Magnetoencephalography (MEG) has shown pseudohomophone priming effects at Broca's area (specifically pars opercularis of left inferior frontal gyrus and precentral gyrus; LIFGpo/PCG) within [approximately]100 ms of viewing a word. This is consistent with Broca's area involvement in fast phonological access during visual word recognition. Here we used online transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate whether LIFGpo/PCG is necessary for (not just correlated with) visual word recognition by [approximately]100 ms. Pulses were delivered to individually fMRI-defined LIFGpo/PCG in Dutch speakers 75-500 ms after stimulus onset during reading and picture naming. Reading and picture naming reactions times were significantly slower following pulses at 225-300 ms. Contrary to predictions, there was no disruption to reading for pulses before 225 ms. This does not provide evidence in favour of a functional role for LIFGpo/PCG in reading before 225 ms in this case, but does extend previous findings in picture stimuli to written Dutch words. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)