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How to close your Robinhood account and switch to a new trading app

Updated Jan 28th, 2021 4:19PM EST
How to close Robinhood account
Image: Robinhood

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  • Robinhood halted buying and trading on GameStop ($GME), AMC Entertainment ($AMC), Nokia ($NOK), and more stocks on Thursday “in light of recent volatility.”
  • Many users were upset with Robinhood’s decision and have decided to switch to other apps.
  • Below are instructions for closing a Robinhood account and transferring to another brokerage.

On Thursday morning, Robinhood took the unprecedented step of blocking its users from buying or trading shares of GameStop ($GME), AMC Entertainment ($AMC), Nokia ($NOK), and more. In a short blog post, the company said it was enacting these restrictions “in light of recent volatility.” As a result, users were unable to purchase $AAL, $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $CTRM, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD, $NOK, $SNDL, $TR, and $TRVG. At the time of writing, Robinhood users are only able to sell their positions in the stocks listed above.

Unsurprisingly, this upset countless Robinhood users, and at this point, they might be wondering how they can close their accounts. Thankfully, it’s a rather simple process, and we’ll describe it below.

Here are the steps you need to take if you want to deactivate your Robinhood account within the app:

  1. Tap the Account (person) icon
  2. Tap Settings
  3. Tap Account Information
  4. Scroll and tap Deactivate Account
  5. Follow the steps to close all your positions and withdraw your outstanding balance
  6. Once your balance is $0.00 and your positions are closed, you will be able to confirm your deactivation request.

You can also transfer your money from Robinhood to another brokerage by following these steps:

To begin the process, you’ll need to contact your other brokerage and have them initiate the transfer. They’ll submit the transfer instructions to our clearing partner to transfer over your assets and funds.

Please make sure you initiate an ACATS (Automated Customer Account Transfer Service) transfer. Please don’t request stock delivery using any method other than ACATS, including DTC and transfer agent transfers.

You might need to give the other brokerage your Robinhood Securities (RHS) account number. You can find this information in your mobile app:

  1. Tap the Account icon in the bottom right corner.
  2. Tap Investing.
  3. Your account number will be at the top of your screen.

You may need to reference a DTC number for your transfer. Robinhood’s DTC number is 6769.

NOTE: If you transfer all of your assets to another brokerage, we’ll close your account.

Once your account has been closed, here are some stock trading apps you might want to consider downloading that are currently allowing their users to buy the stocks that the internet is losing its mind over:

Some of these apps barred the popular stocks earlier today as well, including Public, which explained on Twitter that its clearing firm Apex Holdings forced it to do so. At the time, Public said that it disagreed with the decision and was working to get it resolved. About three hours later, Public announced that it had “resumed the ability to buy $GME, $AMC, and $KOSS.” Webull followed the exact same pattern, almost down to the minute.

We cannot vouch for the quality of any of these services, nor are we suggesting that it’s a good idea to invest in any of these stocks. In the last 48 hours alone GameStop ($GME) has jumped over $500 and fallen below $130. It would be a massive understatement to call these stocks “volatile,” so proceed with caution.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.