eToro Review 2020

eToro offers free stock trading in Europe and has low CFD fees. On the negative side, forex trading fees and withdrawal fees are high.

How we ranked fees

We ranked eToro's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of eToro for each asset class. For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading spreads, commissions and financing rates are the most important fees.

We also compared eToro's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Plus500 and MarketsX. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of eToro alternatives.

To have a clear overview of eToro, let's start with the trading fees.

eToro trading fees

eToro trading fees are low.

We know it's hard to compare trading fees for CFD brokers. So how did we approach the problem of making their fees clear and comparable? We compare brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products.

We have chosen popular instruments within each asset class:

• Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50
• Stock CFDs: Apple and Vodafone
• Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP

A typical trade means buying a leveraged position, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $2,000 position for the stock index and stock CFDs and $20,000 for the forex transactions. The leverage we used is:

• 20:1 for stock index CFDs
• 5:1 for stock CFDs
• 30:1 for forex

These catch-all benchmark fees include spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let's see the verdict for eToro fees.

Stock fees and ETF fees

As a unique service on the market, eToro offers zero-commission stock and ETF trading for European clients. eToro, which is primarily a CFD broker, also lets you trade with real stocks and ETFs if you set the leverage to one. For non-EU clients, there is no zero-commission trading, but eToro charges low fees, i.e. the spread (the difference between the ask and the bid prices) is low. If you set the leverage higher than one, you will be trading with CFDs.

CFD fees

eToro has generally low CFD trading fees. Compared to its closest competitors, its fees are roughly in the same range.

Forex fees

eToro forex fees are high, although still lower than MarketsX's.

Non-trading fees

eToro has high non-trading fees, as it charges $10 per month after one year of inactivity, and its withdrawal fee is $25.

Account opening at eToro is seamless and very fast.

Can you open an account?

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Most likely yes, as eToro serves almost every countries except for 36 (of which a big chunk are African countries).

What is the minimum deposit at eToro?

In most cases the required eToro minimum deposit is $200. It is different for the following countries:

• If you are from Israel, it is $10,000.
• For residents of Australia and the USA, the minimum first-time deposit is $50.
• For residents of Russia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, the minimum first-time deposit is $500.

Account types

eToro offers two very simple account types: there is a live account, as well as a demo (or virtual) account, where you can try out the platform with play money.

Open demo account

How to open your account

The account opening process is hassle-free and fully digital. In addition, it is also very fast, as we were able to open an account within one day. 

You have to start by registering with your email account or with your Facebook or Google+ account.  And that's practically it, you can immediately access the trading platform and start to trade with a $100,000 demo account.

If you want to go further and fund it with real money, you have to verify your identity and residency by uploading the required documents:

• Proof of identity: a copy of your passport or personal ID.
• Proof of residency: a copy of a utility bill or bank statement.

Depositing money is free and easy, with a lot of available options, including credit cards. However, there is a withdrawal fee and only USD accounts are available.

Account base currencies

eToro only allows USD accounts, which means that your funding will be converted by eToro to USD. For example, if you deposit EUR, a 0.025% fee will be applied at funding and the same fee will also be charged when you withdraw EUR. Alternatively, you can deposit in USD, e.g. using your credit card. In that case, your bank will make the conversion at its own rate.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee.

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

Compare digital banks

Deposit fees and options

eToro charges no deposit fees. 

Similarly to other CFD brokers, there are a lot of depositing options:

• Bank transfer
• Credit/Debit card
• PayPal
• Skrill
• Neteller
• WebMoney

A bank transfer takes 4-7 business days, and there is no maximum deposit. In comparison, while credit/debit card and electronic wallet deposits are instant, there are per transaction limits: $40,000 in the case of credit/debit cards, and either $10,000 or $20,000 in the case of electronic wallets.

You can only deposit money from funding sources that are in your name.

eToro withdrawal fees and options

eToro has a $25 withdrawal fee, which is high compared to other CFD brokers. In addition, eToro has a $50 minimum amount limit on withdrawals. 

Withdrawal options are the same as the funding options: you can withdraw money using bank transfer, credit/debit card or electronic wallets, similar to other CFD brokers.

How long does it take to withdraw money from eToro?

We tested withdrawal by bank transfer, and it took 2 business days.

How do you withdraw money from eToro?

1. Click on the 'Withdraw Funds' tab in the left-hand menu.
2. Enter the amount you wish to withdraw (in USD).
3. Complete the electronic withdrawal form as required.
4. Click 'Submit.'

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

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eToro offers a user-friendly and well-designed web trading platform. In addition, social trading is also available. On the other hand, the customizability is limited.

eToro's platform looks like a modern platform should in this day and age.

The web trading platform is available in many languages:

Look and feel

eToro's trading platform is a pleasure for the eye. With its clean design and great functions, eToro did a great job of combining good design with functionality. The menus and buttons are where you expect them to be, everything is labelled correctly and the color scheme is pleasant.

It is hard to customize though, as the panels are fixed. One exception is the watchlist, which is easy to configure.

Login and security

eToro has an optional, safer, two-step login system. This can make it more complicated to log in, but in turn it provides you with added security.  

Search functions

The built-in search is predictive and easy to use. Type in a company or product name and you can see the results. Also, you can search easily via tickers. 

Placing orders

Placing orders is self-explanatory.

You can use the following order types: market, limit, stop-loss, trailing stop-loss.

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

Alerts and notifications

You can set price alerts and notifications easily. eToro's alert function lets you know when an asset reaches a price target, and you also get a notification when your order is fulfilled. On the web platform, this is in the form of an icon update or a browser notification. On mobile, it is a push notification. 

Portfolio and fee reports

You will surely want to know how your portfolio is performing and how much fees you have paid. You can decide how you want to see your portfolio reports: a list of your assets or a pie chart showing your current portfolio.

Finding the fee report is quite complicated at first. Click on the 'Portfolio' tab, then go to 'History,' and under the gear icon at the top right, you can access and download your account statement. This is a well-structured pdf file showing all of your cash flows, including fees. When you are following someone, you will see all trades separately. However, fees are not added up, but listed individually per fee deduction. 

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

eToro's mobile platform is well-designed and intuitive. It is a pleasure to use.

The eToro mobile trading platform is available for iOS and Android. We tested it with iOS.

It's available in the same 21 languages as the web trading platform.

The mobile platform has the same great functionality as the web platform. It uses mobile-specific intuitive functions, such as push notifications or good touch interactions. For example, you can swipe left and right in your portfolio to access charts or open a new trade.

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

eToro does not offer a desktop trading platform.

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

At eToro you can trade with CFDs and forex, as well as real stocks, ETFs and many cryptocurrencies. In addition, the broker also offers innovative services like social trading and CopyPortfolio.

eToro is primarily a CFD and forex broker. However, you can also trade with real stocks, ETFs, and a lot of different cryptos. eToro also has some nifty features, such as social trading (Copy People) and CopyPortfolio.

So, let's break down eToro's markets and products. 

All non-leveraged buy positions for equities, ETFs and cryptocurrencies are traded as real assets. This means that when you buy stocks, ETFs or cryptos without any leverage (i.e. leverage is set to one), you will buy real stocks, ETFs and cryptos, not CFDs. 

All other positions are CFDs:

• leveraged buy positions and all sell positions of stocks, ETFs and cryptos
• all positions of forex, commodities and indices

Within CFDs, in addition to the traditional way of trading, you can

• follow and copy other traders' trading (this is Copy People, also called social trading), or
• invest in a compiled CFD portfolio (this is CopyPortfolio).

To learn more about CFDs, read our CFD trading tips.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% 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 eToro, you can trade with an average number of products. For example, there are fewer stock CFDs available than at Plus500, another CFD broker. The same can be said about currency pairs and commodities. On the other hand, eToro offers a wider range of stock and ETF CFDs than its closest competitors, and you can also trade with many of the most popular cryptocurrencies.

You can change the default leverage level of the products.

Changing the leverage manually is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of a trade. For example, instead of trading with 5:1 leverage, only trade with 2:1 leverage in the case of stock CFDs. Be careful with forex and CFD trading, since the pre-set leverage levels are high.

CopyTrader

eToro has two distinctive innovations, both being great features, CopyTrader and CopyPortfolio.

CopyTrader is the so-called social trading feature. What is eToro really good at? Well, this is it! One by one you can copy the portfolio of traders who also trade with eToro. This can be quite useful. You can browse through the profiles of other eToro traders, checking their previous performance on an annual and a monthly level. Their portfolio is also public information. Additionally, eToro also applies a risk score to each trader. There are tons of more stats for each profile, like trades per week, average holding time, performance on charts, and you can also see their detailed profiles as well as their news feed comments. Imagine Facebook profiles, but with fewer inspirational and more market quotes. 

The minimum amount you can invest in one trade is $200, while the maximum is $500,000. Furthermore, you can copy a maximum of 100 traders simultaneously.

There is one drawback of CopyTrader: you cannot close part of your position, only the full amount.

Disclaimer: Indicative prices; current market price is shown on the eToro trading platform. Past performance is not an indication of future results. The trading history presented is less than 5 years old and may not suffice as a basis for investment decisions. This post is not investment advice.

CopyPortfolio

CopyPortfolio is practically an investment fund, but under the hood it is a CFD portfolio. While with CopyTrader you were following one trader, with CopyPortfolio you can invest either in a theme or in a portfolio of top eToro traders.

• Investing in themes means for example investing in a portfolio of big banks or cryptocurrencies. Practically, "Big Banks CopyPortfolio" consists of CFDs traded by the largest investment banks, such as Citi, Bank of America, HSBC or others.  
• The other way to invest via CopyPortfolio is to invest in a portfolio comprised of multiple "star" traders.
• There is also a crypto CopyPortfolio available.

Disclaimer: Indicative prices; current market price is shown on the eToro trading platform. Past performance is not an indication of future results. The trading history presented is less than 5 years old and may not suffice as a basis for investment decisions. This post is not investment advice.

The proportion of CFDs in the specific CopyPortfolio is clearly indicated. You can check performance and asset distribution, and read the investment strategy. CopyPortfolios are built around a theme by eToro's algorithms or by eToro external partners. This might all sound a bit complicated, but at the end of the day, this means you can invest easily in a quasi-fund. There is a minimum investment amount for CopyPortfolio, which is $5,000. eToro also checks your financial knowledge to determine whether CopyPortfolio is right for you. 

Stocks and ETFs

If you buy non-leveraged stocks or ETFs, you are buying the real asset. Usually, this feature is not offered by other CFD and forex brokers. In that sense, eToro's selection of 16 stock markets to access is great. However, compared to stockbrokers like Saxo Bank (~35 markets) or Interactive Brokers (~80), it is poor. There are also risks you should take into account when you choose stocks. Your capital is at risk.

At eToro, you have access to the following 16 stock exchanges: 

• Amsterdam
• NYSE
• New York Tech
• Euronext Brussels
• Euronext Lisbon
• Frankfurt
• London
• Paris
• Madrid
• Milan
• Zurich
• Oslo
• Stockholm
• Copenhagen
• Helsinki
• Hong Kong

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency prices can fluctuate widely and are therefore not appropriate for all investors. Trading cryptocurrencies is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework, such as MiFID. Therefore, when using eToro's Cryptocurrencies Trading Service you will not get any investor protection. 

Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 years old and may not suffice as a basis for investment decision. Indicative prices; the current market price is shown on the eToro trading platform. Highly volatile unregulated investment product. No EU investor protection. Your capital is at risk.

You can trade with a wide variety of cryptocurrencies on eToro's standard trading platform, far more than at other brokers: 

• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Cash
• Ethereum
• Ethereum Classic
• Ripple
• Litecoin
• Cardano
• IOTA
• TRON
• ZCASH
• Binance coin
• Dash
• Stellar
• EOS
• NEO
• Tezos
• XRP

Technically, when you go long in any crypto, you will own the real coin. When you go short, it is a CFD. 

To dig deeper, read eToro's CFD description. We would also recommend reading Brokerchooser's how to invest in Bitcoin 101.

eToro has good technical analysis tools. There are some analyst recommendations and market sentiment indicators available, but no comprehensive fundamental data.

Research is available in 21 languages (the same languages that are available on the web and mobile trading platforms).

Recommendations

For some popular stocks, you can find recommendations, like analyst consensus (buy/hold/sell), average price target, hedge fund sentiment and insider trading sentiment. In some cases, you can also read the analyst reports. Unfortunately, these research features are available only for a very limited number of stocks.

Fundamental data

Some basic fundamental data on stocks is available on eToro's platform. This includes the profile of the company and some very basic indicators and ratios such as P/E, EPS, dividend yield and beta. No fundamental data is available for asset classes other than stocks. 

You can also sign up for a daily market analysis newsletter in which you get a useful list of the market highlights. 

Charting

eToro's charting tool is quite good and you can use many, ca. 70 technical indicators. We liked that charts are automatically saved, so you don’t have to waste your time setting up your indicators time and again. On the negative side, you can only see the data for the past ca. 6 months, no longer time horizon can be set.

News feed

The news feed is not really an official news feed, e.g. it is not like an integrated Bloomberg feed. Rather, it is like a market-themed Twitter feed, showing messages posted by eToro users and analysts. Hashtags (#) are used for themes and dollar signs ($) for assets. We were not a huge fan of this feature, but if your tastes differ you might like it.

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eToro customer service is good: you can reach it on several channels and get quick and relevant answers. On the flip side, you can't reach them on weekends and it's difficult to find the live chat service on the webpage.

You can contact eToro's customer service via live chat and a web-based ticketing system where you will get an answer by email. It was always quick and reliable when we tested it.

On the flip side, the customer service cannot be reached on the weekends, and it's difficult to find the live chat function on the website as it is hidden under the FAQ under the 'Help Center' link.

eToro customer service, in theory, is available in all 21 languages the web and mobile trading platforms offer. We only tested customer service in English. 

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

eToro's education tools are limited, with only some medium-quality videos about investing available.

For practice, you can use a demo account. Other education tools are not really strong at eToro. There is one short tutorial video on how to use the platform, and some basic educational videos about investing and the financial markets. 

The content discussed is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. 

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

eToro is regulated by top-tier financial authorities like the FCA, ASIC and CySEC. However, it is not listed on any stock exchange, does not disclose financial information and does not have a bank parent.

Is eToro regulated?

Yes, it is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

eToro is based in Israel and was founded in 2007.

Is eToro safe?

To be certain, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• what the background of the broker is

How you are protected

eToro operates three legal entities and serves customers based on their residency. This matters because the entity you belong to defines the amount of protection you get.

• Citizens of the United Kingdom can open an account at eToro (UK) Limited and thus they will be protected by the FCA. If eToro becomes insolvent, eToro UK clients can expect to be compensated by the maximum amount of £85,000 guaranteed by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
• Australian clients are served by eToro Australia, which is regulated by ASIC, the Australian financial authority. ASIC however does not provide any obligatory investor protection for a pre-set amount. 
• Other investors will have their live trading accounts with eToro (Europe) Limited, which is regulated by the Cypriot watchdog, CySEC. The amount of investment protection coverage at eToro Europe is a maximum of €20,000. This threshold is set by the Cypriot Investors Compensation Fund.

Here is a handy summary table for easy comparison:

There is no investor protection for cryptos.

eToro also provides negative balance protection for forex spot and CFD trading, but only for retail clients from the European Union. Professional and non-EU clients are not covered with any negative balance protection

For more details, check eToro’s description of its regulation and license.

Background

eToro was established in 2007. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises. This means that it has already survived one crisis, which is a good sign. eToro is a privately-owned fintech startup, with owners including venture capital funds like Commerz Ventures Gmbh, the VC arm of Commerzbank, as well as Israeli US, and Chinese investors. eToro is lead by Yoni Assia, its well-known founder and CEO.

eToro is still considered a startup. It is not listed on any stock exchange and it also does not provide regular financial statements to the public. Hence, it is hard to know anything about its financial performance. It also does not have a bank parent, which could help provide capital to eToro in case of hard times. At the same time, being regulated by top-tier authorities is a great sign for eToro's safety.

Find your safe broker

eToro has zero-commission stock trading in Europe. Account opening is really fast and seamless. It has also a lot of innovative features, like social trading.

It has some drawbacks, though. Forex fees and non-trading fees are high, and eToro only allows USD accounts. 

Overall, we would recommend eToro for its social trading feature and cheap stock trading.

Risk disclaimer

eToro is a multi-asset platform that offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFD assets.

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% 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.

Cryptoassets are volatile instruments which can fluctuate widely in a very short timeframe and therefore are not appropriate for all investors. Other than via CFDs, trading cryptoassets is unregulated and therefore is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework.

Past performance is not an indication of future results.

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75% of retail CFD accounts lose money

How does eToro work?

eToro is primarily a CFD and forex broker, but you can also trade with real stocks, ETFs and many cryptocurrencies. It is well-known for its social trading feature, with which you can follow and copy the portfolio of a trader who also trades with eToro. 

Who owns eToro?

At the time of this eToro review, it is a privately held company, therefore it is not required to publish its ownership structure. What we know is that eToro does not have any banking parent company (little chance for a bailout in case of bankruptcy), and it is currently operating under two legal names. The well-known founder and CEO of eToro is Yoni Assia.

eToro is funded by venture capitalists. Here are a few of them:

• Anthemis Group, UK
• BRM Capital, Israel
• CommerzVentures GmbH, Germany
• Cubit Investments, Israel
• MoneyTime Ventures, USA
• Ping An, China
• Spark Capital, USA

Who regulates eToro?

eToro is regulated by financial authorities in Cyprus, the UK and Australia, corresponding to one of the three entities eToro operates under:

• eToro (Europe) Ltd. - Cyprus - is regulated by CySEC (the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) under license # 109/10, for servicing EEA (European Economic Area) member states, and countries outside of it.
• eToro (UK) Ltd - UK - is regulated by the UK financial authority, the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).
• eToro (AUS) Capital Pty Ltd - is regulated by the Australian watchdog, ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission).

How does eToro make money?

eToro makes money through various fees, and the trading services they provide on their website. Although eToro does not make its financial statements public, the main source of revenue for eToro is likely to be:

• Spreads: Spreads are the gap between the price you and the broker buys/sells at. To put it simply, if an Apple stock costs $100 at market price, eToro will charge $100.1 for it. The difference of $0.1 per CFD is kept by eToro. For further info, read how CFDs work.
• eTtoro overnight fee: For this, you need to understand two things, leveraged trades and loans. Leveraged means that you can trade with more money than you actually have. Let's say you want to trade Apple with 1:10 leverage and you have $10. This means that using leverage you can buy $100 worth of Apple with your ten bucks, as the missing $90 will be lent to you by eToro, which will charge you a fee (interest) for this loan.
• Other non-trading fees: eToro charges fees for several services on their website, which are not directly related to trading, also known as non-trading fees. Some examples of non-trading fees are:
  • Withdrawal fees ($25/transaction): pay to withdraw your money
  • Conversion fees: pay when eToro converts money to fund your account

Can eToro be trusted?

eToro is regulated by CySEC in Cyprus, ASIC in Australia, and the FCA in the UK. This is a good thing. eToro is not listed on any stock exchange, nor does it publish its financial data. Overall, Brokerchooser's view is that eToro is not a scam, but it is not a fully transparent broker either.

How does eToro copy work?

eToro copy, a.k.a. CopyTrader, is a tool for social trading, which works by you copying the trading decisions of other people, or other people copying your trades. You can search for traders and other users, and see how their portfolio has performed historically. Once you found a trader of your liking, you can copy their every trading decision, which is handled automatically by the platform. You can decide how much money you want to invest in copying another trader, and you can close your investment whenever you wish. If you want, you can also make money by having other traders copy you.

Are eToro profits taxable?

If you make profits by trading on eToro, these can be subject to taxation laws and regulations. This always depends on the country of your origin. For further information about eToro and taxes, we recommend contacting your local tax authority.

Can I use eToro in the USA? Can I use eToro in Canada?

Currently, people from the USA cannot use eToro because US regulation (the SEC) does not allow brokers to provide CFD instruments (eToro is a CFD broker) for US residents. This means no regulated broker will accept retail clients from the USA to trade CFDs, so in this sense it is not only eToro that cannot serve US residents.

eToro cannot be used by the residents of the following countries:

• United States of America (residents and citizens, including its incorporated and unincorporated territories)
• Belgium
• Canada (including Quebec & Ontario)
• the Republic of Turkey
• Japan
• Brazil
• the Islamic Republic of Iran
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
• Cuba
• Sudan
• Syria

When will eToro be available in the US?

The US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) does not allow CFD instruments to be sold to US citizens. Until this law does not change, eToro will not be allowed to operate in the US under its current business model.