DEGIRO Review 2019

DEGIRO is a trending Dutch online discount broker. It is privately owned and was established in 2013 by former employees of another brokerage company.

DEGIRO is considered safe as it is regulated by top-tier financial regulators, the Dutch AFM and DNB. It is registered with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Amsterdam under number 34342820.

Recommended for price-sensitive buy and hold investors and traders looking for cheap execution.

DEGIRO pros and cons

DEGIRO has one of the lowest fees. It has a wide market coverage, providing access to the most important international and also to some local European exchanges. Its web and mobile trading platforms are well designed and easy to use.

DEGIRO provides very limited research and no education. The forex trading is missing. Credit/debit card deposit and withdrawal are not possible.

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DEGIRO review
Fees 5 stars

DEGIRO has low trading and non-trading fees. In most asset classes, it is the best in the market. There is one free ETF trading per month, a great offer for buy-and-hold investors.

To get things rolling, let's go over some broker fee lingo. You need to keep an eye on trading fees, financing rates, and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. This can be commissions and spreads.
• Financing rates or overnight rates are charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than a day. Leveraged position means that you borrow money from the broker to trade.
• Non-trading fees are like withdrawal fee or inactivity fee.

We compare DEGIRO fees with two DEGIRO alternatives, Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank.

Let's start with the trading fees.

Trading fees

DEGIRO's trading fees are one of the lowest at all asset classes. Because of this, it is recommended for frequent trading too.

Stock fees, ETF fees, and CFD fees

DEGIRO is Brokerchooser's fee champion for a reason: it is the lowest choice for US and most European stock trading.

*DEGIRO provides a discount for your domestic stock market. For example, if you open an account from the UK, you can trade on the UK market for 0.0058%+ £1.75 instead of 0.058% + €4. It means that for UK clients, the UK stocks cost $2.7 instead of $5.7. For German clients, the German stocks cost $3.0 instead of $5.7. Such discount is applied for all local markets where DEGIRO is present.

You also have one free ETF trade every month, which allows you to choose from a list of ETFs. 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.

At DEGIRO, the stock, ETF and CFD fees are the same.

The trading fee is usually calculated as a percentage of the traded volume, except for the US and Canada, where you are charged based on the number of shares traded. 

The minimum trading fee for smaller and Asian markets are definitely high.

Fund fees

DEGIRO fund fees are also low. The US fund fees are lower, while European fund fees are higher than at IB:

Similarly to stocks, DEGIRO charges a minimum fee and a volume-based fee for fund. At the non-listed funds, the minimum fees are extremely high:

Bond fees

DEGIRO's bond fees are one of the lowest on the market. It is definitely lower than Saxo Bank, and almost the same as at IB:

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

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 volume based, i.e. the number of contracts. 

Futures fees

DEGIRO's futures fees are also low. In the US and the German markets they are better, while in the UK market they are a little worse than IB: 

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

Crypto fees

At DEGIRO you can buy cryptos only through ETNs (exchange-traded notes). At the time of our DEGIRO review, you can trade with Bitcoin and Ether ETNs on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. DEGIRO's trading cost here is 0.058% + €4, but maximum €60. If you want to understand what is a crypto ETN check out our crypto blogpost.

Financing rates

DEGIRO's financing rates are low, similarly to the trading rates.

When you trade with leveraged products, like forex or CFDs, you are borrowing money from your broker. This has a borrowing cost, called the financing rate you pay for the broker every day based on the volume of your position.

The financing rate formulas for different currencies:

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Non-trading fees

DEGIRO's non-trading fees are low. There is no account fee, inactivity fee, withdrawal fee, deposit fee, and custody fee.

On the flip side, there is an unusual fee category, "setting up trade possibilities". This is an annual €2.5 for stocks.

If your account currency differs from the asset's currency you want to buy, a currency conversion fee is applied. At DEGIRO you can do it automatically or manually, and the fees are different:

• 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.

DEGIRO review
Account opening 5 stars

DEGIRO has an easy and fast account opening process. Also, there is no minimum deposit.

Can you open an account?

You can open an account with DEGIRO if you have a bank account in your name from one of the following countries:

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

For a UK registration, you will need a mainland UK bank account in GBP. DEGIRO does not accept transfers from UK overseas territories or Crown dependencies such as Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar, or the Isle of Man.

US clients are not accepted.

At DEGIRO, primarily your bank account matters, not your residency. Still, you might be banned if you are not a resident of the above-listed countries. DEGIRO does not provide a clear guideline, so it is best to contact the customer service.

If you are from Hungary, the service is different. You can't hold cash on your account and if you don't trade within 2 business days, the money will be sent back to your bank account. Therefore, we recommend you open an account at other DEGIRO entity, like the Irish entity. In this case, your account will be in EUR and the trading platform will be in English.

Minimum deposit

There is no minimum deposit. This is great if you want to invest smaller amounts.

Account types

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

• Custody
• Basic
• Active
• Trader
• Day Trader

From top to bottom you can access more products and features, and as such it gets riskier. The trading fees are the same for each profile.

For profiles summary, take a look at this table: 

Some of the profiles may not be available in some countries. You can read more about DEGIRO profiles here.

Some 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: available, contact your local customer support.
• Account for minors: available, contact the local customer support.
• CFD trading: you can trade CFDs only on a separate account. It is not possible to mix the CFD trading with other assets within one account. Not the most convenient solution.

How to open your account

The account opening is seamless, fast, and fully digital. Your account will be ready in 2-3 days.

For the initial registration you need:

• 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. By completing this you will be aware of the financial risks of trading.
2. Agree to the conditions for real-time prices.
3. Transfer money to your investment account.

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DEGIRO review
Deposit and withdrawal 3 stars

DEGIRO deposit and withdrawal is free of charge via bank transfer and SOFORT. On the other hand, you cannot deposit with credit or debit card.

Account base currencies

The base currency of your account is always the currency of your home country. This means for example that you will have a GBP account registering at www.degiro.co.uk as a UK citizen. You cannot have more base currencies for one account.

However, you might be able to have a foreign currency account. Register on DEGIRO website at the country whose currency you want. Note, you will need to fund this via a same currency bank account. For example, if a Polish person opens an Irish DEGIRO EUR account, the DEGIRO base currency will be EUR, not Zloty. However, she can only fund the DEGIRO account via an EUR bank account. This is not working for all countries. So, before you start, contact DEGIRO's customer service.

Why does this matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

A convenient way to save on the currency conversion fees can be to open a multi-currency bank account. Revolut or Transferwise both offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. The account opening only takes a few minutes on your phone.

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Deposit fees and options

DEGIRO deposit fees are free of charge.

You can fund via bank transfer, SOFORT or Trustly. SOFORT and Trustly are instant deposit service providers. On the flip side, the convenient and fast credit and debit cards are missing.

The bank transfer usually takes 2-3 business days, while SOFORT and Trustly take around 30 minutes. 

DEGIRO has strict rules on bank transfer deposits. They only allow transfers from bank accounts in your name from accepted countries.

Withdrawal fees and options

DEGIRO withdrawal fees are free, as you would expect from our Fee Champion.

You can withdraw only with a bank transfer, SOFORT and Trustly are not available. DEGIRO's withdrawal options are in line with its competitors.

DEGIRO ensures that the withdrawn amount is transferred back to your bank account within 3 business days. We tested it and received the amount within one business day.

You can only withdraw money to accounts on your name.

More funding and withdrawal info

DEGIRO review
Web trading platform 4 stars

DEGIRO’s web platform is simple and easy to use. Even beginners can easily navigate it and buy stocks. On the negative side, it is a bit complicated to customize.

DEGIRO's web platform will be available on your local language. For example, if your register from Germany your platform language will be German.

Look and feel

DEGIRO's web trading platform is great for execution, but not the most advanced. 

It is well designed and user-friendly, but lacks customization.

Login and security

You can choose between a one-step or two-step login. Two-step login is available through Google Authenticator.

We recommend the latter as it is more secure.

Search function

The search function works well.

When you type the product name, a list of the products appear. They are separated by asset classes. Also, you can see in what stock market and currency the product is.

Placing orders

You can select from several order types although not all of them are available for every tradable instrument.

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

If you are not familiar with the basic order types, read this overview.

You can also use two order terms:

• Day
• Good-till-cancel (GTC)

We encountered some questions and negative comments about DEGIRO’s execution policy, especially internal matching. DEGIRO no longer does any internal matching. We haven’t had any negative experiences with DEGIRO’s execution.

Alerts and Notifications

After the execution, you can receive an order confirmation by email but text message notification is not available. The price alert function is also missing.

Portfolio and Fee reports

The portfolio and fee reports are well organized. It is transparent what do you own and how much fees you paid for your transaction. 

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DEGIRO review
Mobile trading platform 4 stars

DEGIRO's mobile platform has a basic but good design, it is pretty straightforward to use.

The mobile platform is also available in your language.

Look and feel

DEGIRO's mobile trading platform has a great and clear design and it is intuitive.

Login and Security

The two-step authentication is included in the mobile app as well.

Search function

The search function is the weakest link of the DEGIRO app. You cannot search by asset class and it is also not signed at the results section. For example, if you type "Apple", you do not know whether you select an equity or an option.

Placing orders

The order management is the same to the web platform.

Alerts and Notifications

You can receive order confirmation messages in email, but price alerts are not provided.

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DEGIRO review
Desktop trading platform

DEGIRO does not provide a desktop trading platform.

DEGIRO review
Markets and products 3 stars

At DEGIRO you can access many markets and trade with a lot of different products, except for forex.

DEGIRO has a good product portfolio. From stocks to CFDs, you will find everything except forex. At stocks, options, and futures DEGIRO is really competitive. The fund, bond, and CFD offers are average.

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Stock and ETF

DEGIRO gives you access to 32 stock exchanges and more than 5,000 ETFs. It includes the largest international markets and also the smaller stock exchanges in Europe. You can trade with penny stocks as well.

The stock and ETF offer floats between Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank.

Fund

DEGIRO's fund offer is narrow compared to Interactive Brokers's 196 fund providers. But, Saxo which doesn't provide any funds. You will find funds from the biggest names, like BlackRock or Vanguard.

Bond

DEGIRO has an ok corporate and government bond offering, however it lags behind IB or Saxo Bank.

Options

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

Futures

DEGIRO has a relatively narrow futures market coverage compared to Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank.

CFD

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 65% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

At DEGIRO you can trade only with stock CFDs. The number of stock CFDs are quite limited compared to IB and Saxo.

Crypto

You can invest into Bitcoins and Ether through ETN instruments traded on the Swedish stock exchange. If you want to know more about crypto investing, we recommend our crypto blogpost

DEGIRO review
Research 2 stars

DEGIRO's research is limited. There is a basic news feed and a simple charting tool.

Charting

The charting tool is rather basic, but enough for an execution only trading platform. It is easy to use and comes with more than 20 technical indicators, but unfortunately, the charts cannot be saved.

News feed

Both in the web and mobile platform you have a basic news panel with short, but informative market news.

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DEGIRO review
Customer service 3 stars

Customer support is average at DEGIRO. You can reach out to them in many languages and there is a great telephone support. On the other hand, there is no live chat and 24/7 availability.

Phone and email support are available, but live chat is missing.

A big advantage is you can contact the customer service in your language if you are from one of the 18  supported countries.

DEGIRO's customer support was ok. The phone support's response time was fast and we got relevant answers. The email support is mediocre. Once we got an answer within a day, another time we didn't get an answer at all.

We missed the chat function and the 24/7 availability. 

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DEGIRO review
Education 2 stars

Education can be improved. It provides limited educational tools and they are available only through the Dutch and UK websites.

At DEGIRO, you can learn in the following ways:

• Platform tutorial videos
• General educational videos

There are videos which cover topics, like what a broker is or what order types exist. There are also videos about the trading platform, e.g. how you can buy stock via DEGIRO web trading platform.

We missed the demo account, webinars, and educational texts.

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DEGIRO review
Safety

DEGIRO is a licensed investment firm regulated by Dutch Central Bank and Netherlands Financial Markets authorities. On the flip side, the information you can access about the company is limited.

DEGIRO is a Dutch broker established in 2008 serving mostly European clients. Is DEGIRO safe? To be certain, it is best to check two things: how you are protected if something goes south and what the background of the broker is.

How you are protected

DEGIRO is regulated by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) and The Netherlands Financial Markets Authority (AFM). Regulators of other countries - where DEGIRO offers its services - are also notified by DEGIRO and aware of its operation. For example, in the UK, DEGIRO is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

When you open an account with DEGIRO you get a €20,000 investor protection.  

A negative balance protection is also provided for CFDs.

Background

DEGIRO is a Dutch private company established in 2008. It has a 10 years track record. The longer the track record, the better. Longer track record means the company was able to manage financially tough time periods, like the financial crisis.

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.

Most of the products, like stocks or ETFs you can trade with DEGIRO are exchange-traded. Therefore you do not run a counterparty risk with DEGIRO. This is good news. If DEGIRO defaults your assets still will be safe.

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DEGIRO review
Bottom line

DEGIRO is a good choice if you want a simple platform and don’t want to spend a fortune on fees.

It is far cheaper than its big European competitors and only Interactive Brokers can compete with DEGIRO fees. DEGIRO also has great access to international markets and trading products. And it is als one of the best trading platforms for Europeans.

However, cheapness comes with some shortfalls. Education and research tools are limited, there is no forex trading and limited deposit and withdrawal options.

All in all, it is a great online broker. As there is no minimum deposit and no inactivity fee, feel free to try it out.

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