Does Brokaro say which broker or product is permissible?

No. We report what brokers, index providers and fund issuers say, with source and date, and name who said it. Standards differ; ask a scholar you trust how they apply to your situation.

Can interest on cash at a broker be avoided?

At some brokers, yes: eToro and Trading 212 pay interest only once it is switched on, Freetrade stops on request, Tickmill pays none on swap-free accounts. Plus500 pays no interest on client money, nor does Revolut in the EU, where its terms say interest on client money is kept by Revolut Securities. Check the current terms of your account.

Why do Islamic indices disagree about the same company?

They use different limits and reference values: MSCI and FTSE measure debt against total assets, the Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100, as Wahed describes it, against a 24-month average market value, and Zoya and Musaffa describe a limit of 30% of market value for AAOIFI. Buffer rules and review dates differ as well.

Is a swap-free account interest-free investing?

A swap-free account removes swap interest on leveraged CFD and forex positions held overnight. Most providers charge an administration fee after a grace period, and Exness and Vantage make no representation that their accounts meet religious requirements. Investing in shares and funds without leverage is a different matter.

Who calculates the purification of dividends?

It depends on the product: for iShares the key information document leaves it to investors, Wahed publishes per-share amounts quarterly for HLAL and annually for UMMA, SP Funds offers a calculator, and apps such as Zoya and Musaffa calculate it with their own methods.

Basics

Islamic investing with a broker: interest, margin, screening

What brokers, index providers and fund issuers say about interest on cash, margin, securities lending, Sharia screening, Islamic ETFs, purification and swap-free accounts – attributed, sourced and dated, without religious rulings.

AuthorBrokaro Editorial

Published26 October 2026Updated26 October 2026Reading time9 min

On this page10

Interest on uninvested cash
Margin and credit
Securities lending
How index providers screen shares
Islamic ETFs and index funds
Screening and certified offers at providers
Purification and zakat
Swap-free CFD accounts in context
What we could not verify
Sources (retrieved 25 October 2026)

Many Muslim investors want to avoid interest (riba) and companies whose business their scholars exclude. A broker account touches this in four places: interest on cash, buying on credit, lending your shares, and the choice of shares and funds. This guide reports what brokers, standard setters, index providers and fund issuers say on these points, and names who said it.

What this guide does not do. It gives no religious ruling and calls no broker, account or product permissible or compliant; where such words appear, they are the provider's. Standards differ between scholars, boards and index providers, and so do their results. Ask a scholar you trust how they apply to your situation. Nothing here is investment advice.

All facts come from the pages listed at the end, read on 25 October 2026. The overview of Islamic investing compares the brokers in our dataset on these points; a value no source documents is shown there as "not stated", never as "no".

Interest on uninvested cash

Account terms answer the question in one of four ways:

Only after you switch it on. eToro pays interest on USD cash only from the day a user opts in. At Trading 212 the client presses "Enable" and can disable interest at any time ("Don't pay me interest").
On by default, with a way out. Freetrade pays interest on every plan; a client who does not want it messages support. At Tickmill interest is an account setting, on by default for every account except swap-free ones.
Paid, no way to decline described. Interactive Brokers pays nothing on the first USD 10,000 per currency and interest above that. Its interest page describes no way to decline it.
Not paid. Plus500's user agreements for its companies in the UAE, the Seychelles and the EU say no interest is paid on client money and the client waives any right to it. Revolut's EU terms also say no interest is paid on client money, and add that interest received on it is kept by Revolut Securities.

So "no interest for you" does not always mean that no interest is earned on your money; how to weigh that is a question for your scholar.

Margin and credit

A cash account buys only with money you have; a margin account lends you the rest against interest. Interactive Brokers offers both. Questrade says international residents can in most cases open only margin accounts. At flatex a credit line of up to EUR 250,000 against your securities is available without a separate application; interest is charged only on what you use. CFD and forex accounts are margin products by design: Eightcap's client agreement governs "Contracts for Difference" and other "margin trading products".

Securities lending

When a broker lends your shares, the borrower pays a fee, which some brokers partly pass on. The terms differ on whether you agree first:

Opt-in: Interactive Brokers lends only after you enrol, and you can leave at any time. Freetrade lends only after an opt-in and only from the GIA and SIPP, never from the ISA.
On by default in some cases: TradeStation automatically enrols qualified accounts opened from 15 February 2019 that signed a lending agreement; opting out goes through Client Services. Wealthsimple switches lending on in new accounts once a client has enrolled, except in its managed portfolio "Halal Investing".
Switch-off: Trading 212 lends only from Invest accounts, not from those of Trading 212 EU, and lending can be disabled in the app.

How index providers screen shares

Index providers and screening services apply two tests: the share of revenue from activities their scholars exclude, and the size of debt, cash and receivables. Limits and reference values differ:

Standard (as described by)	Revenue from excluded activities	Debt	Cash and interest-bearing items	Receivables and cash	Measured against
MSCI Islamic Index Series (MSCI, October 2024)	at most 5%	33.33%	33.33%	33.33% (M-Series 49%)	total assets; M-Series: 36-month average market value
FTSE Yasaar Global Equity Shariah (FTSE Russell, v4.6, February 2026)	at most 5%	under 33.333%	under 33.333%	under 50%	total assets
S&P Shariah (SP Funds prospectus)	at most 5%	under 33.333%	under 33.333%	under 50%	total assets, not confirmed by S&P
Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100 (Wahed prospectus)	not stated	under 33%	under 33%	under 33%	24-month average market value
AAOIFI (Zoya, Musaffa)	5% (Musaffa)	30%	30%	not stated	market value; Musaffa: 36-month average

Three things follow from the sources:

Each index follows its own board. MSCI says its methodology was approved by its committee of Sharia scholars; FTSE publishes an opinion of the Yasaar Shariah Supervisory Board of 2 February 2024.
Rules at the margin differ. MSCI sets lower limits for new constituents, for debt 30% instead of 33.33%. FTSE changes a status after two quarters outside a band around 33.333%; in the Dow Jones index a company drops out, as Wahed describes it, after three review periods above the limit.
The same company can pass one screen and fail another, and its status can change at every review.

AAOIFI Shari'ah Standard No. 21 itself (behind an access form with a login) and the S&P Dow Jones Indices methodologies (blocked) could not be read; the values given for them are other parties' descriptions.

Islamic ETFs and index funds

Fund issuers name the index and the Sharia body they rely on:

Fund	Ticker	ISIN	Domicile	Index	Costs per year	Sharia body named by the issuer
iShares MSCI World Islamic UCITS ETF	ISWD, ISDW, IUSD	IE00B27YCN58	Ireland	MSCI Developed World Islamic	0.30%	BlackRock Shari'ah Panel (KID of 11 January 2023)
iShares MSCI USA Islamic UCITS ETF	ISUS, ISDU	IE00B296QM64	Ireland	MSCI US Islamic	0.30%	none named in the factsheet
iShares MSCI EM Islamic UCITS ETF	ISDE, ISEM	IE00B27YCP72	Ireland	MSCI Emerging Markets Islamic	0.35%	none named in the factsheet
Wahed FTSE USA Shariah ETF	HLAL	not stated	USA	FTSE Shariah USA	0.50%	Shariyah Review Bureau; screening by Yasaar
Wahed Dow Jones Islamic World ETF	UMMA	not stated	USA	Dow Jones Islamic Market International Titans 100	0.65%	Shariyah Review Bureau; screening by Ratings Intelligence Partners
SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF	SPUS	not stated	USA	S&P 500 Shariah Industry Exclusions	0.45%	Raqaba
SP Funds Dow Jones Global Sukuk ETF	SPSK	not stated	USA	Dow Jones Sukuk	0.50%	Raqaba

iShares will delist one listing line of the World fund on 15 December 2026 and does not say which. Whether a broker offers a fund to residents of your country is not stated in these sources.

Screening and certified offers at providers

Wealthsimple (Canada only) runs a managed portfolio it calls "Halal Investing": non-interest-bearing cash and gold, no bonds, screened by a Shariah advisory firm it does not name. Its WSHR ETF was certified, Wealthsimple says, by Ratings Intelligence Partners.
eToro launched the ShariaAI-Growth portfolio with Arabesque AI on 20 May 2024, screened according to eToro under AAOIFI Shari'ah Standard No. 21. Whether it is still offered we did not check.
Bybit describes its Islamic Subaccount (spot trading only) as interest-free, with products certified by "Shariah advisors" it does not name. Binance publishes a statement on its Earn product by Amanie Advisors (1 July 2025), which disclaims responsibility for individual investors' specific Shariah requirements.
Screening apps: Zoya screens under AAOIFI by default and offers paying Pro users the S&P, MSCI, Dow Jones and FTSE methods. Musaffa says its screening is guided by AAOIFI standards.

Purification and zakat

Fund issuers say that dividends can contain income from excluded activities, and that purifying it is up to the investor. The methods differ:

The iShares key information document (KID) says such "impure income" is notified to investors, who are responsible for purifying it, for example by a donation.
Wahed publishes a per-share amount quarterly for HLAL (calculated by Yasaar) and annually for UMMA (calculated by Ratings Intelligence Partners). SP Funds offers a calculator and says its sukuk ETF needs no purification.
MSCI reduces reinvested dividends in its index by the share of income from excluded activities and interest; the FTSE rules refer to a purification ratio of 5%.
Zoya names three methods: purifying dividends, purifying capital gains, and an "AAOIFI purification method". Musaffa says it calculates the amount "using AAOIFI standards".

Zoya, Musaffa and Wahed offer zakat calculators; we found no published method behind them. In Saudi Arabia the zakat regulations name as the natural person subject to them a "Resident Saudi person, who practices an Activity under a license"; private portfolios are not mentioned. The right address is your scholar or your zakat authority.

Swap-free CFD accounts in context

CFD and forex brokers offer swap-free accounts, sometimes called "Islamic": no swap interest is charged or credited on positions held overnight. These accounts concern leveraged trading, not investing in shares, and most charge something else after a grace period:

eToro: for customers from ten countries, all in the Middle East and North Africa; from USD 1,000; daily administrative fees after seven days, none on real stocks, ETFs and crypto.
AvaTrade charges swaps after five days, even on swap-free accounts; ThinkMarkets charges administration fees from the fifth day, BlackBull Markets from the fifth rollover, Plus500 in the UAE after a grace period of seven days.
Exness assigns swap-free status automatically to clients from countries on its list, may still charge administration fees on overnight orders, and makes no representation that its accounts suit religious requirements. Vantage says it does not represent its swap-free account as Shariah-compliant.
Trading 212 does not offer swap-free accounts.

Whether a replacement fee changes the religious assessment is not for this site to judge. CFDs are leveraged products; their risks are explained in Understanding CFD risks. The ranking of brokers with swap-free accounts uses our usual criteria such as fees and safety, not religious ones.

What we could not verify

AAOIFI Shari'ah Standard No. 35 (zakah); whether MSCI has a newer methodology than that of October 2024; a current key information document from BlackRock itself.
For many brokers: whether interest can be declined, whether shares are lent by default and whether a swap-free account exists. These values stay blank in our comparison.
The countries where Binance offers Sharia Earn, and the advisors behind Bybit's subaccount.

Regulators, licences and taxes in the Arab world are covered in Investing from the Gulf and the Arab world and on the country pages, such as United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Sources (retrieved 25 October 2026)

MSCI, Islamic Index Series Methodology, October 2024
FTSE Russell, Ground Rules v4.6; opinion of the Yasaar Shariah Supervisory Board
AAOIFI, e-standards
SP Funds, prospectus of 30 March 2026; SPUS; SPSK; calculator
Wahed, prospectus of 30 September 2026; Shariah
iShares, MSCI World Islamic; key information document, copy at PKO BP; ISUS; ISDE
Zoya, screening; purification; home page · Musaffa, methodology
ZATCA, Implementing Regulations for Zakat Collection
eToro: interest, swap-free account, fees, ShariaAI-Growth
Trading 212: interest, disable lending, lending, no swap-free account
Freetrade: opting out of interest, lending · Tickmill: interest
Interactive Brokers: interest, securities lending
Plus500: agreement UAE, Seychelles, EU · Revolut: EU terms
Questrade: account opening · flatex: flex-Kredit · Eightcap: client agreement · TradeStation: FAQ
Wealthsimple: residence, portfolio, WSHR, lending
Bybit: Islamic Subaccount · Binance: statement by Amanie Advisors
AvaTrade: swap-free accounts · ThinkMarkets: swap-free · BlackBull Markets: swap-free
Exness: status, fees, disclaimer · Vantage: Shariah basis

This article is for information only and is not investment, tax or religious advice.

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