In this tutorial series, we will learn about how to open a live trading account with Alpaca as a US resident. We will move forward assuming that you’ve registered on the Alpaca website. If you haven’t please visit Alpaca and sign up. Feel free to check out the other tutorials in this series at Alpaca Resources.

Alpaca - Commission-Free API First Stock Brokerage
Alpaca is a modern platform for trading. Alpaca’s API is the interface for your trading algorithms, bots, or applications to communicate with Alpaca’s brokerage and other services.

Step1:

After logging in to your account at https://alpaca.markets, your account should show you both of these options on  the screen, where you can sign up either as an individual or a business entity.

Live Trading Account

Step 2:

The next screen will ask you to choose your taxation status. Click “YES”, if you are a U.S. tax resident,  and then move on to step 3. Check out “How to open an account as a non-US resident” if you’re not a US resident.

Tax Resident Question

Step 3:

If you clicked yes, that should lead you to the page where you will create a live trading account  with Alpaca.

Create your Live Trading Account at Alpaca
Create your Live Trading Account at Alpaca

Step 4:

This is one of the final steps to opening your live trading account. Here you will need to fill out  the required details and in the later step enter your bank account information in order to fund your account.

Additional Information
Additional Information

If you need any help with this step, please click on the “Contact Support” button shown above.

Step 5:

If you provided all the correct information, you should receive an alert in the next couple of days that says your application has been approved shown below.

Live Trading Approval
Live Trading Approval

Commission Free Algorithmic Trading...Alpaca API


Thank you for using Alpaca. Here are a couple more links that  you might be interested in.

Alpaca GitHub repository

Alpaca
Alpaca builds an API for free stock trading. Alpaca has 39 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

Alpaca Blog

Alpaca Blog | API for Stock Trading
Alpaca Blog for product updates, new integration, and more. Alpaca’s commission-free trading API is built for algorithmic trading and building apps

Alpaca Forum

Alpaca Community Forum
Alpaca user forum for FAQ, feature requests, many discussions around Alpaca stock trading API

Alpaca API documentation

Documentation | Alpaca
Alpaca API lets you build and trade with real-time market data for free.

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Commission-Free trading means that there are no commission charges for Alpaca self-directed individual cash brokerage accounts that trade U.S. listed securities through an API. Relevant SEC and FINRA fees may apply.

Brokerage services are provided by Alpaca Securities LLC ("Alpaca"), memberFINRA/SIPC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AlpacaDB, Inc. Technology and services are offered by AlpacaDB, Inc.