Tenancy by the Entirety for Brokerage Accounts

Most major brokerage firms open joint accounts for married couples as tenants by the entirety. A creditor with a judgment against one spouse alone cannot take an account registered that way. Nine of the twelve firms compared below name the registration in an account document they publish.

Whether the protection holds depends on the registration the firm recorded the day the account was opened. Florida courts presume that a jointly titled spousal account is entireties property unless a document expressly disclaims it. The disclaimers that defeat the protection at a brokerage are the couple’s own elections (a survivorship box checked on an application that offered tenancy by the entirety).

What Is a Tenancy by the Entirety Brokerage Account?

A tenancy by the entirety brokerage account is an investment account that a married couple owns as one legal unit rather than in shares. Neither spouse holds a piece a creditor can carve out. A judgment entered against one spouse alone reaches nothing in the account; collecting from it takes a judgment against husband and wife together.

A brokerage account is personal property. Twelve states and the District of Columbia extend tenancy by the entirety to personal property, and Florida is one of them. Florida’s rule for securities is court-made. In Cacciatore v. Fisherman’s Wharf Realty Ltd. Partnership, 821 So. 2d 1251 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002), a stock certificate titled in both spouses’ names was presumed entireties property, and the creditor carried the burden of proving otherwise.

Brokerage paperwork abbreviates the registration as ATBE. The Merrill Lynch application in In re Planas, 199 B.R. 211 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1996), offered a choice labeled “ATBE: As Tenants by Entirety” and a survivorship choice labeled JTWROS. The label carried its own limit: “for married persons, only in states where applicable.” Stock certificates use a parallel abbreviation, TEN ENT, which the certificate’s standard legend construes “as tenants by the entireties.”

Day to day, a joint account with right of survivorship behaves the same way as an entireties account. Either spouse can trade, and the surviving spouse takes the whole account. The difference appears when a creditor arrives. A creditor of one owner can reach that owner’s share of a survivorship account, while an entireties account has no shares to reach. On the applications that offer both, they sit in the same short list of choices.

The ownership also has to exist from the start. The spouses take the account together, at the same time, on the same application, while married. Entireties ownership ends only at divorce, at the first death, or by the couple’s own agreement. Not everything a couple owns runs through a brokerage application. Shares in a company they own privately are titled through the corporation’s own stock records.

What Each Brokerage Firm’s Account Documents Say

Whether tenancy by the entirety appears on a brokerage application depends on the firm. FINRA’s model new-account template tells firms to list joint account types “consistent with the states in which they are doing business,” and it names Tenants by the Entirety as its first example. Each firm builds its own menu, and the menus on the chart run from a printed checkbox to a telephone call.

Florida’s entireties statute for accounts does not reach these firms. Section 655.79 of the Florida Statutes presumes that a married couple’s joint deposit account is entireties property, but the chapter’s definitions name banks, savings associations, trust companies, credit unions, and international banking entities as the institutions it governs. Brokerage firms are not among them. The protection rests instead on the court-made presumption of Beal Bank, SSB v. Almand & Associates, 780 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 2001), which Cacciatore extended to securities. An express disclaimer ends it. A creditor may otherwise rebut it by a preponderance.

Deposit agreements are harsher than brokerage paperwork. Six of the twenty-six major banks, online banks, and credit unions refuse entireties ownership by name, and a written refusal defeats the presumption. No document on the chart below does that. The rows reading Not named, Not addressed, and Not stated record only how far each firm’s published document goes; Fidelity’s application shows why a missing checkbox is not a refusal, routing the registration to a telephone call instead.

Current as of August 2026. Download the tenancy by the entirety brokerage accounts chart (PDF).

Brokerage	TBE Available	How to Open	Key Limitations	Governing Document
Ameriprise	Yes	Choose Tenants by Entirety as the registration on the Ameriprise ONE Financial Account application; the same choice appears on the change of ownership form for an existing account	Not available to Louisiana residents	Brokerage Client Agreement, form 402468 (12/25); Change of Ownership, form F120 DR (08/23)
Charles Schwab	Yes	Check the Tenants by the Entirety box in Section 1 of the Schwab One Brokerage Account Application	An entireties account cannot carry a transfer-on-death beneficiary, because the designated beneficiary plan is limited to individual, rights-of-survivorship and community-property-with-survivorship registrations. Schwab publishes no list of eligible states and assigns that determination to the account holder	Schwab One Brokerage Account Application, APP33600-32 (12/25); Designated Beneficiary Plan Agreement, APP10780-23 (03/25)
Edward Jones	Yes	Specify the entireties registration when the account is opened	A multi-owner account is deemed held as tenants in common unless the opening registration specifies otherwise. Transfer on death is permitted and defers to the last surviving owner	Account Agreement and Other Disclosures; Transfer on Death Agreement
Fidelity	Yes	The retail brokerage application has no entireties box: select Other non-trust account, enter the registration, and call a Fidelity representative. Fidelity’s advisor-channel application carries a Joint: Tenants by Entirety checkbox	Transfer on death is permitted on an entireties account and is unavailable in Louisiana. On the advisor application a joint account left unmarked defaults to rights of survivorship	New Fidelity Account, Non-Retirement Brokerage, 1.930460.125; Change of Account Registration, 1.932152.116; Transfer on Death beneficiaries, 1.925788.107; Fidelity Advisor Individual New Account Application, 1.789590.156 (rev. 1125)
Interactive Brokers	Yes	Online: select Joint as the account type, then Tenancy by the Entirety from the joint account type list. The application collects the state of legal residence at that step	Interactive Brokers publishes an eligible-state list for community property and none for entireties	Interactive Brokers application guide, Joint (updated February 23, 2026)
LPL Financial	Not named in the published application	The Trade Direct non-retirement application lists five registration types and an Other (please specify) write-in line; entireties is not among the named choices	Some registration types require additional documents to open the account, under the procedures in LPL’s account opening checklist	Trade Direct Account Application, Non-Retirement, F1BN-CTD (rev. 10/23)
Merrill Edge	Yes, as ATBE	Elect ATBE on the Merrill Edge Self-Directed CMA application; the Additional Account Owner Booklet carries the same election for adding an owner to an existing account	Offered only in states where entireties ownership is authorized. Transfer on death is permitted on an ATBE account, and an existing designation does not survive an ownership change: all owners must execute a new agreement	Client Relationship Agreement, 422000PM-0626; Additional Account Owner Booklet, 00-66-0610NSB-0126; Transfer on Death Agreement, TFRONDTH-EDGE-0725 (07/25)
Morgan Stanley / E*TRADE	Yes on the full-service application; by granted request on the self-directed side	Check Tenants by the Entirety under Joint in Step 1 of the Active Assets Account application, the full-service form a financial advisor completes. The self-directed application offers rights of survivorship, tenancy in common and community property, and defaults to rights of survivorship if left blank. On that side an entireties account exists where Morgan Stanley grants a request, or where an entireties account is transferred in	On the self-directed side the owners represent that they are married and live in a state permitting intangible property to be held by the entireties, indemnify Morgan Stanley against creditor claims on the account, and accept that a deficiency can be offset against their other accounts. An assignment of either interest reconstitutes the account as rights of survivorship	Active Assets Account Application, AAAAPP N0611 (06/2011); E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley Client Agreement for Self-Directed Accounts, effective May 20, 2026, section 3.F.i
Raymond James	Not addressed in the master client agreement	The agreement describes rights of survivorship and tenants in common as the joint registrations, says that community property laws vary by state, and makes the account holder responsible for verifying that the registration selected is valid in the holder’s state	Raymond James may take instruction from any one joint tenant, reserving the right to require all owners to authorize a transaction	Master Client Agreement, MCA RJA (12/21)
UBS	Yes	Check Tenants by Entirety under Joint Owners on the Resource Management Account Application, an advisor-completed form	The current Agreements and Disclosures booklet describes references to the form of joint ownership as being for the account holder’s convenience, and either owner may withdraw property individually and use margin	Resource Management Account Application, 1AC-RMA (rev. 08/11); Agreements and Disclosures (current)
Vanguard	Not stated in the account agreement	The brokerage account agreement names no joint ownership registrations at all. The transfer on death plan form names individual, rights-of-survivorship, community property and tenants-in-common accounts, and entireties is on neither its eligible nor its ineligible list	The transfer on death plan is available only for individual and rights-of-survivorship registrations	Brokerage Account Agreement, v718t; Transfer on Death Plan Kit, FDBPT (effective July 2026)
Wells Fargo Advisors	Yes	The transfer on death kit names entireties among the joint registrations Wells Fargo Advisors permits; the general account agreement describes rights of survivorship, tenants in common and community property, and makes the account holder responsible for verifying that the joint registration selected is valid in that state	Transfer on death is permitted on an entireties account, and is not offered for Louisiana, Puerto Rico or non-United States residents. Ownership follows the law of the account holder’s state of residence	Transfer on Death Kit, 585797 (rev. 19, 07/26); General Account Agreement and Disclosure Document, 589852 (rev. 61, 06/26)

The governing documents span fifteen years of revisions. Morgan Stanley’s full-service application is a 2011 form, and it has not changed since at least March 2022; the UBS application with the entireties box is also a 2011 revision. UBS’s current disclosure booklet never mentions the registration and describes references to a form of joint ownership as being for the account holder’s convenience.

The defaults underneath the menus differ from firm to firm. Edward Jones deems a multi-owner account held as tenants in common, an ownership form with no survivorship at all, unless the opening registration specifies otherwise. Fidelity’s advisor-channel application and Morgan Stanley’s self-directed application both default a joint account to rights of survivorship when nothing is selected. A blank left on the application produces the default, without anyone choosing it.

Do Robinhood, Coinbase, and Webull Offer Tenancy by the Entirety?

No entireties registration appears in the published account documents of Robinhood, Coinbase, or Webull. Coinbase.com supports no joint accounts at all. Webull’s published joint account types are rights of survivorship and tenants in common. Robinhood’s customer agreement, revised July 6, 2026, states that “the only type of joint account ownership offered by Robinhood is Joint Accounts With Rights of Survivorship.”

Platform	Joint Accounts	TBE Available	Notes
Robinhood	Yes, rights of survivorship only	No	The customer agreement revised July 6, 2026, states that rights of survivorship is the only joint account ownership Robinhood offers. A Louisiana resident cannot open a Robinhood joint account
Coinbase	No	Not applicable	Coinbase.com does not support joint accounts, and the name on a linked bank account must match the name on the personal Coinbase account. Accounts in the name of a trust are supported through Coinbase Prime
Webull	Yes, rights of survivorship or tenants in common	No	Webull’s published account types list rights of survivorship and tenants in common only, and a joint account cannot carry named beneficiaries

How to Open a Tenancy by the Entirety Brokerage Account

At several brokerage firms, tenancy by the entirety is one selection on the standard account application. Section 1 of the Schwab One application has a Tenants by the Entirety checkbox. Interactive Brokers lists the registration among the joint account types of its online application, which asks for the applicant’s state of legal residence at the same step. Merrill Edge takes the ATBE election on its self-directed application, and Ameriprise offers the same choice on its account application, though not to Louisiana residents.

UBS puts the election on its Resource Management Account application, a form an advisor completes. Wells Fargo Advisors names entireties among the joint registrations it permits, and Edward Jones records the registration when the account is opened.

Fidelity’s retail application has no entireties box, but the form itself gives the route. The instructions for its “Other non-trust account” line read: “Use this option for other joint registration types, such as usufruct and tenants by entirety,” and they direct the applicant to call a Fidelity representative. The line is not new, and it has never been a checkbox.

The request route shows up in a federal appellate record. In Radiance Capital Receivables Nineteen LLC v. Crow, 987 F.3d 912 (10th Cir. 2021), a couple opened a Fidelity account in April 2015. The account holder testified that he “went to great lengths” with Fidelity representatives to have the funds held as entireties property. The application carried a handwritten note labeling the account a tenancy by the entirety, apparently made by a Fidelity representative, and the monthly statements titled it “Thomas L Crow and Carol A Crow – Tenants by the Entirety.”

The account platform behind Fidelity prints the boxes outright. Fidelity’s application states that National Financial Services LLC will provide administrative, clearing, and custody services for the account. NFS publishes its own brokerage application for the firms whose accounts it carries, and that form prints “Tenants in Entirety” among the joint registrations. It also prints a separate transfer on death registration for entireties accounts. The form serves the introducing-broker channel rather than retail customers, so it shows what the platform supports.

The pattern holds across the industry. Full-service and advisor channels offer registrations that the same firm’s self-directed application never shows. Fidelity’s advisor-channel application prints a Tenants by Entirety checkbox, and a Schwab One application used in the advisor channel lists the registration among ten ownership choices. An application without the box shows what one channel offers; it does not show that the firm refuses the registration.

Morgan Stanley splits the two channels inside one firm. The Active Assets Account application, the form a financial advisor completes, has had a Tenants by the Entirety checkbox since at least 2015 and has not changed since at least March 2022. The self-directed E*TRADE application offers rights of survivorship, tenancy in common, and community property, and defaults to rights of survivorship when no box is marked.

An entireties account exists on the self-directed side only where Morgan Stanley grants a request or an existing account transfers in, and the governing agreement attaches conditions. The owners represent that they are married and live in a state permitting intangible property to be held by the entireties. They indemnify Morgan Stanley against creditor claims on the account and accept that a deficiency in it can be offset against their other accounts. Assigning either spouse’s interest reconstitutes the account as survivorship ownership.

How a Brokerage Application Can Defeat Entireties Ownership

Florida’s entireties presumption for a married couple’s joint account gives way only to an express disclaimer, which takes one of two forms. The couple signs a statement that entireties ownership is not intended and designates another form of ownership, or the account form offers tenancy by the entirety among the choices and the couple selects a different one. The second form comes from a securities case. In Hurlbert v. Shackleton, 560 So. 2d 1276 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990), a couple chose survivorship from a menu that offered entireties, and the court held the choice conclusive.

Three Morgan Stanley accounts in one case show the full range of outcomes. In In re Anderson, 561 B.R. 230 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2016), the first account’s paperwork offered no entireties option and disclaimed nothing, so the presumption stood. A second group had agreements stating the owners held as joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common; those stayed entireties property, because naming a different ownership is not a disclaimer. The last application offered a Tenants by the Entirety option and the couple chose survivorship. That election exposed the debtor’s half.

The same election decided In re Mathews, 360 B.R. 732 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2007). An American Express mutual fund application signed in 1997, from the fund business later spun off as Ameriprise, printed a Tenants by Entirety box and, on the form itself, the states where that registration was offered. The husband checked Joint Tenant instead and later testified that his broker had filled out the form. The court reasoned that a broker holding “a compendium of options” would have asked which one the customer wanted, and the entireties claim failed.

The box can even be checked for the couple. In In re Bellwoar, 299 B.R. 369 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2003), a 1992 application at Kidder Peabody and Company offered a Ten Ent box beside JT Ten, and JT Ten was checked. The account representative testified that checking the joint tenancy box for every new married couple’s account, without consulting the applicants, was “standard operating procedure.” The signature page of the same form never mentioned entireties ownership at all.

The Pennsylvania couple kept the entireties protection on a strong state presumption and live testimony. Under the Florida decisions, an application showing an unchosen entireties box beside a checked survivorship box is the express-disclaimer pattern of Anderson and Mathews. The account application in the brokerage’s file records the election, and requesting a copy shows which box was actually checked.

How Third-Party Account Access Can Defeat the Protection

Entireties ownership requires that the spouses alone control the account. In In re Planas, 199 B.R. 211 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1996), a couple’s Merrill Lynch account failed on that ground. The wife’s mother was authorized to execute checks on the account as agent and attorney. The court held that her power to individually reach the assets was inconsistent with the couple’s joint control, even though she owned no part of the account. A companion bank account failed because it was titled in four names.

Brokerage accounts collect this kind of authority in the ordinary course. Trading authorization for a family member, a durable power of attorney on file, and check-writing on a cash management account each hand someone outside the marriage an individual power over the assets. Under Planas, that is a power entireties ownership does not survive. Keeping every authorization between the two spouses preserves the ownership.

Can a Tenancy by the Entirety Brokerage Account Have a Transfer on Death Beneficiary?

Yes. Florida law lets a married couple register securities held as tenants by the entireties in transfer on death form. The beneficiary-registration statute, Section 711.502 of the Florida Statutes, names tenancy by the entireties among the eligible ownership forms. The act’s definitions reach “a securities account with a broker” and “a cash balance in a brokerage account” as well as paper certificates. A brokerage firm that refuses the combination is enforcing its own policy, not Florida law.

Fidelity, Merrill Edge, Wells Fargo Advisors, and Edward Jones each permit a transfer on death designation on an entireties account, and each says so in its transfer on death paperwork. Schwab’s designated beneficiary plan does not accept an entireties registration, so a Schwab entireties account cannot carry a transfer on death designation. Vanguard’s plan is available only for individual accounts and accounts held as joint tenants with rights of survivorship.

The designation operates only after both spouses have died. Florida’s transfer on death law hands the beneficiary nothing until “the deaths of all multiple owners,” so the surviving spouse takes the whole account first. The named beneficiary inherits whatever remains at the second death. At Merrill Edge, adding an owner voids an existing designation, and all owners must execute a new transfer on death agreement.

How to Convert an Existing Brokerage Account to Tenants by the Entirety

Converting a brokerage account to tenants by the entirety reliably takes a new account. The couple opens it with the entireties registration and transfers the investments into it. The ownership has to exist the day the account is opened (Smart v. City of Miami Beach, 51 F. Supp. 3d 1299 (S.D. Fla. 2014)). An account one spouse opened alone and later retitled into both names was never acquired by the couple together, and that history is what a creditor attacks.

Bank accounts no longer carry that risk in the same way. In Loumpos v. Bank One, 423 So. 3d 856 (Fla. 2025), the Florida Supreme Court held that Section 655.79 “authorizes a joint spousal bank account to be held as a tenancy by the entireties” even where one spouse originally established it. Section 655.79 stops at deposit accounts held at banks and credit unions, and a brokerage account sits outside it (Versace v. Uruven, LLC, 348 So. 3d 610, 613 n.2 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022)).

No statute does that work for a brokerage account. The change-of-registration paperwork exists anyway. Fidelity’s Change of Account Registration form lists “Joint: Tenants by the entirety” among its new-registration choices, and Merrill’s Additional Account Owner booklet includes the ATBE election for accounts already open. The forms change the registration going forward; they cannot supply an acquisition history the account never had. A couple that finds the wrong registration on an existing account is better served opening a new one and moving the positions.

Which Brokerage Firm Is Best for a Tenancy by the Entirety Account?

For a Florida couple opening a new account, the simplest openings are at the firms that print the entireties registration on the standard application. Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers put the choice in front of every applicant, Schwab as a checkbox and Interactive Brokers in an online menu. Merrill Edge prints the ATBE election on its self-directed application and permits a transfer on death designation on the finished account, a combination Schwab does not offer. Fidelity opens the registration by telephone, and its entireties accounts can carry beneficiaries.

Three moves lose the protection at any firm on the chart: a survivorship box checked where the form offered entireties, a spouse added to an existing account instead of a new one, and account authority granted outside the marriage. The time to prevent all three is at account opening, because none of them can be undone by relabeling the account afterward.