 130/month is not free.

The free one only provides data in Trader Workstation, and it does not provide data via API or 3rd Party platform.

• Market data subscriptions are paid once, every calendar month.
• Market data subscriptions are not pro-rated.
• After subscribing to market data, no additional usage fees or other costs will be incurred.

Given the potentially high amount of data being sent, market depth request’s are much more limited. Just as with historical data requests, the amount of active depth requests is related to the amount of market data lines, with a minimum of three and maximum of 60:

In order to receive real-time market data, customers must be a subscriber to market data. All clients initially receive 100 concurrent lines of real-time market data (which can be displayed in TWS or via the API) and always have a minimum of 100 lines of data. After the first month of trading, the quantity of market data is allocated using the greater value of:

• USD monthly commissions divided by 8
• USD equity multiplied by 100 divided by $1,000,000
  (rounded down to the nearest integer)
• 100

While market data might seem overwhelming at first, it can be broken down and made more digestible from covering a few important points.

1. Level 1 market data subscriptions provide: live watchlist data, tick-by-tick data, historical bar data, historical tick data.
2. Level 2 market data subscriptions only are needed for market depth.
3. The OPRA market data subscription will provide options data for all options in the United States.
   • Options Greeks data is based on  the underlying symbols. As such, a market data subscription for both the underlying and derivative are necessary for options greeks data.
4. Indices sometimes require a separate market data subscriptions from the derivatives, and may require a direct market data subscription.

While this list contains some of the more common market data subscriptions, this does not indicate trading advice, nor the best subscription for every individual. If you have any questions about specific market data subscriptions, please create a ticket with our market data team.

*Please note values such as greeks that are based on the underlying require the Network subscription as well.

** For options and futures market data subscriptions, the underlying Index will not be included.

Typically for market depth, Interactive Brokers will only require a Level 1 market data subscription followed by a Level 2 market depth subscription. However, NASDAQ/ISLAND requires an additional market data subscription in order for clients to retrieve market depth off-platform in the form of the API or third party platforms.

Clients must subscribe to the following:

1. All US level 1 US Equity market data subscriptions. This includes either:
   • “NYSE (Network A/CTA)”, “NYSE American, BATS, ARCA, IEX, and Regional Exchanges (Network B)”, AND “NASDAQ (Network C/UTP)” (All three subscriptions)
   • “US Equity and Options Add-On Streaming Bundle”
2. The “NASDAQ TotalView-OpenView” is required to receive level 2 data is required for all platforms.
   • While this is necessary for market depth, this alone will not provide market depth for off-platform subscriptions
3. The “NASDAQ TotalView-OpenView EDS” market data subscription is required for off-platform market data subscriptions.

API users can subscribe to the following “Alternative Display” market data packs for getting Chinese Market Data via API and TWS.

*Please note that Non-Professional and Professional clients may have different available market data packs.

*Do not subscribe “Alternative Display” market data pack(s) and Non-“Alternative Display” market data pack(s) at the same time. This may cause data pack conflict. For example, having “Shanghai Stock Exchange 5 Second Snapshot (via HKEx)” and “Shanghai Stock Exchange 5 Second Snapshot via HKEx Alternative Display” at the same time may cause data pack conflict.

*For API clients, please unsubscribe Non-“Alternative Display” Chinese market data pack(s) before subscribing “Alternative Display” Chinese market data pack(s). If data pack conflict happens, please wait until next month or please contact Interactive Brokers Customer Services for unsubscribing the Non-“Alternative Display” Chinese market data pack(s) from IB back-end side.

*”Shanghai Stock Exchange 5 Second Snapshot via HKEx Alternative Display” only provides 5 seconds snapshot bid, ask and last data.

*”Shenzhen Stock Exchange 3 Second Snapshot via HKEx Alternative Display” provides real time data, but its bid/ ask data will be 3 seconds snapshot.