Cobra Trading is the best broker for short selling for most dedicated short sellers in 2026, and CenterPoint Securities is the stronger pick if you run $30,000 or more and live in hard-to-borrow small caps. Everything below that comes down to account size and how often you actually need a locate.
This page ranks brokers on the borrow side specifically: locate systems, easy-to-borrow inventory, and what shorting actually costs. It’s one slice of our full day trading app comparison, and every rating follows how we rate.
The ground shifted this year. On June 4, 2026, the pattern day trader rule and its $25,000 minimum were eliminated and replaced by risk-based intraday margin requirements under FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10. Brokers responded in opposite directions: Cobra Trading cut its day-trading minimum to $10,000, while CenterPoint published a statement holding its $30,000 floor on purpose. Most ranking lists still show the old numbers. The table below shows the new ones, checked against each broker’s own pages in June 2026.
Quick comparison
| Broker | Best for | Minimum to short | Stock commissions | Locate access | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cobra Trading | Dedicated short sellers | $10,000 to open a day-trading account | $0.003 to $0.0015 per share by volume | Locate monitor in DAS and Sterling, plus a live locate desk | 4.5 |
| CenterPoint Securities | Hard-to-borrow inventory at size | $30,000 | $0.003 to $0.001 per share by volume | In-platform locator backed by an in-house lending team | 4.3 |
| Interactive Brokers | Borrow breadth and cheap financing | No account minimum; margin account required | Tiered from $0.0035 per share ($0.35 min) | Self-service shortable search with live indicative borrow rates | 4.2 |
| TradeZero | Small accounts that short | Margin account above $2,000 | Free on qualifying orders; paid order types priced per schedule | Locator scanning a dozen-plus venues, with credit-back on unused locates | 4.1 |
| moomoo | Free entry point for occasional shorts | Margin account; standard $2,000 margin minimum | $0 on US stocks for US residents | Shortable flag and borrow data on the quote page | 3.7 |
Minimums and rates verified against each broker’s published pages in June 2026; all of them change without notice, so treat the table as a starting point, not gospel.
1. Cobra Trading: best for dedicated short sellers
Cobra Trading is built around the problem this page exists to solve: getting borrows on stocks nobody wants to lend you. Both of its main platforms, DAS Trader Pro and Sterling Trader Pro, carry an integrated locate monitor with multiple locate routes, and when the routes come up dry you can ping the locate desk over live chat. Cobra states its team often finds non-easy-to-borrow shares with no upfront cost, and its documented policy is that a locate fee is paid once, with no overnight multiplier if you hold the short. Clients also choose between clearing firms (Wedbush and Curvature for day trading), which in practice means more than one borrow inventory behind the same account.
The June 2026 rule change made this firm far more reachable: the day-trading account minimum is now $10,000 to open with $9,000 maintained, down from the legacy $25,000-era requirement. Commissions run $0.003 per share, scaling to $0.0015 at 10M+ shares a month; software fees ($125 for DAS, $150 for Sterling) are waived at 200,000 shares a month, which an active short seller clears without trying.
The genuine drawback: the published margin rate is 8% on overnight balances, against 5.31% at CenterPoint and tiered rates starting at 4.12% at Interactive Brokers. Hold size overnight regularly and that gap is real money.
Full breakdown: our Cobra Trading review.
2. CenterPoint Securities: best hard-to-borrow inventory for accounts of $30,000 and up
CenterPoint publishes the deepest borrow documentation in this category: roughly 6,000+ symbols on its daily easy-to-borrow list, an in-house securities lending team for everything that isn’t, and an in-platform locator that shows live inventory and pricing from 4 AM–8 PM ET. For traders who short low-float movers where the borrow is the whole battle, that lending desk is the product.
It also made the most interesting move of the post-rule era. While competitors cut minimums, CenterPoint published a statement keeping its $30,000 account minimum, explicitly choosing a smaller client base in exchange for service levels and locate access it says it can’t scale downward. Whatever you think of that trade-off, it’s honest positioning: this is a broker that does not want beginners. Pricing is sharp at size: $0.003 down to $0.001 per share, the $120 CenterPoint Pro platform fee waived at 250,000 shares a month, and a 5.31% margin rate.
The drawback sits in the fee schedule: locate fees are charged daily, and overnight borrows are priced at market rates on settlement. Multi-day shorts in expensive-to-borrow names compound fast, so know your all-in cost before you swing a short here.
Full breakdown: our CenterPoint Securities review. Choosing between the top two? Read Cobra Trading vs CenterPoint.
3. Interactive Brokers: best borrow breadth and cheapest financing
Nobody matches the raw breadth. Interactive Brokers listed 19,516 shortable US stocks out of 23,588 listed for trading when we checked in June 2026, plus shortable inventory across Canada, Europe, and Asia. Its Securities Loan Borrow system is fully self-service: search any symbol, see quantity available, lender count, and the current indicative borrow rate, and pull historical borrow rates to judge whether a squeeze is brewing. Financing is the other edge; published margin rates start at 4.12%, the lowest of this group, and tiered commissions start at $0.0035 per share with no platform fee and no account minimum.
The structure suits a different short seller than Cobra or CenterPoint: hedged shorts, pairs, ETFs, multi-week positions where borrow cost and margin interest dominate, and shorting outside US small caps entirely.
The drawback comes straight from the broker’s own pages: the shortable list is indicative only, it updates periodically, and every short sale order is subject to approval. In a fast low-float name, the availability you saw a minute ago is not a guarantee you’ll get the borrow when you need it.
Full breakdown: our Interactive Brokers review.
4. TradeZero: best for shorting with a small account
TradeZero America built its identity on the short side, and the locate tooling shows it. The Locator scans availability across more than a dozen venues including its own client-sourced supply, prices update in real time in ZeroPro, and unused locates can be credited back or relisted to the network to recover part of the fee. Single Use Locates give a cheaper one-shot option for Regulation SHO threshold securities, with reusable Pre-Borrows for everything else. Locates run 4 AM–8 PM ET.
It’s also the most accessible serious shorting account on this list. Under the new intraday margin rules, TradeZero states that funded margin accounts above the standard $2,000 minimum get day-trading buying power with the old three-round-trip limit removed. The minimum short price threshold was lowered to $0.25, which matters if you trade the bottom of the small-cap barrel.
The drawback is cost structure rather than capability: commission-free applies to qualifying orders, paid order types carry per-share charges (sub-$1 stocks run $0.005 per share with a $0.99 minimum), and locate fees are the real line item that decides whether a small account’s short was worth taking. Price every borrow against your expected risk before you click.
Full breakdown: our TradeZero review.
5. moomoo: best free entry point for occasional shorts
If you short a liquid name a few times a month and don’t want a platform bill, moomoo is the cheapest documented way in. US residents trade US stocks at $0 commission with a $0 platform fee, paying only pass-through regulatory fees. Short selling runs through a standard margin account: you borrow the shares from Moomoo Financial Inc., pay borrow interest and fees, and the app flags right on the quote page whether a stock supports shorting. Borrow rates float daily with market supply, and the help center documents the margin mechanics in unusual detail for a free app, including its coverage of the new intraday margin rules.
The honest framing: what you can short here is what the app shows as borrowable that day. That covers most large and mid caps most of the time. If your strategy depends on hunting locates in halted, squeezing, hard-to-borrow garbage, the locate desks ranked above exist precisely for that job, and you’ll outgrow a free app the first time the borrow isn’t there.
The drawback follows from the same fact: borrow availability and rates are take-it-or-leave-it, repriced daily, with no published path to negotiate inventory.
Full breakdown: our moomoo review.
How we picked
Five criteria, weighted per our rating methodology, with core capability for brokers defined as execution, routing, and locates. For this category specifically, that meant: documented locate systems (in-platform tools, desks, venue counts), published easy-to-borrow inventory, fee transparency on locates and overnight borrows, per-share commission schedules at active-trader volumes, and account minimums as they stand after the June 4, 2026 rule change. Every number came from the broker’s own pricing, FAQ, or policy pages, checked in June 2026. Popularity and award counts weren’t criteria; this niche recycles them endlessly and they tell you nothing about whether you’ll get the borrow at 9:31.
What a locate actually costs: a worked example
Locate fees decide more short trades than commissions do, so run the math before the open. Say a low-float gapper is offered at $0.03 per share to locate and you want 1,000 shares: that’s $30 paid before you’ve sold a single share. If your plan risks $0.10 per share to make $0.30, you’re risking $100 to make $300 on paper, but the locate turns that into risking $130 to make $270. Your real reward-to-risk just fell from 3.0 to about 2.1, and at a $0.10 locate it collapses below 1.4. Same setup, same chart, completely different trade. This is why locate pricing transparency ranked so heavily here, and why a “free commission” broker can be the expensive option on the short side. More on the mechanics in short locates explained.
Who should skip these brokers
Skip the direct-access tier entirely if you short a few liquid large caps a year; moomoo or a standard margin account at any major broker covers that without platform fees or minimums. Skip Cobra and CenterPoint if you can’t comfortably clear their minimums; underfunding a direct-access account just to reach the locate desk leaves you no cushion for the margin swings shorting produces. And skip shorting altogether until you understand the new rules; the framework that replaced the PDT rule has its own teeth, including a 90-day restriction for unresolved intraday margin deficits, covered in intraday margin requirements.
One more reality check before you size up a short: losses on a short are theoretically unlimited, squeezes are a feature of the stocks short sellers love, and most day traders lose money. The borrow is the easy part.
FAQ
Do I still need $25,000 to short stocks?
No. The $25,000 pattern day trader minimum was eliminated on June 4, 2026, replaced by risk-based intraday margin requirements under FINRA Rule 4210. A margin account, which shorting requires, still carries the standard $2,000 minimum, and individual brokers set their own floors above that: $10,000 at Cobra Trading, $30,000 at CenterPoint Securities as of June 2026.
What is a locate fee?
A locate fee is what you pay a broker to reserve borrowable shares of a stock that isn’t on the easy-to-borrow list, so your short sale complies with Regulation SHO. Fees are quoted per share and vary by symbol and demand. Some brokers charge the fee once per locate while others charge daily for held positions, so the same trade can cost very different amounts at different firms.
Which broker has the most shortable stocks?
Interactive Brokers published the largest list in this comparison, showing 19,516 shortable US-listed stocks in June 2026, plus inventory in foreign markets. CenterPoint Securities lists roughly 6,000+ symbols on its daily easy-to-borrow list, supplemented by an in-house lending team for hard-to-borrow names. Both figures change daily with lending supply.
Can I short stocks on a free app?
Yes. moomoo supports short selling in a margin account with $0 commissions on US stocks for US residents. You still pay borrow interest and regulatory fees, and availability is limited to what the app shows as borrowable that day, so free apps suit occasional shorts in liquid names rather than locate-dependent strategies.
Why can’t I short a stock even at these brokers?
The usual reasons: no borrowable shares exist at any price, the stock is under the short sale restriction after dropping 10% intraday, trading is halted, or the price is below a broker’s threshold, such as TradeZero’s $0.25 minimum short price. At Interactive Brokers, every short order is also subject to approval even when the list shows availability.