DEGIRO vs Trading 212.
DEGIRO or Trading 212 for a monthly index buy? The same pattern priced through both price sheets, the protection behind each, who does your tax paperwork, and what leaving costs — side by side, verified, verdict-free.
Every figure verified against the brokers’ own price sheets: July 2026. Fee schedules reprice mid-year — if that date looks old, check the price sheet before acting.
The same buy, both bills
| Measure | DEGIRO | Trading 212 |
|---|---|---|
| The bill this year | €12 | €0 |
| Twenty years of it | ≈ €441.43 | ≈ €0 |
The example pattern — €300 a month, no pot, a euro-listed fund. Your pattern is different: run yours through The Broker Bill
Where they differ
| Dimension | DEGIRO | Trading 212 |
|---|---|---|
| Available in | 29 countries, on its published list | 30 countries, on its published list; the UK too, via its UK entity |
| The monthly buy | €1 · manual order | €0 · savings plan |
| Conversion | 0.25% | 0.15% |
| Savings plan | manual, whole units | automatic · fractions |
| Protection | German Investor Compensation Scheme — 90% up to €20,000 (securities shortfalls) | Cyprus ICF up to €20,000, or German EdW 90% up to €20,000 — depends on your country's entity |
| The cash | Uninvested cash sits in a personal Cash Account at flatexDEGIRO Bank SE — €100,000 German deposit guarantee. The bank pays 0% on it — part of how the cheap trades get paid for. | Client money held at major EU/UK banks; opting into interest sweeps cash into money market funds — “treated as an investment and not as money held with a bank”, its own words. |
| Does your taxes in | — | Germany |
| The exit | Transfer out €20 per position, plus external costs. | In-kind transfers out are free, whole shares only (fractions are sold) — but not from its German-entity accounts: there, leaving means selling. |
Where they match
- Recurring €0/yr
The honest notes
DEGIRO
The old default of European index investors — today a branch of a German bank, serving most of the EU from a single entity. Its appeal is a cheap flat handling fee on a core list of ETFs; its limits are structural: no savings plans and no fractional shares, so every month means logging in and buying whole units by hand, and the cheap list runs through a single trading venue. It pays nothing on your idle cash — that's part of how the cheap trades get paid for. Fits someone who doesn't mind ten manual clicks a month and wants broad, cheap market access from almost anywhere in the EU.
DEGIRO — the fine print
flatexDEGIRO Bank SE, Dutch branch trading as DEGIRO — German bank, BaFin; AFM/DNB in NL
ETF Core Selection — €1 handling fee per trade on 1,000+ ETFs (all via Tradegate), no fair-use restriction, manual orders only. Any other exchange: €3 plus a €2.50-a-year connectivity fee.
No automatic investing and no fractions — its own pages say so plainly. Every month is a manual order, in whole units.
Uninvested cash sits in a personal Cash Account at flatexDEGIRO Bank SE — €100,000 German deposit guarantee. The bank pays 0% on it — part of how the cheap trades get paid for.
No native withholding anywhere — a free annual report and the filing is yours; transaction taxes are passed through at source.
Transfer out €20 per position, plus external costs.
Trading 212
The widest-available of the free apps — nearly all of the EEA — and the fullest automation: zero commission, a small conversion fee as its main visible charge, and “Pies” that auto-invest and rebalance with fractions. The fine print is where your attention should go. Which entity you contract with depends on your country, and with it the compensation scheme behind you; share lending can be on unless you turn it off (and isn't offered at all under its German entity); interest on cash comes via money-market funds, which are investments, not insured deposits. And the leveraged side of the house lives one tab away. Free, genuinely — checked settings and a closed tab are the price.
Trading 212 — the fine print
Trading 212 Markets Ltd (Cyprus, CySEC) or Trading 212 EU GmbH (Germany, BaFin) — your country decides
Any buy is commission-free — a Pie/AutoInvest or a manual order; the one account fee is the 0.15% currency conversion.
Pies & AutoInvest: scheduled buys on your rhythm that self-rebalance, fractional; each Pie's minimum derives from its smallest slice.
Client money held at major EU/UK banks; opting into interest sweeps cash into money market funds — “treated as an investment and not as money held with a bank”, its own words.
German residents (under its German entity) get capital-gains tax withheld automatically since January 2026; everyone else self-reports with its Capital Income Statement.
In-kind transfers out are free, whole shares only (fractions are sold) — but not from its German-entity accounts: there, leaving means selling.
No affiliate links — no broker pays me, and none of them knows it's on this page. The order is arithmetic, not sponsorship.
Education, not advice. Fee schedules change and brokers reprice — check the current price sheet before you open anything. Which broker suits you also depends on your country and your tax situation; I'm not a licensed adviser, happily.
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