Review contents
DEGIRO is an all-round great investing and trading platform. It’s super low cost, and has a huge range of investment options (and we mean huge!), suited for beginners, all the way to expert investors. It’s super popular across the UK and Europe too, with over 2 million customers. A big 4 stars from us.
DEGIRO (yep, it’s all caps!), is one of the most popular investment platforms (a place to buy and sell investments, also called a stock broker) in Europe, and the UK – with over 2,000,000 customers. That's a lot of zeros!
It offers investors a huge range of investment options – both in types of investments (e.g. shares and ETFs), and range of investment within each type (e.g. a lot of shares!). Suited to all investors from beginners to experts.
In fact, there’s over 50 stock exchanges you can buy stocks and shares from (an exchange is simply a place to buy shares), and that’s across 30 countries – so you can buy shares from Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and more, alongside the UK, US and Europe of course. (Most brokers in the UK only have access to UK, European and US stocks.)
The fees are very low, with some investments completely commission-free, or otherwise a very low fixed cost (typically £1) – far cheaper than traditional stock brokers such as Hargreaves Lansdown (the most popular stock broker in the UK). We’ll cover the fees in detail below.
Note: DEGIRO is suited to buying investments directly (e.g. shares), rather than trading the price of an asset via CFDs (Contract For Differences). If you’re interested in trading CFDs, check out the best CFD trading platforms. That doesn’t mean there’s not lots of advanced features and investment options for traders though – we’ll cover all those below.
As expected from a great platform, it's available on both desktop and an app on your phone – which has great reviews. On Apple, it’s rated an impressive 4.6 out of 5, and on the Google Play store it's rated a slightly disappointing 3.8 out of 5.
Ready to dive in? Let’s run through DEGIRO in detail. Or, if you’ve heard enough already, get started on the DEGIRO website¹.
Yep! DEGIRO is great for beginners. It’s super easy to use, and one of the most user friendly investment platforms out there. It’s also completely free to get started (you might pay fees when you make investments).
Once you’re all set up (which only takes a few minutes), you’ll be guided on how to make investments and use the platform – plus there’s analysts’ views on which investments could be good for you, and they even have a rating for how ethical an investment is, using the ESG framework (which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance) – this is how a company or investment impacts the world itself and people – e.g. an oil company would have a terrible score.
There’s also a great daily summary of the markets and what’s going on across the world, which is super handy to have within an investment platform itself – there’s no need to head off to another financial news website.
Plus there's a calendar with all the current and future events that could impact your investments.
You’ll be able to see all the relevant information on each company, such as what they do, historical share price and things like how much dividend they pay (how much profit they give back to the owners of the shares (e.g. investors). Plus loads more!
There’s also a really handy ‘favourites’ list to save stocks you’re interested in, and you can even write and save your own notes about them.
There’s also an ‘investor academy’, which will run through all the key concepts and help you build your knowledge around investing too.
You can pretty much do everything all in one place, and there’s everything you need to learn the basics of investing – overall, it’s great.
You can learn lots more about these features on the DEGIRO website¹.
Whether you’re a beginner or experienced trader, DEGIRO could be perfect for you.
The trading platform, which is both on a desktop and mobile app, can be as simple, or complex as you like. And it’s pretty awesome overall. They’ve invested a lot into making it great.
It’s got all the key features to get beginners started (all covered above), and for advanced traders, there’s a tonne of information and features to help you become a better and more efficient trader.
Think things like real-time price charts for assets, which are completely customisable, so you can do things such as plot a stock vs an index (e.g. FTSE 100) to view its performance, or compare against another stock. Yes we said real-time prices, direct from exchanges!
You can also make a combination of orders all in one go. So, you can set up the perfect trade, all together, and not worry about placing orders one-by-one, it’s pretty handy.
There’s also a huge range of financial information covering each asset (e.g. a company), like the latest news, and analyst views, ESG ratings and a financial calendar.
Effectively, everything you need is all together, and it’s designed for investors and traders to do everything they’d want to do, all on one trading platform.
There’s a great overview of the features on the DEGIRO website¹.
Learn more and get started on the DEGIRO website.
The app is great too. Perfect for making trades on the go – it could replace your desktop completely if you wanted to. There’s all the same trading features and simplicity, as the desktop version, just condensed into a pocket sized version.
The trading platform and app itself have won over 90 awards. Not bad right?
Note: it’s also very secure, with the ability to add TouchID or FaceID, and 2 factor authentication (passcode linked to your phone).
DEGIRO has a huge range of investment options, there’s actually over 2 million, and they range from traditional stocks and shares, ETFs and investment funds, to options for experienced traders such as futures and options. Here’s a run through of each:
Shares are where you own part of the company, you own a ‘share’ of the company. All the shares of a company combined equal the total value of the company, and the value can change depending on the performance of the business, or the stock market in general.
Shares are traded on stock exchanges across the world, and DEGIRO has one of the biggest ranges – over 50 stock exchanges from 30 countries.
Note: there’s no fractional shares at the moment (so you can only trade whole shares, and not part of a share, like 50% of a share).
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are super popular across the world, and DEGIRO is no different, they’re super popular there too.
ETFs are a type of investment fund, which is lots of different investments all pooled together into a single investment, called a fund (typically managed by a fund manager).
This makes investing in a wide range of investments much easier and cheaper, as you won’t need to buy all the individual stocks and shares – and it can be a great way of building a well diversified portfolio (a wide range of investments for good risk management).
ETFs are traded on stock exchanges, making them super easy to buy and sell.
They can represent a huge variety of different investments. For instance, the top 100 companies the UK (FTSE 100), or the top 500 companies the US (S&P 500) – called indices or stock market indexes. Or even whole industries such as green energy, or electric vehicles. There’s so many, the choice is yours!
DEGIRO has a wide range of ETFs, and for a good portion of these are completely commission-free (although a fair use policy¹ applies). The fees are super low even for those that are charged commission (more on fees below).
Alongside ETFs, there’s also typical investment funds – which are very similar, a group of investments managed by a fund manager, except they’re not traded on stock exchanges – you’ll buy them directly via a broker such as DEGIRO¹.
There’s a huge range of funds, from all the large investment companies such as BlackRock and Fidelity.
Bonds are effectively loaning money to a large corporation, or a government, in return for a regular interest payment. They’re typically seen as safer than stocks and shares, but often have a lower return over time (make less money).
Commodities are real things such as gold and silver, and even oil and wheat. You can invest in a wide range of commodities with DEGIRO, but you’ll need to buy via an ETF, or invest in the stock of a relevant company. Or, you could trade commodity futures (a contract about the price of the commodity in future).
You can also trade futures (if you are an experienced investor). This is where you’ll trade a contract (an agreement) about the price of an asset in the future.
There’s a wide range of futures on DEGIRO, such as futures for commodities, stocks and shares and indices.
Options are where you enter into a contract (an agreement) to buy or sell an asset in the future, on a set date, for an agreed price. The right to buy is called a ‘call’, and the right to sell is called a ‘put’. These contracts are tradeable themselves. Like futures, these are only suited for experienced investors.
There’s also structured products, which are more complex options for experienced traders, who want to trade the price of an asset (up or down), rather than buying it directly. These include warrants and turbos, which is where you can use leverage (borrowed money) to trade the price and future price of an asset (e.g. a stock).
Unfortunately, you can’t trade crypto with DEGIRO. If this is what you’re after, check out the best crypto exchanges and eToro¹.
DEGIRO only offers one type of investment account, which is a General Investment Account (GIA).
Unfortunately, there’s no Stocks and Shares ISA (for tax-free investing) or self-invested personal pension (SIPP), for saving for retirement.
Both are great options for making your growing your money tax-free, and highly recommended to use in general – although there are some restrictions, such as only being able to pay into one Stocks and Shares ISA per year.
So, it’s often a good idea to let the experts manage your ISA (and pension), so you can benefit from long-term growth over time, using sensible investment strategies, and then use a GIA, such as DEGIRO, to make your own investments alongside.
A great option for an ISA expert-managed is Moneyfarm¹, and for a pension, check out PensionBee¹ – both have low fees and a great record of investing.
If you’re only looking for an ISA to invest in, check out the best Stocks and Shares ISA, and for pensions, check out the best SIPP providers, and the best personal pensions.
DEGIRO is very low cost. There’s no fees to have an account or deposit and withdraw money, in fact, almost all of the fees are related to making investments, and even then, it’s very low cost, and commission-free on some popular investments.
And even though it’s not entirely commission-free across every investment, it can actually work out much cheaper to use DEGIRO than a commission-free stock trading app (such as eToro or Freetrade), plus there’s a much wider range of investment options.
That’s because commission-free platforms tend to make money from currency conversion fees, which are fees to convert your money into the currency of the shares you want to buy.
For instance, if you wanted to buy Amazon shares in the US, the broker would convert your Pounds (GBP) to US Dollars (USD) to buy the shares, and would typically charge around 0.50% (this can vary across brokers).
With DEGIRO, the currency conversion fee is just 0.25%, which is very low.
You’ll then only pay a flat fee per transaction, and in some cases, such as with popular ETFs, there’s no fee at all.
Here’s the total fees you’ll pay in DEGIRO fees per investment:
You also might pay a connectivity fee on your first investment of the year, which is to connect you to a stock exchange.
So, if you want to buy US shares, you’ll need to connect to a US exchange, such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This fee applies per year (one time fee), and is typically £2.15 per exchange.
This doesn’t apply with UK shares however (the London Stock Exchange). Which has no fees.
Note: with UK shares, you’ll also have to pay Stamp Duty, which is a tax to the UK government, and is 0.50% of the cost of the shares. This applies with all stock brokers.
You’ll also ultimately pay trading and investment fees too (wherever you choose to invest), which can vary depending on what investments you are making.
For instance, there will typically be spread fees when you buy shares and ETFs, which is a very small margin on the price, when buying the investment from another investor selling the investment.
And with investment funds, you’ll often pay a fee to the investment provider (fund manager) to look after and manage the fund, which can be a percentage of the total amount invested. This can range from 0.05% to 1.5%+.
There’s also a 0.20% service fee to hold some investment funds with DEGIRO (not ETFs).
Finally, there's also other fees if you want more bespoke services, such as email and telephone orders (£8.50 per order), and real-time price feeds for stock exchanges (from £1.50 to £10 per month).
You can find the full range of fees for additional services on the DEGIRO website¹.
The customer support is pretty awesome.
Their customer support team runs 24/7 over email, with fast responses and their phone lines are open from 7am to 9pm on weekdays.
There’s also a big help centre on the website which has answers to pretty much every question you might want to ask.
DEGIRO is one of the most popular brokers in the UK and across Europe.
It has permission to operate in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), they’re the people who make sure financial services companies are looking after their customers and their money.
They’re a very large company and are authorised by most countries across Europe, meeting strict standards when it comes to looking after customers’ money. In fact the standards are so high they also have a banking licence in Europe, and are listed on a stock exchange themselves (in Germany).
Also, your money and investments are actually held with a separate large bank, and not held by DEGIRO directly. These are all in your name and can only be returned to you. So, should anything happen to DEGIRO, such as going out of business, you’ll still have your investments.
However, this doesn't mean your investments can't go down in value. Always use a sound investment strategy.
Customers love DEGIRO. On the popular reviews website, Trustpilot, it has a score of 4.3 out of 5 (for the UK). That’s pretty good, in fact it’s excellent!
Lots of the reviews mention the low fees, great trading experience, reliable platform, and the range of investment options.
And more than that, across Europe, it’s getting consistently high ratings too. Well done DEGIRO!
Here’s a quick recap and the pros and cons of DEGIRO:
If you couldn’t already tell, we’re big fans of DEGIRO. It’s pretty much perfect for both long-term investors and more frequent traders, from beginners to experts.
That’s thanks to the huge range of investment options, low fees and great trading platform experience (and mobile app!). The customer support is pretty great too.
The only downside is there’s no Stocks and Shares ISA, or personal pension (SIPP), so for that, we’ll knock it down a star. Although saying that, it can be a good idea to let the experts handle these accounts for you for long-term growth – check out the best investment platforms for the best expert-managed options.
Otherwise, it's a great all-round investing platform, and one of the cheapest out there. So, it’s getting a big 4 stars from us, and highly recommended.
If you like the sound of DEGIRO, head over to the DEGIRO website¹ to get started and learn more.
We believe sensible investing is a great option to build wealth long term. However, investing involves risk of loss – investments can both rise and fall. Always use a sensible investment strategy.
Learn more and get started on the DEGIRO website.
Learn more and get started on the DEGIRO website.
Learn more and get started on the DEGIRO website.
Edward Savage is a leading expert on money, with a background of 8 years working in financial services in London, has a business, accounting and finance degree, runs an investing community, and teaches people about money. He writes about all aspects of personal finance, including pensions, investing, mortgages and insurance.
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Learn more and get started on the DEGIRO website.
