Switching Brokers: Which Trading Records You Lose in a Transfer

When you transfer a securities account, the holdings move but very little else does. Acquisition data is normally passed between German institutions, loss pools and your exemption order never are, and your entire trading history stops being retrievable the moment the old account closes. What you export beforehand, you keep. Everything else is gone.

What actually moves with a broker transfer?

The holdings themselves. The receiving institution gets the securities booked in, and for a transfer between German institutions without a change of owner the tax relevant acquisition data travels with them, meaning the acquisition date and acquisition cost of each position.

That transmission is the heart of the matter, because without it the new institution cannot work out your actual gain when you eventually sell. Everything else you hold at your old broker is either a contractual relationship or a body of data, and neither is part of the transfer.

Procedures and deadlines differ between providers in their details. What follows describes the mechanics so you know which questions to ask. The binding answers sit in your own provider's documentation.

Why is acquisition data the critical point?

Because without it the institution cannot determine your gain and has to apply a substitute value set by law. That substitute is calculated from the sale proceeds rather than from your actual gain.

In practice that means tax can be withheld on an assumed gain far larger than the real one, even on a position you have held for years at a modest profit. The money is not lost, since you can evidence the real acquisition cost in your tax return and reclaim the excess. But the burden of proof shifts to you, and proof requires documents.

Transfer without a change of owner

The normal case: account A and account B belong to the same person. The transfer is tax neutral and acquisition data passes between German institutions. This is the scenario where least goes wrong.

Transfer with a change of owner

If the holder changes, for example a transfer within a family, the transferring institution treats and reports the event differently. Whether tax arises depends on the background of the transfer. What matters here is only this: it is not the same event as simply relocating your own account, and it should not be handled as though it were.

When one institution sits outside Germany

Automatic transmission often fails here, because it depends on the German reporting process. The receiving institution then sees securities with no acquisition data and applies the substitute value on sale. Some institutions accept evidence of acquisition data and record it, others do not. That is the single most important question to ask before initiating a transfer, and it belongs to the receiving institution.

What stays behind at the old broker?

Four things that no transfer instruction touches.

• The loss pools. They are maintained per institution and do not travel. Accumulated losses stay at the old broker and offset against future gains there, gains that will not exist once you have left.
• The exemption order. It applies per institution and has to be filed afresh with the new provider. Forgetting it means paying tax on income that would have been exempt.
• The trading history. Executions, fee statements, order books and reports live behind the web login. Once the account closes, that login is gone.
• The technical connection. API keys stop working with the account. Automatic imports into your journal break, retroactively for anything not yet synced.

The loss pools are the expensive item, and there is a fix with a deadline attached. How the pools work is covered in offsetting trading losses in Germany.

How do you rescue your losses when switching?

Through a loss certificate. You request it from the transferring institution, which resets the loss pool to zero and certifies the amount to you. You then claim that amount in your tax return and offset it against gains held at other institutions.

The deadline is what matters. The request is tied to a cut off date within the calendar year, normally the fifteenth of December. Miss it and the loss stays in the old institution's pool, and if no gains ever arise there again it never takes effect at all.

A practical sequence follows: check whether the pool holds anything, request the certificate, then close the account. Closing first can leave you without a counterpart to make the request to. How this interacts with the annual allowance is covered under German withholding tax for traders.

What should you save before closing the account?

The rule of thumb: anything you could not reconstruct later. Concretely, five things.

1. A complete transaction export covering the entire life of the account rather than the current year alone. Choose a machine readable format so you can process the data afterwards.
2. Fee and cost statements per year, because many exports do not carry them in full.
3. Tax certificates for every year as documents rather than as screen views.
4. A dated statement listing all open positions, quantities and cost bases on the day you place the transfer instruction.
5. The loss certificate, if the pool holds anything, with the deadline in mind.

One point gets overlooked regularly: transfers take time. Depending on the instrument and how it is held, several days to several weeks pass between instruction and booking at the new institution. During that window you can neither sell nor hedge the positions. Do not schedule a transfer into a period where you depend on being able to act.

What about open derivatives and crypto holdings?

Not everything is transferable. Certain positions, particularly derivatives and products the receiving institution does not carry, cannot be moved and have to be closed beforehand. That is not a formality, because a forced sale triggers a taxable event you might otherwise have timed differently.

So clarify two questions before instructing anything: which of your positions will the new institution actually carry, and which do you have to close? Only then decide on timing. What else deserves weight when picking the new provider is covered in comparing trading brokers.

Does it have to be a full switch?

No, and distinguishing a partial transfer from a full one resolves several of the problems above at once. In a partial transfer only selected positions move and the old account stays open.

That carries two practical advantages. First, the loss pool at the old institution remains usable, because you can still realise gains there for it to offset against. Second, you keep access to history, reports and tax certificates for as long as the account exists. The price is ongoing costs where your provider charges them, plus a second data source you have to feed into your journal.

A partial transfer makes sense in two situations in particular: when a funded loss pool exists whose certificate deadline you can no longer meet this year, or when you want to test the new provider in live use before committing. In both cases you defer the final decision without giving anything up.

Why is your own journal the only provider independent record?

Because it is the only body of data that does not know a provider change happened. Broker reports end with the account, your trading journal does not.

That is more than convenience. Multi year analysis, meaning metrics per setup, the development of your hit rate, your cost ratio, all need an unbroken time series. A switch cuts that series exactly where the old provider's history becomes unreachable.

In practice: sync everything up to the final trading day before you close the account, then verify completeness against your dated statement. A journal that survived the switch without gaps is the proof that your backup worked.

In what order should you do this?

Order decides whether anything is lost, because several steps become impossible once the account is closed.

1. Confirm with the new institution which positions it will carry and whether it records acquisition data from foreign sources.
2. Close non transferable positions deliberately, choosing the timing yourself.
3. Check the loss pool and request the loss certificate within the deadline.
4. Save every export and certificate, and sync your journal in full.
5. Place the transfer instruction and verify the booking together with the acquisition data.
6. Only then close the old account, and file a fresh exemption order with the new institution.

This article is not tax advice. It describes the mechanics so you can ask the right questions. For your specific situation your provider's documentation and, where appropriate, professional tax advice are what count.