Reminder - TRACE Transition to Native FIX

As previously announced, FINRA is transitioning from its legacy FIX Protocol platform to a new Native FIX platform for TRACE trade reporting.

The final cutover date to transition TRACE production ports to Native FIX is December 11, 2026. FINRA strongly recommends that firms and Service Bureaus begin the transition as soon as possible, as connections require Nasdaq and internal provisioning and there are limited Saturday test dates for production port validation prior to cutover. FINRA has added an additional Saturday Native FIX production test on July 25, 2026, and will offer support for this date as well as the scheduled tests on July 11, 2026, and August 8, 2026.

Key Information:

• Firms must order Native FIX ports via the FINRA Native FIX Port Request Form available on NasdaqTrader.com or the Nasdaq Customer Portal. Please provide Source IPs in the Special Instructions section to expedite provisioning.
• FINRA strongly encourages Native FIX testing in NTF followed by participation in a Saturday production test to confirm connectivity, trade reporting, and message handling prior to cutover.
• Firms must submit separate port request forms for adding new Native FIX ports and subsequently for removing legacy ports (using the current legacy Port Request Form).
• The new real-time Match confirmation messages (detailed in the December 22, 2025, Technical Notice) are only available in Native FIX. Provisioning requires indication of "Trade Match" in the Drop Copy Settings section of the Port Request Form.
• Native FIX ports will operate in hot-hot mode. Nasdaq will provide primary, secondary, and DR IP addresses. Clients are responsible for monitoring their connections, detecting connection failures, and failing over to the secondary (or DR) connection to re-establish connectivity.
• Important: MsgSeqNum must be set to 1 on initial logon attempt at the start of each trading day.
• To ensure a smooth transition, review the required Native FIX changes in the technical specifications: https://www.finra.org/filing-reporting/trace/documentation

For step by step instruction, questions regarding NTF fees, and additional details regarding the TRACE transition to Native FIX, please review the prior Technical Notices from October 15, 2025, December 22, 2025, January 30, 2026 and March 6, 2026.

Please contact FINRA Client & System Management with questions regarding this notice.