Degiro

4
We Recommend Degiro for traders/investors wary of execution fees, and comfortable with using complementary services for research & analysis. The brokerage is great for hold traders/investors, interested in Stock, ETF, Fund, Bond, Options, Futures & CFDs.
Trading Platform:
Proprietary
Max Leverage:
1:1
Instruments:
Stocks, CFDs, Options, Crypto
Regulation:
AFM, DNB
Min. deposit:
0
Open an account Read full review

Summary

Established in 2013, Degiro is currently registered under the number 34342820 with Chember of Commerce & Industry in Amsterdam. 

Elite Currensea considers the company a safe and properly regulated (Dutch AFM & DNB) brokerage for trading stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, futures. 

Overall

Pros
  • Best fee to service quality ratio
  • Affordable access to wide range of international markets
  • Straightforward User Experience & Onboarding
  • No min deposit
Cons
  • Lack of Research & Education
  • Limited Deposit/Withdrawal options
  • Onboarding limited mainly to tier 1 countries

Fees

Pros
  • Low fees (trading & non-trading)
  • No withdrawal fee
  • Discount in fees for referral activity
  • Occasional Free ETF per month
Cons
  • Yearly mutual funds fees
  • Higher fees for Asian & smaller EU markets

Account Opening

Pros
  • Fast Onboarding
  • No minimum account balance
  • Customer-friendly
Cons
  • Available mainly to tier 1 countries

Deposit & Withdrawal

Pros
  • Free withdrawal
  • No deposit fee
  • Accounts in major local currencies
Cons
  • No credit card d/w

Platform

Pros
  • User-friendly for basic functionality
  • Available in several languages
Cons
  • Limited functionality
  • No price alerts

Markets

Pros
  • Stock
  • Fund
  • ETFs
  • Bonds
  • Options
  • Cryptos
  • Futures
  • CFD
Cons
  • Forex

Customer Service

Pros
  • Available in local languages
  • Relevant and fast telephone support
Cons
  • No live chat
  • No 24/7 availability
  • Not reliable email answer

Research & Education

Pros
  • Clear info on core term & platform
Cons
  • No analysis .
  • No fundamental data available
  • Very limited set of analytic tools
  • Only real account

Regulation & Safety

Pros
  • Regulated by reliable financial authority
  • Negative balance protection
Cons
  • No banking license
  • Privately Held

Full review

Established in 2013, Degiro is currently registered under the number 34342820 with Chember of Commerce & Industry in Amsterdam. 

Elite Currensea considers the company a safe and properly regulated (Dutch AFM & DNB) brokerage for trading stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, futures. 

Fees

Let’s first go through the fess terminology:

Trading Fees occur when you trade (spreads, commissions)
Financing or overnight rates are charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than 24 hours. Leveraged position means that you borrow money from the broker to trade.
Non-trading fees are withdrawal fee or inactivity fee, hidden fees.

To put things in a proper context we compare Degiro with competing services.

Assets Fee Level Terms
EURUSD FEE Low
US Stock Low $0.004 per share + €0.5
Inactivity FEE Low
US Tech Stock Low 0,1% + €7,5 and 0.2% yearly administration fee

Non-trading fees

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Account fee No No No
Inactivity fee No No No
Withdrawal fee $0 $0 $0

There are no hidden fees at Degiro, making it a lucrative option. However, beware of the following fees: 

  • “Setting up trade possibilities”. This is an annual €2.5 for stocks.
  • At automatically currency conversion, DEGIRO charges the 0.1% of the transaction value.
  • At manual currency conversion, DEGIRO charges €10 and 0.02% of the amount

Trading Fees

Due to its lower fees, on top of investing in holding, degiro is also recommended for frequent trading. I’ve analysed UK offers for composing this overview.

Stock Fees

Stock fees of a $2,000 trade

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
USA $0.6 $0 $0
UK $2.4 $50 $0

Discount on Domestic Stocks, e.g. trading german stocks on a german account would decrease your fees from $5,7 to $2.8 (0.026% + €2, instead of 0.058% + €4). The discount is available for all locals where Degiro is actively operating. 

There is a list of ETFs that can be traded for free once per month. The size of this trade doesn’t matter as long as it does not generate a short position. It is also free to trade the same ETF to the same direction in the same month if the trade is at least €/$1,000.

Some ETFs may be traded for free regardless of the position size – as long as there is no short position. Plus, there is no fees, if you open another position of at least €/1,000 in the same direction for the same ETF.

Fees for the stock, ETF and CFD are the same.

Flat fees usually only applies to Asian and smaller EU assets. For the US the fees are calculated based on trading volumes. 

Degiro Stock Fees
Market Commissions Max
United Kingdom £4 + 0.022% £5
USA €0.5 + $0.004/share
Germany – XETRA €4 + 0.058% €60
Germany – Zertifikate-Börse Frankfurt €2 + 0.118%
Germany – Frankfurt (Stocks)  €7.5 + 0.098% 
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland €4 + 0.058% €60
Italian CFDs €4 + 0.158%  
Canada €2 + CAD 0.01 per share 
Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore €10 + 0.068%
Poland €5 + 0.168%
Hungary, Greece, Czech Republic, Turkey €10 + 0.168%
     
ETF from the list 1 free trade/month
ETFs Worldwide €2 + 0.038% 

Fund Fees

DEGIRO fund fees are low. The US fund fees are exceptionally low, while the EU and Aisan stocks are competitive.

DEGIRO also asks for a flat and a volume-based fee for funds. Unfortunately, for discount clients, the flat fees for the non-listed funds are high.

DEGIRO fund fees
Mutual funds Commission Annual fee
Euronext Fund Services* €7.5 + 0.10% 0.2%
Non Exchange Listed Investment Funds (Non-STP) €75.00 + 0.10% 0.2%

If you open an account with the Irish branch, the Euronext Funds are free.

Bond Fees

DEGIRO’s bond fees are one of the lowest on the market.

Both the minimum and the volume-based fees are low:

Market Commission
Germany – Xetra / Frankfurt  €5 + 0.058%
The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, France €2 + 0.068% 
OTC Bonds (i.e. Norwegian) €35 + 0.038%

Options Fees

DEGIRO’s options fees are also among the best. For US and European stock index options, the fees are better than at Interactive Brokers.

DEGIRO options fees are based on volume, i.e. the number of contracts.

Market Commission
USA – CME, CBOT, CBOE, NYMEX, COMEX $0.65 / contract
Germany €0.90 / contract
Spain €1.65 / contract
The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal €2.15 / contract
Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark  €0.65 / contract
Other Countries €2.15 / contract
Option exercise / assignment €1.00 / contract

Futures Fees

DEGIRO’s futures fees are also low. In the US and the German markets they are one of the best, while in the UK market they are competitive. 

Similarly to the options, the futures fees are calculated based on the number of contracts:

Futures Trading fee
NYSE Liffe – Amsterdam, Brussel, Lisbon, Paris €2.65 / contract
EUREX main indices – EURO STOXX 50, DAX, DAX Mini €0.90 / contract
EUREX other stock indices €2.65 / contract
USA – CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX $0.65 / contract
MEFF (Spain) €1.65 / contract
Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark €0.65 / contract

Finance Rates

DEGIRO’s financing rates are low, on pair with the trading rates.

The borrowing cost occurs when you borrow money from a broker to increase the size of your position in Forex or CFD. Based on the amount you borrowed you may be paying the broker on a daily basis. 

DEGIRO financing ratesThe financing rate formulas for different currencies:
EUR EONIA (minimum of 0) + 1.25% 
USD USD LIBOR (minimum of 0) + 1.25% 
GBP LIBOR (minimum of 0) + 1.25% 
SEK STIBOR (minimum of 0) + 1.55%
DKK DKK Tomorrow/Next (minimum of 0) + 1.75%
NOK NOWA (minimum of 0) + 1.50%
PLN WIBOR (minimum of 0) + 3.50% (4% flat at the time of the review)
HUF BUBOR (minimum of 0) + 2.50% 
CZK PRIBOR (minimum of 0) + 3.00%

Trading Instruments

Wide Market Access to most of the relevant financial markets, but Forex. DEGIRO has a good product portfolio. DEGIRO has a lucrative offer for stocks, options, and futures, whereas the, bond, fund and CFD offers are less competitive.

Markets & Products General

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Stock Yes Yes Yes
ETF Yes Yes Yes
Forex No No No
Fund Yes No No
Bond Yes No No
Options Yes Yes No
Futures Yes No No
Cfd Yes No No
Crypto Yes Yes No

Stocks & ETFs

DEGIRO gives you access to over 30 stock exchanges and more than 5,000 ETFs. You’ll access the largest international exchanges, as well as smaller EU markets, plus some penny stocks.

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Stock Markets 32 Unclear but US penny stocks available. 3
ETFs 5400 5000 40

CFDs

Degiro, offers only stock CFDs. As 65% on average lose money trading CFDs with leverage.

Crypto

You can invest into Bitcoins and Ether through ETN instruments traded on the Swedish stock exchange.

Bonds, Futures, Options, Funds

Bond

DEGIRO has an ok corporate and government bond offering, it’s offering is rather mediocre. 

Futures 

DEGIRO offers relatively small range of futures markets compared to the industry average.

Options

You can trade on 13 option markets at DEGIRO. It is quite competitive, especially in comparison with Saxo.

Fund

Degiro offers access to the biggest funds, the likes of BlackRock & Vanguard. The overall offering does lag behind the industry juggernaut.

Account Opening

Fast & Straightforward onboarding given your paperwork is in place. No min depo.

You are eligible for  an account at DEGIRO if you reside in the following countries:

  • EU countries except for Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
  • Norway
  • Switzerland

To use the UK branch you will need to have a UK mainland bank account denominated in GBP. 

For Hungary the service is limited to the degree that you can’t keep cash on your account if you don’t trade for over 48h, the funds will be returned to your bank account. 

For Hungarian and other EU residents, who’s countries are not supported, we recommend to open an account with an Irish branch. To overcome local bank restriction (Degiro only allows banks where it has official operations), we recommend you to look into: bunq, n26 (only supports EU passports), or other relevant digital banks. 

Account Types & Min Deposit 

At DEGIRO trading platform, you can set among these account types:

  • Custody
  • Basic
  • Active
  • Trader
  • Day Trader

The trading fees are the same for each profile, but the main difference comes from the risk levels and availability of instruments. 

Custody Basic Active Trader Day Trader
Trade: Shares, Bonds, Investment Funds, and Trackers (ETFs) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Trade: Leveraged Products and Warrants No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Buying on margin No No Yes (up to 50%of your available margin) Yes (up to 100% of your available margin) Yes (up to 100% of your available margin with additional margin during trading hours)
Going short No No Yes Yes Yes
Trade Derivatives (Options, Futures, and CFDs) No No Yes Yes Yes
Free real-time prices on Euronext exchanges No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Free dividend and coupon processing No Yes Yes Yes Yes

You can read more about DEGIRO profiles here. Other aspects of the profile types:

  • Tax: at the time of our review, DEGIRO does not provide tax-free account options like DEGIRO ISA or others that apply in other European countries. Two exceptions are Sweden where ISK is provided and the Netherlands where pension account is provided.
  • Joint account: contact your local customer support for more info.
  • Corporate account: business account, owned by a business entity
  • Account for minors: contact the local customer support for more info.
  • CFD trading: available only through a separate account – no CFD trading can be conducted on the same accounts as other assets. 

How to open an account at Degiro

The approval of the account is quite fast, it takes up to 3 working days. Degiro seems to understand the competitive landscape with competitors like robinhood, revolut and others entering the EU market. 

To register you’d need at least:

  • a copy of your passport or ID card
  • the bank account number from which you will fund the investment account

After the initial registration you will have three additional tasks before your account is activated and you can trade:

  1. Complete an appropriateness test to learn about the risk and challenges of trading.
  2. Provide proof of residency and likely a set of additional relevant to your account type documents. 
  3. Agree to the conditions for real-time prices.
  4. Transfer money to your investment account.

Deposit & Withdrawal

Besides lack of credit card options, Degiro processes d/w quickly & without extra fees. 

You can open one of the digital banks originating in such countries, e.g. bunq, n26, and others. Having a digital bank account, will also allow you to save on trading the local stocks by foregoing Degiro exchange-related commissions. Just make sure your digital bank account offers better exchange rates than degiro.
To deposit and withdraw you would need to have a bank account in one of the Degiro’s active countries. 

The D/W usually takes 2 working days. Make sure to only use the bank account you connected to Degrio – the funds will be returned otherwise. 

Base currencies vs similar brokers

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Number of base currencies 9 2 1

Deposit options

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Bank transfer Yes Yes Yes
Credit/Debit card No No No
Electronic wallets Yes No Yes

Withdrawal fees and options

Degiro Robinhood FreeTrade
Bank Transfer Yes Yes Yes
Credit/Debit card No No No
Electronic wallets No No No
Withdrawal fee $0 $0 $0

Trading Platform

Due to discount nature of the business, Degiro sticks to the crucial functionality – prioritising easy to use navigation and core operations over advanced features. 

User Experience & Functionality

The platform lacks customization and is limited to core set of well executed features.  

Search function

Searching instruments by name, ticker and phrases works fine. However, sometimes, due to stock exchange variation of the ticker names may not provide the most precise results. 

Placing orders

You can select from most popular order types. Beware, not all order types are available for every asset.

  • Limit
  • Market
  • Stop loss
  • Stop limit
  • Trailing stop

If you are not familiar with the basic order types, we recommend to read about order types first.

You can also use two order terms:

  • Day
  • Good-till-cancel (GTC)

I haven’t had any negative experiences with DEGIRO’s execution, but there are some negative comments online. The internal matching of orders was removed, leading to higher costs. For more info, contact your local support.

Alerts and Notifications

Albeith the missing price alerts, you can configure an email confirmation for order execution. 

Portfolio and Fee reports

This part is well organised and clear for traders with lower experience levels. Unfortunately, you won’t find any extra stuff, like quarterly reports calendar, community features, market sentiment here.

Customer Service

Despite its lack of common live chat and sometimes tardy email responses, the quality of the answers is worthy of a separate award. 

The phone response was ok, the customer service helped me (although with delay and the slight tone of indifference) to start using the services as an Estonian resident, via an Irish branch, as well as with info to setup a digital bank account. 

Since my preferred way of communication is email and I’m usually not in a rush Degiro’s customer care effort does it just fine for me. 

Education

Degiro sticks to its strengths, leaving complimentary services out of the picture almost entirely. 

In line with it’s discount status, Degiro offers education that will help you avoid stupid mistakes. You won’t find live education or tutorials on basic strategies. 

The research is limited to news feed. For economic calendar, analysis and quarterly reports with suggest to use TradingView and elitecurrensea.com ?. 

Safety

Degiro is a safe and properly regulated (Dutch AFM & DNB) brokerage for trading financial assets. 

Degiro provides negative balance protection and investor protection of up to $20,000.

Background

Established in 2013, Degiro is one of the safest discount brokers around. See how you are protected using degiro services.

You may have some troubles if you are looking for more information about the company. The amount of financial information is quite limited compared to other brokers. It is not transparent who are the owners of the company. This is important because a strong parent company might supply DEGIRO with additional capital if needed.

The info on the owners is limited, as a privately held company Degiro is not responsible for disclosing this info. Knowing the owners, however, would make Degiro seem more trustworthy.

Degiro Brief Overview

? Country of regulation Netherlands, UK
? Trading fees class Low
? Inactivity fee charged No
? Withdrawal fee amount $0
? Minimum deposit $0
⏰ Time to open an account 1 day
? Deposit with credit card Not available
? Depositing with electronic wallet Available
? Number of base currencies supported 9
? Demo account provided No
? Products offered Stock, ETF, Fund, Bond, Options, Futures, CFD, Crypto

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