Hargreaves Lansdown fees explained

When it comes to brokerage fees Hargreaves Lansdown shows a mixed picture: some fees are high but some are low. First you need to figure out your approach or you should use our questionnaire to be able to tell whether Hargreaves Lansdown fees are an advantage for you. Continue reading about Hargreaves Lansdown fees and charges to see if this is the right brokerage for you or a similar broker like Charles Stanley Direct or Interactive Investor is better for you.

Here's a high level overview of Hargreaves Lansdown's fees

Online brokerages in general charge much lower brokerage fees than traditional brokerages do - this is largely due to the fact that online brokerages' businesses can be much better scaled: From a purely technical standpoint it doesn't make that much of a difference for them if they have 100 or 5000 clients.

This is not to say however that they don't have any fees at all. They make money by charging you at various events for various rates. Usually you need to keep an eye on these 3 types of fees:

• Trading fees - these are brokerage fees that you pay when you actually do a trade. What you pay is either a commission, a spread or financing rate. Some brokers apply all of these.
  • A commission is either based on the traded volume or it is fixed.
  • A spread is the difference between the buy price and the sell price
  • Financing rate or overnight rate is charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than one day.
• Non-trading fees. These occur related to some operations you make in your account, i.e. depositing money to your account, withdrawing money from it or not trading for an extended amount of time.

We compare Hargreaves Lansdown fees with its closest competitors, Charles Stanley Direct and Interactive Investor.

Hargreaves Lansdown's trading fees are mid-tier which means you need to pay special attention to asset classes with high trading fees.

Let's break down the trading fees into the different asset classes available at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Trading fees

Hargreaves Lansdown's trading fees are average.

Stock fees and ETF fees

Hargreaves Lansdown has high stock trading fees.

Fund fees

Hargreaves Lansdown fund fees are low.

Bond fees

Hargreaves Lansdown has low bond fees.

Financing rates

Hargreaves Lansdown financing rates are .

If you want to trade on margin and prefer to hold your positions long, financing costs can be significant.

Leverage is a double-edged sword and can dramatically amplify your profits. It can also just as dramatically amplify your losses. Trading foreign exchange/CFDs with any level of leverage may not be suitable for all investors.

Currency conversion fee

Hargreaves Lansdown will charge a Currency Conversion Fee for all trades on instruments denominated in a currency different to the currency of your account. The fee is charged as the following: first £5,000: 1.00%; next £5,000: 0.75%; next £10,000: 0.50%; over £20,000: 0.25%.

When it comes to looking at all the non-trading fees Hargreaves Lansdown is a cheap broker. This means that they don't charge you a lot for non-trading related activities on your trading account, like withdrawal fee.

Non-trading fees include various brokerage fees and charges at Hargreaves Lansdown that you pay not related to buying and selling assets. Among some others, typical non trading fees are withdrawal fee, deposit fee, inactivity fee and account fee.

Deposit fees are applied when you send money to your trading account from your bank account. Usually brokers don't charge money for that and Hargreaves Lansdown is not different: you will see the exact same amount on your brokerage account that you sent by any of the deposit methods Hargreaves Lansdown offers.

Unlike some online brokers we have reviewed Hargreaves Lansdown does not charge a withdrawal fee. This means that you'll see the same amount of money on your bank account that you transferred from your brokerage account.

Hargreaves Lansdown does not apply an inactivity fee which is great because your account will not be charged even if you do not trade for a longer time period (months or years).