Best discount brokers in the United Kingdom in 2023

While many brokers with low fees offer an excellent service, the ones in our toplist go the extra mile.

Fees at the top 5 discount brokers for UK citizens in 2023:

What makes a good discount broker? Well, did we mention low fees? This includes commissions, financing rates, and, let's not forget, non-trading fees like inactivity or withdrawal fees. The tables below give you a good summary.

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The main authority in the UK overseeing financial markets is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA is a globally recognised authority and is widely considered a top-tier regulator. Brokers that operate under FCA surveillance are very trustable. If a UK resident opens an account at a broker that operates under the FCA, their account will be held under the FCA entity. The brokers we recommend for UK residents are mostly regulated by the FCA.

Brokers that accept UK clients must be either authorized or regulated by the FCA. This will protect you from ending up with a scam broker. You can check whether your broker is registered with the FCA by entering the registration number of the broker in question (you will find it at the bottom of the broker's website) on the FCA website.

UK residents are entitled to investor protection under a system operated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The current investor protection amount is £85,000 per person. This means that if your broker becomes insolvent, the FSCS will pay up to £85,000 to any customers of the firm who have lost money as a result. The FSCS also provides compensation for other types of investments, such as insurance policies.

BrokerChooser only recommends regulated brokers, so you can be sure that there is regulatory oversight checking these financial service providers. In 2019, the FCA introduced measures to protect retail investors, including negative balance protection. The measures mean that you cannot lose more funds than you have on your account.

There are several types of tax you need to consider when trading or investing in the United Kingdom. Profits from trading are taxed as capital gain in the UK. Capital gains up to an annual limit of £12,300 (as of 2023) are tax free. If the profit you make when you sell your shares or any other assets (i.e. forex, crypto, CFD) exceeds £12,300 in the given tax year, you will need to pay capital gains tax.

If you are trading as an individual, any profits you make from trading will be subject to income tax. The rates of income tax vary depending on the amount of income earned, but they range from 20% to 45%. Income tax is payable on profits earned above the personal allowance threshold, which is currently set at £12,570.

If you are trading in shares or other securities, you may be liable to pay stamp duty on certain transactions. The rate of stamp duty on shares is currently set at 0.5% for the tax. You pay stamp duty at 1.5% if you transfer shares into some depositary receipt schemes or clearance services, when the shares are transferred to a service operated by a third party like, for instance, a bank.

Keep in mind that if you have an Individial Savings Account (ISA) or Self-invested personal pension (SIPP) account, the rules are different. You don’t need to pay income tax, tax on dividends or capital gains tax on the investments within your stocks and shares ISA. Also, your money grows free from dividend tax, capital gains tax and income tax in a SIPP account. Investments held outside of a tax wrapper such as a SIPP or ISA account are subject to dividend tax.

Besides lowest trading fees and non-trading fees, a good discount brokerage firm should also offer access to a lot of markets and products, because providing low fees in more than one asset class is not an easy job. All brokers in our list offer real stocks, but we also looked into whether you can trade currencies, options or mutual funds.

And now, let's see the best discount brokers in detail one by one, starting with the winner, DEGIRO.

Recommended for traders and investors looking for execution only

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Recommended for traders looking for broad market access and a professional trading environment

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Recommended for traders interested in social trading (i.e. copying other investors’ trades) and zero-commission stock trading

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Your capital is at risk

Recommended for traders and investors looking for low fees and a wide selection of products

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Recommended for equity investors and cfd traders looking for easy-to-use trading platforms

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68% of retail CFD accounts lose money

How did BrokerChooser pick the best discount brokers?

We tested brokers based on almost 500 criteria, using real accounts and real money. When we selected the best discount brokers, the primary selection criteria were fees. Importantly, we only included brokers where you can trade real stocks. This means that we excluded brokers where stocks were only offered through CFDs.

We calculated the rankings based on trading fees for all asset classes, such as stock fees; as well as fees not directly related to trading, such as withdrawal fees. We also assigned a higher score to brokers that offer a wide range of asset classes, because providing low fees in more than one asset class is not an easy job and definitely a big plus for investors.

Lastly, we incorporated additional criteria to measure the overall quality of the broker: if the account opening process, customer service and other aspects of the broker are high quality, they all boosted the overall score.

Are these brokers reliable?

These brokers are all considered reliable. They are regulated by at least one top-tier financial authority. We at BrokerChooser distinguish between mid-tier and top-tier regulators, based on various factors with the most important being the investor protection amount.

Still unsure? Check out our broker finder tool and find the best broker for you, or learn more about how to invest your money.

What is a discount broker?

A discount stock broker is a brokerage company that executes your buy and sell orders at a low trading fee. Discount brokers can afford to charge lower fees because, unlike full-service brokers, they usually don't provide extra services such as research, personal investment advice, tax planning or robo-advisory.

The difference between full-service brokers and discount brokers has blurred somewhat in recent years. Discount brokers started to offer extra services as well, like research; while full-service brokers started to lower their fees. The traditional brokerage and wealth management industry is under fee pressure from increasingly cost-effective online broker companies.

Many US brokers have slashed their fees to zero and now promote commission-free trading, following in the footsteps of brokers such as Robinhood. Drawbacks for some of these commission-free brokers include the limited number of assets you can trade (for example, mutual funds are less likely to be offered), so some investors and traders still prefer traditional discount brokers, where order execution also tends to be better compared with zero-commission brokers.