After Futu & Tiger Hit Pause: 4 Ways to Buy US Stocks in 2026 — Real Costs Compared

One-line answer: as of August 2026, the HK-broker route is shutting down, QDII funds are compliant but capped and often trade at a premium, direct US brokers are cheap but hard to fund compliantly from the mainland, and the crypto-asset path (Binance being the leading example) is one of the few routes still widening — with its own risks and regional restrictions, all stated honestly below.

Path	Status (2026-08)	Main cost	Biggest obstacle
QDII funds	Widespread purchase caps/suspensions; ETF premiums	0.60%–1.00%/yr + ~0.10% subscription (discounted)	Quota scarcity
Direct US broker (IBKR)	Accounts still open	$0.005/share, $1 min per order	Narrow compliant funding channel
HK bank card + HK brokers	Exiting: buys & deposits suspended since 6-12	—	The channel itself is closing
Crypto path (Binance)	Product line expanding	Zero commission + platform fee & spread (below)	Regional restrictions; crypto-specific risks

Background: what happened on June 12

On May 22, 2026, the CSRC and seven other agencies launched a crackdown on unlicensed cross-border brokerage services and penalized Tiger, Futu, and Longbridge. From June 12, 2026, all three suspended opening trades and deposits for mainland users — only selling and withdrawals remain; no new mainland accounts; mainland-facing apps to be fully shut within two years (Chinese media: The Paper, 21jingji, June 2026).

Path 1: QDII funds — compliant, but capped and often expensive

Fees are reasonable: 0.60%–1.00%/yr management+custody, ~0.10%–0.12% discounted subscription (fund F10 pages, Eastmoney). The real problem is access: daily purchase caps as low as CNY 10–50 per fund, 37 QDII funds fully suspended by June 2026, and on-exchange QDII ETFs trading at premiums that reached ~20% — an "emotion tax" you pay upfront (21jingji, Sina Finance, 2026).

Path 2: Direct US brokers (IBKR) — the barrier is funding, not opening

IBKR remains open to non-US residents with no account minimum. Fixed pricing: $0.005/share, $1 minimum, capped at 1% of trade value (IBKR pricing page). IBKR Lite (zero commission) is US-residents-only. The hard part: China's $50,000 annual FX allowance explicitly excludes overseas securities investment, and the May 2026 rules bar offshore brokers from accepting non-compliant inbound funds. This article offers no workarounds. For those with legitimately offshore income/assets, this remains the cheapest lane.

Path 3: HK card + HK brokers — an exiting path

See the background above. HK banks are also tightening mainland account opening (HSBC: HKD 100/month fee below HKD 10,000 balance from 2026; CNCBI ended remote opening in Aug 2025 — Cailianshe, Dec 2025). We do not recommend investing more time in this route.

Path 4: The crypto path (Binance) — widening, told in full

Three distinct product shapes — do not conflate them:

Shape	What it is	Cost (official)	Fits
Real Stocks & ETFs	7,000+ US stocks/ETFs via licensed brokers (Nest→Alpaca), from $5	Zero commission; $0.35/order platform fee + 0.10% spread (halved until 8-31: $0.17 + 0.05%)	Owning actual shares
bStocks (tokenized)	ADGM-framework certificates, 1:1 backed, 24/7, from $5	1:1 conversion free; legally not equity; dividends face 30% US withholding before reinvestment	24/7 small-ticket trading
US-stock perpetuals	138 US-stock USDT perps, up to 20x	Futures fees (default taker 0.05%, less with rebate) + funding every 8h, capped ±2%	Short-term traders; not a long-term holding substitute

Three honest notes: (1) "zero fee" needs unpacking — commission is zero, platform fee and spread are real, and the 50% discount is a promo ending 2026-08-31 unless extended; (2) perpetual funding settles 3×/day — at a mild 0.01% per interval that is ~10%/yr of holding friction (a mechanical estimate; actual rates vary and can be positive or negative), so buy real stocks or bStocks if you want to hold; (3) regional limits are real — the Stocks Transfer-in bonus (up to 12,000 USDC, until 2026-09-30, 300k pool first-come-first-served, 21-day lock) excludes the US, UK, and EEA, and IBKR-sourced transfers get the bonus but no fee reimbursement. Crypto-specific risks (stablecoin risk, platform risk-control, liquidation on leverage) do not disappear either.

What $10,000 costs per year on each path

Explicit, verifiable costs only: QDII ~$71–111/yr (plus premium risk); IBKR ~$12/yr for monthly trades (if funds are already offshore); Binance real stocks ~$64–124/yr (spread + platform fee; 20% fee rebate via our link applies to spot/futures fees); perpetuals have the lowest fees but funding/leverage make them unfit for a buy-and-hold comparison.

Verify it yourself

https://www.coinrebate.vip/api/v4/agent-route?fees=true returns live default-tier fees; QDII fees are on each fund's F10 page; IBKR on its pricing page; Binance promos in the official announcement center.

---

We aggregate fee data and provide rebate links only — no investment advice, no custody. This article is not an offer to residents of any jurisdiction; follow your local laws, including FX regulations. Every number is verifiable at the cited official sources.

Real user voices (Reddit, Jun-Aug 2026)

Verbatim quotes from public threads, anonymized (subreddit + approximate date + link), negatives kept.

"Tbh the first thing I'd check is whether you're looking at Direct Stocks or bStocks — people keep mixing those up, but they're not the same product at all." — r/binance, ~Jul 2026 (source)

"Now they offer stocks with real brokerage custody so its pretty safe bcz binance not holding your stocks regulated custodian have them for u." — r/binance, ~Jul 2026 (source)

"From my understanding, tokenized stock doesn't give dividends" — r/binance, ~Jul 2026 (source; our note: per Binance's official announcement, bStocks dividends are auto-reinvested after 30% US withholding — different form, not absent)

"one is for long term investing, the other is for quick gambling" — r/CryptoCurrency, Aug 2026 (source; said of holding stocks vs. perpetuals — matches this article's view)

"I'd be going with a real brokerage like Schwab or fidelity where I could walk into a physical office and get help if my account had a problem." — r/binance, ~Jul 2026 (source; a dissent we keep — if you can open those brokerages, they are indeed the straight path, see Path 2)

"Tokenized stocks feel like the bridge between TradFi and crypto. The opportunity is huge, but understanding the tradeoffs is even more important." — r/Bybit, ~Jun 2026 (source)

Related: Full guide to trading US stocks on Binance (162 TradFi perpetuals) · Lowest-fee crypto exchanges ranking 2026 · Rebate check tool