Abstract Stock market participation differs a lot across countries. Cultural dimensions could be a potential factor for that. We show that indeed uncertainty avoidance (UAI) is linked to rates of stock market participation across countries. We can show even more that uncertainty avoidance has an indirect effect through loss aversion on stock market participation. The country level effects are confirmed on the individual level using data from a recent large-scale international survey, but on individual level there is also a strong effect of UAI on stock market participation after controlling for loss aversion. These results are robust after controlling for ambiguity aversion, and economic and demographic variables. Finally, we find that UAI is related to negative attitudes about stock markets in general.