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About TradeZero

Founded in 2015 and regulated across four jurisdictions - including as a FINRA and SIPC member in the United States - TradeZero is a brokerage purpose-built for active retail traders, with REST and WebSocket APIs that expose the same order routing, locate infrastructure, and account data that power our own trading platforms. This page covers our history, regulatory standing, services, and where the Developer API fits in.

History & Founders​

TradeZero was founded in 2015 by Daniel Pipitone, John Muscatella, and Giovanni Ferrara - three friends from Brooklyn, New York, who had previously built and run Noble Trading together since 1999. After more than a decade serving active traders at Noble, the team set out to build a next-generation brokerage for active self-directed traders who need low-latency execution, short-selling workflows, and configurable trading tools.

TradeZero now operates as TradeZero Holding Corp., with broker-dealer subsidiaries across four jurisdictions:

  • TradeZero America, Inc. - a U.S. broker-dealer registered with the SEC and a member of FINRA and SIPC.
  • TradeZero International Inc. - a Bahamian broker-dealer registered with the Securities Commission of The Bahamas.
  • TradeZero Canada Securities ULC - a Canadian broker-dealer and member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF).
  • TradeZero Europe B.V. - a Dutch broker-dealer authorized and regulated by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), launched in 2025.

Awards & Recognition​

TradeZero has been recognized year after year as the standard-bearer for retail short selling, paper trading, and trading platform design:

Vision​

Give active traders the tools, market access, and short-side capabilities normally reserved for institutional desks - and let them access it through code.

TradeZero is committed to a professional-grade trading experience for self-directed retail traders, with a particular focus on short selling, hard-to-borrow stock locates, and execution speed. We support traders building their own tools, customizing their workflows, and integrating TradeZero into broader systems - whether that's a custom dashboard, an in-house trading tool, or a third-party application built on top of our platform.

Services​

TradeZero offers self-directed trading and clearing services for U.S. equities and equity options. We currently support:

  • U.S. equities listed on NYSE, Nasdaq, and AMEX, plus access to OTC markets.
  • Single-leg and multi-leg options trading across a fixed catalog of strategies - verticals, straddles, strangles, butterflies, iron butterflies, condors, iron condors, covered calls, and married puts.
  • Short selling with our Short Locator, including Single-Use Locates, Pre-Borrows, and standard locates - with credit-back on unused inventory.
  • Extended-hours equities trading from 4:00 AM to 8:00 PM ET (options trade regular hours).
  • Margin leverage scaled per jurisdiction - up to 6× intraday on TradeZero International Inc. (Bahamas), 4:1 intraday / 2:1 overnight on TradeZero America, and 3:1 intraday / 2:1 overnight on TradeZero Canada.

Traders access these services through four in-house platforms - ZeroPro (desktop), TZ1 (web), ZeroMobile (iOS / Android), and ZeroFree (lite web) - plus our TradingView brokerage integration, which lets you trade your TradeZero account directly from TradingView.com. For developers, there's the TradeZero Developer API documented on this site.

Actual available buying power may vary based on margin requirements, account equity, and risk controls.

TradeZero Developer​

TradeZero Developer is a programmatic order-entry REST API plus a real-time WebSocket streaming layer for your TradeZero account. It exposes the same order management, risk validation, and routing infrastructure that powers our trading platforms - so an order placed via code follows exactly the same path as one placed in ZeroPro or TZ1.

You can use the API to:

  • Place and cancel orders for equities and options, including single- and multi-leg option strategies.

  • Retrieve account state, balances, buying power, and routing details.

  • Manage positions and order history programmatically.

  • Run the full short-locate workflow - easy-to-borrow checks, locate quotes, accept and cancel, inventory management, sell-back for credit, and locate history with audit details.

  • Stream real-time updates over WebSocket - live P&L per position and order-status changes as they happen, with the same API key authenticating both the REST and WebSocket layers.

  • Market-data endpoints (quotes, charts, historical prices) are not available on the public API today — see What's not in the REST API. When they ship, the Change Log will announce availability and terms.

The Developer API today focuses on execution, account state, and real-time streaming. Access is enabled by activating the API Trading add-on in the TradeZero Portal and signing the API Trading Agreement.

Built for your workflow​

The API is for self-directed traders who want a personal order-entry and monitoring tool on their own TradeZero account - dashboards, hotkey helpers, execution assistants, and integrations you run for yourself. You keep full GUI access through ZeroPro, TZ1, or ZeroMobile alongside your integration, so you can always step in manually.

When you enable API Trading, you sign the API Trading Agreement in the portal. That agreement defines what your Customer Application may do (in short: software you personally develop to enter and manage orders on your account, for your use only). This documentation describes how the API works; the agreement you sign defines permitted use. Test on paper before live keys, and use your own or third-party market data unless TradeZero provides data under a separate agreement.

Assistive tooling you control - apps that help you place, cancel, and monitor orders while you remain responsible for trading decisions - is what the program is built for. Fully unattended systems that trade without your ongoing control are outside the scope of the current agreement.

Ready to start building? Head to Authentication to generate your API keys, or jump straight into the Quickstart Recipes for end-to-end code walkthroughs.

TradeZero Holding Corp. is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, with offices in Nassau (Bahamas), Toronto, Amsterdam, Austin, Dublin, and Bhopal.