Trading 212 vs Revolut — Honest 2026 Investing Comparison

TL;DR

Data shows Trading 212 and Revolut Trading both market themselves as zero-commission, fractional-share, app-first brokers — but they're very different products under the surface. Trading 212 is a dedicated broker with FCA/CySEC regulation, FSCS protection up to £85,000 (or ICF €20,000 depending on entity), ~13,000 instruments, AutoInvest "Pies", and an Interest on Cash feature paying meaningful yields on uninvested EUR/GBP/USD. Revolut Trading is a Lithuanian-licensed investing module inside the Revolut neobank app, with a curated catalogue (~2,000 stocks and a few hundred ETFs), tight integration with the multi-currency wallet, and commission tiers tied to your Revolut plan. For passive investors who want depth, Pies and high cash interest, many investors consider Trading 212 the stronger choice. For people already living inside the Revolut app who want one-tap small trades, Revolut wins on convenience.

Who Should Even Consider Each One?

Trading 212 operates two main entities relevant to European retail clients: Trading 212 UK Ltd (FCA-regulated, FSCS up to £85,000) and Trading 212 Markets Ltd in Cyprus (CySEC-regulated, ICF up to €20,000). Most EU clients onboard via the Cypriot entity. The platform is purpose-built for investing — there's no card, no FX wallet, no crypto, just stocks/ETFs/CFDs and a Cash ISA in the UK.

Revolut Trading runs through Revolut Securities Europe UAB (Lithuanian licence, deposit guarantee scheme up to €100,000 for cash held with the banking entity, investor compensation up to €22,000). The investing tab sits next to your card, FX, crypto and savings. That integration is the entire pitch: spot some news on a Sunday, tap into your portfolio in three seconds.

If you primarily want to invest, Trading 212 is built for the job. If investing is one of ten things you do inside Revolut, the friction at Revolut is lower.

Side-by-Side Specs

Costs in Real Scenarios

The "zero commission" race ends at the FX line. Here's how the bill actually lands for typical 2026 trades, assuming a EUR-denominated client.

The pattern: Trading 212's 0.15% FX is consistently the lowest among app-first brokers, and there are no per-trade commissions that scale with size. Revolut is competitive on weekdays for small EUR-quoted trades, but the 1% weekend FX surcharge and tiered free-trade quotas mean medium-sized trades or off-hours trades quickly cost more.

For any investor whose portfolio is denominated partly in USD (CSPX, VOO-like UCITS, US individual stocks), the FX gap compounds noticeably over years.

ETF and Stock Universe

This is the second big gap.

Trading 212 advertises 13,000+ instruments. In practice, that means broad coverage of:

• US stocks (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX)
• UK stocks (LSE main + AIM)
• All major continental European exchanges (Xetra, Euronext, Borsa Italiana, SIX, OMX)
• 1,500+ ETFs, including the entire UCITS staple set: VWCE, VWRL, IWDA, EUNL, CSPX, SXR8, EIMI, IS3N, AGGH, plus thematic and factor funds from iShares, Vanguard, Amundi, SPDR, Xtrackers, Invesco, WisdomTree
• Pies with up to 100 instruments per Pie and automated rebalancing on monthly/weekly cadence

Revolut Trading runs a curated universe optimised for app simplicity. You'll find:

• ~2,000 US stocks
• A few hundred ETFs including the most popular UCITS funds (VWCE, EUNL, CSPX), but the long tail (sector, factor, thematic, smaller providers) is sparse
• Limited direct EU stock coverage on Standard plans; Premium plans expand this somewhat
• No options, no futures, no bonds, no derivatives at the retail tier

If your portfolio is "VWCE plus three sector ETFs", both work. If you want to express a specific tilt — say a small-cap value Amundi ETF or a clean-energy Lyxor fund — Trading 212 is the only one of the two with the catalogue depth.

Tax Considerations for Poland

Neither broker issues a Polish PIT-8C, because neither has a Polish entity for these services. Polish tax residents using either platform will need to:

• Convert every transaction to PLN at the National Bank of Poland reference rate of the day prior to settlement
• Apply FIFO across all buys/sells per ISIN
• Declare net capital gains on PIT-38
• Declare dividends separately (typically PIT-38 if WHT was withheld)

Both brokers provide a yearly consolidated tax statement (Trading 212's is reasonably structured; Revolut's is improving year on year), but neither replaces the manual PLN reconciliation. Many investors consider this the single largest "hidden cost" of using foreign brokers — it's not money out of pocket, but it's hours every spring.

Crucially, neither offers IKE or IKZE. If retirement-account tax shielding matters for a Polish resident, both lose to KNF-licensed brokers like XTB, Bossa or mBank eMakler.

Pros and Cons

Trading 212

Pros:

• 0.15% FX is the lowest among app-first commission-free brokers
• 13,000+ instruments with deep ETF and EU-stock coverage
• Pies with automated rebalancing — best-in-class auto-invest
• Material interest on uninvested cash (QMMF-based, EUR/GBP/USD)
• FSCS £85,000 cover for UK entity, ICF €20,000 for EU entity
• No inactivity fees, no maintenance fees
• Both web and mobile platforms are usable

Cons:

• ICF €20,000 cap for EU entity is lower than competitors' €22,000 + DGS €100,000 stack
• No PIT-8C for Polish residents
• No IKE/IKZE
• CFD product is offered (separate account) and marketed alongside investing
• Pies can encourage over-rebalancing for tax-inefficient strategies in non-tax-sheltered accounts

Revolut Trading

Pros:

• Trading sits inside the same app as your card, wallet and crypto
• 0.25% weekday FX is competitive
• Lithuanian DGS up to €100,000 on cash held with the banking entity
• Recurring auto-invest works smoothly
• No PIT-8C is irrelevant if you're not a Polish tax resident
• Fractional US shares from $1

Cons:

• 1% weekend FX is a real cost
• Curated catalogue is much smaller; ETF long tail is sparse
• Free-trade quotas and best features are gated by Revolut plan
• No IKE/IKZE
• Web platform is minimal — mobile-first to a fault for serious investors
• No dedicated investing-side support; you queue with general Revolut support

Who Should Pick Trading 212

• You want the cheapest FX rate among app-first brokers (0.15%)
• You want the deepest ETF and EU-stock catalogue without leaving an app-style platform
• You like Pies — automated, rebalancing, multi-instrument allocations
• You hold meaningful uninvested cash and want yield on it
• You're a UK resident and value FSCS £85,000 cover
• You want a platform that does one thing (investing) and does it well

Who Should Pick Revolut

• You already live inside Revolut for cards, FX and savings
• You make small, frequent buys funded directly from your Revolut wallet
• Lithuanian DGS €100,000 on cash matters more to you than ICF €20,000 on securities
• You don't trade on weekends (or you can stomach 1% FX when you do)
• You want one app for everything and accept the trade-off in catalogue depth
• You're not a Polish tax resident, or you're fine doing manual PIT-38

FAQ

Are Trading 212 and Revolut equally safe?

Both are EU/EEA-regulated and operate under investor compensation schemes, but the structure differs. Trading 212 EU clients get ICF up to €20,000 (CY) or FSCS £85,000 (UK). Revolut Trading clients get up to €100,000 from the Lithuanian deposit guarantee scheme on cash held with the banking entity, plus up to €22,000 investor compensation on securities. Both segregate client assets. Many investors consider both adequate for retail balances under their respective caps; very large balances may want to spread across multiple regulated entities regardless.

Which is cheaper for buying CSPX every month?

Trading 212. 0.15% FX vs 0.25% on weekdays (or 1% on weekends) means roughly half the FX cost per buy. Over a 10-year DCA, that's a few hundred euros saved on FX alone, plus a few hundred more if you ever buy on weekends.

Can I hold both accounts at once?

Yes. Many investors use Revolut for casual small buys (because it's already on their phone) and Trading 212 for the main long-term ETF Pie. There's no rule against multiple broker accounts, and tools like Freenance let you see all of them on one dashboard.

Do either offer Polish IKE / IKZE?

No. Neither Trading 212 nor Revolut Trading offers IKE or IKZE. For Polish retirement-account tax shielding you need a KNF-licensed broker like XTB, Bossa or mBank eMakler.

What about the cash-interest features?

Both pay something on uninvested cash, but Trading 212's QMMF-based rates are typically materially higher than Revolut Standard-plan savings, and apply to all major currencies the broker holds. Revolut's higher saving yields are usually gated behind paid plans.

Side Notes That Move the Decision

A few smaller details that don't make the headline tables but consistently come up in support tickets and broker forums.

Trading 212 Pies. Pies are arguably Trading 212's killer feature: you build a target allocation across up to 100 instruments, set a recurring contribution, and the platform automatically buys whatever's underweight to keep you on target. This is genuinely best-in-class for retail investors building rule-based portfolios — far ahead of Revolut's single-instrument recurring buys. For someone running an "All-Weather", three-fund or dividend portfolio, the Pie automation alone can be the deciding factor.

Revolut's plan structure. Standard plan gets 1 free trade/month, Premium 5, Metal 10, Ultra unlimited. Plan upgrades cost €4–€45/month. Many investors upgrade for the free-trade quota, then realise the FX markup (which doesn't change with plan tier) is the larger cost. Plan upgrades rarely pencil out for investing alone — they only make sense if you use Revolut's card, travel benefits and FX wallet too.

Currency wallets. Revolut's edge is that you can hold EUR, USD, GBP, PLN and others in the same wallet, converting at 0.25% any time. If you already have USD (from a salary or freelance income), you can buy USD-quoted ETFs without an extra FX conversion at trade time. Trading 212 doesn't operate a multi-currency wallet, but its 0.15% FX is so low that the difference rarely matters for retail flows.

Cash interest mechanics. Both pay something on uninvested cash, but the structures differ. Trading 212's "Interest on Cash" routes EUR/GBP/USD into qualifying money-market funds (QMMFs) with rates closely tracking ECB/BoE/Fed reference rates net of a small spread. Revolut's higher savings yields are typically gated behind paid plans, with Standard plan rates significantly lower. For an investor parking €5,000–€20,000 of cash buffer in their broker, Trading 212's structure is materially more generous.

Order types and platform depth. Trading 212 supports market, limit, stop, stop-limit and trailing stops on most instruments. Revolut offers market and limit orders only on most stocks. For a buy-and-hold investor, market orders are fine; for anyone who wants stop-losses or to leg into positions, Trading 212 is the more capable platform.

Customer support. Trading 212 support is in-app chat plus email — response times are reasonable but not 24/7. Revolut Standard-plan support has a reputation for slow response times during high-load periods; paid plans get materially faster triage. Many investors consider this Revolut's biggest weakness in an actual emergency.

CFD product warning. Trading 212 offers CFDs as a separate account. The investing account and CFD account are clearly separated, but new users can confuse them. Revolut Trading does not offer CFDs at all on its standard offering, which is arguably a feature for passive long-term investors.

A Quick Decision Framework

If you're stuck, the question typically reduces to:

1. Do you want the lowest possible FX rate? Trading 212's 0.15% is hard to beat at the app-first tier.
2. Do you build multi-instrument portfolios with rule-based rebalancing? Trading 212 Pies.
3. Do you already live inside the Revolut app for cards and FX? Revolut's convenience compounds.
4. Are you a UK resident who values FSCS £85,000 cover? Trading 212 UK entity.
5. Do you trade on weekends? Avoid Revolut's 1% weekend FX surcharge.

For most EU residents who don't need IKE/IKZE, Trading 212 wins on cost and depth. Revolut wins when investing is a side feature next to your main banking relationship.

Tracking Both Accounts in One Place

If you split your portfolio across Trading 212 and Revolut — or add a third (XTB, IBKR) for the IKE wrapper — you'll quickly want a single view of total exposure, allocation drift and cost basis. Freenance aggregates multiple brokers and bank accounts on one dashboard, with FIFO accounting and PLN reconciliation handled automatically.

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