Track Interactive Brokers dividends, withholding tax and fees
By Asterholm TeamUpdated: 10 min read
Interactive Brokers records everything, but it spreads it across dozens of report sections: dividends in one place, withholding tax in another, commissions inside each trade and currency conversions as separate trades. This guide shows where each number lives, how to export it with a Flex Query or the Activity Statement, and how to bring it together in one view.
Why IBKR's reports are hard to read
IBKR gives you two main tools to review your account: the Activity Statement (monthly or yearly) and PortfolioAnalyst (performance charts, allocation and index comparisons). Both are thorough, but they assume you already speak the broker's language.
If you invest from outside the US, these are the usual stumbling blocks:
- IBKR-specific terminology: Withholding Tax, Payment In Lieu Of Dividends, Change in Dividend Accruals, Forex P/L. None of it is explained on the statement itself.
- Dividends and the tax taken from them sit in different sections. To know what you actually received, you have to net one line against the other, stock by stock.
- Several currencies at once. Each movement is shown in its original currency (USD, EUR, GBP...) and totals in the account's base currency. If you think in another currency, you convert by hand.
- History comes in slices. One statement covers a month or a year; to see your whole investing history you have to download several and stitch them together.
- PortfolioAnalyst mostly reports a time-weighted return, which is not the same as what your money earned given when you actually added it. The gap is explained in why your broker shows a different return.
PortfolioAnalyst can link outside accounts, but its coverage is aimed mainly at US institutions. As of October 2026 we could not confirm which European, UK or Latin American brokers it supports.
Where IBKR shows dividends and withholding tax
In the Activity Statement, the gross dividend appears under Dividends and the tax withheld under Withholding Tax, with a description like AAPL(US0378331005) Cash Dividend USD 0.25 per Share - US Tax. In a Flex Query, both live inside Cash Transactions, told apart by the Type column.
How much is withheld depends on your tax residence and your W-8BEN form, which IBKR asks for when you open the account and asks you to renew periodically (it usually expires at the end of the third calendar year after signing). With a valid W-8BEN, the US applies the treaty rate between your country and the US, if there is one. With no treaty, or no valid W-8BEN, the default rate is 30%.
| Tax residence | US withholding | Tax withheld | Net received |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 15% | US$15 | US$85 |
| Spain | 15% | US$15 | US$85 |
| Mexico | 10% | US$10 | US$90 |
| India | 25% | US$25 | US$75 |
| Brazil or Colombia (no treaty) | 30% | US$30 | US$70 |
| Any country without a valid W-8BEN | 30% | US$30 | US$70 |
You can try other countries and amounts in the dividend withholding tax calculator.
Two more items that trip people up: Payment In Lieu Of Dividends is a substitute payment you get when your shares were on loan on the dividend date (it may be taxed differently), and Change in Dividend Accruals lists dividends that have been announced but not yet paid. Early the following year, IBKR issues Form 1042-S summarising the US tax withheld. Whether you can reclaim or credit any of it depends on your country's rules: check with a tax adviser.
Commissions, interest and currency conversions
Trading commissions
On IBKR Pro you choose between two schedules: Fixed (a per-share rate with a minimum and maximum per order, exchange fees included) and Tiered (a per-share rate that drops with your monthly volume, with exchange, clearing and regulatory fees added on top). Prices differ by market and change over time, so check IBKR's official commissions page (↗). On the statement, each trade's commission is in the Comm/Fee column of the Trades section; in a Flex Query it is IBCommission.
Other fees
The Fees section (or the Other Fees type in Cash Transactions) holds charges that are not tied to a single trade: market data subscriptions, US regulatory fees on sales, or service charges. They are small, but they add up.
Interest
The Interest section shows what IBKR pays you on cash (subject to its current balance rules) and what it charges if you use margin. One practical catch: in a margin account, if you buy a US stock while holding only euros or pounds, IBKR may leave you with a negative USD balance instead of converting, and that balance accrues debit interest.
Currency conversions
When you convert EUR or GBP to USD (or back), IBKR records it as a Forex trade inside Trades, with its own commission, and also reports a currency gain or loss (Forex P/L). If your account's base currency is EUR and you hold US stocks, your results blend what the stock did with what the exchange rate did.
Flex Query or Activity Statement: what to export
IBKR lets you get your data out in two ways, and Asterholm reads both in CSV:
- Activity Statement as CSV: in Client Portal, Performance & Reports → Statements → Activity, pick the period (yearly, for example) and CSV format. It is the classic statement, with every section one after another. Good for a one-off import.
- Activity Flex Query as CSV: a custom report you define once (which sections and columns) and then run whenever you like, or that is fetched automatically through the Flex Web Service. This is the better choice for keeping your full history up to date.
For the Flex Query to include everything, add these sections: Account Information, Trades (level of detail Execution), Cash Transactions (dividends, withholding, deposits and withdrawals, interest and standalone fees all live here), Open Positions, Corporate Actions, Transfers and Cash Report. In each section, the simplest option is Select All for the columns.
In the delivery settings choose CSV and include column headers, so each section starts with its own header row (ClientAccountID, ...). A single Flex Query run covers at most 365 days: if you import files by hand and want more history, download one file per year.
How Asterholm brings your IBKR account together
Asterholm is a read-only portfolio tracker: it does not trade, does not move money and cannot do either. With IBKR you can connect in two ways (details on the Interactive Brokers page):
Upload a file
Upload the CSV from your Flex Query or Activity Statement and Asterholm detects the format on its own. This works on the free plan (1 broker, 12 months of history). If you download another file later, you can add it to the same connection.
API connection (Flex Web Service)
Paste your Flex Web Service token and the Query ID of your Activity Flex Query. That token belongs to a reporting service: it cannot place orders or withdraw, so the access is read-only by design. API connections need a paid plan (see plans).
- First sync: Asterholm requests your full history, year by year, since you opened the account. IBKR allows about 10 queries per minute, so this can take several minutes.
- After that: it updates twice a day, at about 02:30 and 12:00 UTC, fetching only what is new.
- Same-day trades (optional): IBKR includes trades in the next day's report. If you create a second query of type Trade Confirmation with period Today and paste its Query ID into the connection, the day's buys and sells arrive every 15 minutes during US market hours and are replaced by the final records once the full report comes in. The same token is used.
Your IBKR account's base currency is GBP, and in Asterholm you pick euros as your base currency.
You receive a US$100 gross dividend with US$15 withheld (UK resident): two records are stored, a +100 USD dividend and a -15 USD tax.
Each record is converted to EUR at that day's exchange rate, so your dividend total in EUR reflects what each payment was worth when it arrived.
If you switch the base currency to GBP or USD, everything is recalculated with the same rule.
What you see next: dividends, costs and returns
- Dividends: a net/gross toggle with withholding shown separately; totals by month, quarter or year; your top payers; year-over-year growth; projected income from your current holdings; and upcoming dividends tagged as paid, declared or estimated.
- Estimated withholding: for upcoming dividends, Asterholm estimates the tax from your country of tax residence (set in your profile) and treaty tables. If you have received that dividend before, it uses the rate IBKR actually applied.
- Costs (paid plans): commissions, regulatory charges, financing, withholding, transaction taxes and your funds' annual cost (TER), by year, by broker and as a share of your portfolio, with a projection of what they take over 10 and 20 years.
- Returns: XIRR (money-weighted, which accounts for when and how much you invested), annualised TWR (comparable with an index), and XIRR per broker if you have more than one. XIRR needs at least 90 days of history.
- Cost basis: weighted average including fees, in your base currency.
If you also use another broker, everything adds up in the same portfolio. For example, the XTB guide explains how to export its Excel statement so you can see it next to IBKR.
Limitations worth knowing
As of October 2026, the IBKR import has these limits:
- CSV only. No XML or plain text, whether by file or by API.
- Currency conversions are not imported as records. Forex trades are skipped, so you will not see each EUR-to-USD conversion or its commission as its own line, and the Costs page has no separate currency-exchange category for IBKR. For that detail, check Trades → Forex in your statement.
- Of all corporate actions, only splits (and reverse splits) are imported. Mergers, spin-offs and other events are left out and the import flags them with a warning; if they affect you, you can enter them manually.
- Cash in the Activity Statement. When you import the classic Activity Statement, the cash balance is recorded in USD. If your IBKR account's base currency is something else (EUR or GBP, say), that balance may show under the wrong currency; in that case the Flex Query is the better option, since it reads the ending balance from the Cash Report.
- Positions and cash from the latest period. Over the API, positions and cash come from the most recent query; transactions cover your full history.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I see dividend withholding tax in Interactive Brokers?
In the Activity Statement, under Withholding Tax, separate from the Dividends section. In a Flex Query it appears inside Cash Transactions with the type Withholding Tax. The net amount is the dividend minus every withholding line for that payment, adjustments included.
Why does IBKR withhold 30% on my US dividends?
Because your country has no tax treaty with the US (as of October 2026 that includes Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Peru) or because your W-8BEN has expired. With a treaty and a current W-8BEN the rate is usually lower: 15% for the UK, Spain or Canada, 10% for Mexico. Compare countries in the withholding calculator.
Can the Flex Web Service token trade or withdraw money?
No. The Flex Web Service only delivers reports: with the token and Query ID you can read statements, but you cannot send orders or move money. To cut off access, disable the Flex Web Service or generate a new token in Client Portal.
Can I import a Flex Query in XML?
No. Asterholm reads Flex Queries and the Activity Statement in CSV. Edit the query, switch its delivery format to CSV and run it again; the Query ID stays the same.
How much IBKR history can I see?
Over the API, everything since you opened the account: the first sync requests it year by year. With files, each Flex Query run covers up to 365 days, so you upload one file per year; the free plan shows the last 12 months.
Sources (checked on the update date)
Educational content, not investment or tax advice. Rules, fees and rates change: check with your broker or an advisor. Risk notice.
All your brokers in one read-only portfolio
Asterholm brings your statements and read-only connections together: value, real returns, dividends with their withholding and fees, in the currency you choose.
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