Trade Republic Review 2026 — Fees, ETFs, Verdict

TL;DR

Trade Republic charges a flat €1 per trade, runs free savings plans from €1, and offers 2,400+ ETFs plus stocks and crypto across the EU. It is licensed in Germany by BaFin (Trade Republic Bank GmbH), and customer cash sits at partner banks (Deutsche Bank, JPM, Citi, SocGen) — each protected by Germany's deposit guarantee scheme up to €100,000 per partner bank. Best for cost-sensitive savers who want fractional ETF DCA on a phone. Worst for active traders who need advanced charts, bond ladders, or US-listed options. Verdict: the cheapest mainstream EU broker for ETF savings plans in 2026, with a sharp mobile-first UX — at the cost of a thin desktop product. Rates and fees current as of Q1 2026.

Robo-advisor or DIY broker?

Trade Republic sits in a confusing middle. It is not a discretionary robo-advisor like Scalable Wealth or Bunq Investing — there is no algorithmic portfolio rebalancing, no questionnaire, no managed risk profile. You pick the ETFs yourself. But it also is not a full-stack broker like Interactive Brokers — there is no margin, no options, no order types beyond market and limit, and no real desktop platform.

What it actually is: a low-cost neobroker built around the savings-plan use case. You set up a recurring €25/month buy of, say, the iShares Core MSCI World, and the platform executes it for €0. That single feature explains why Trade Republic crossed 8 million users across 17 EU countries by 2026.

This review walks through fees, the cash-interest product, the investment universe, and where Trade Republic genuinely beats the German and pan-EU competition — and where it doesn't.

Key facts at a glance

How fees work

The pricing model is unusually flat for an EU broker:

• €1 per stock or ETF trade, regardless of order size. Trade Republic books this as a "third-party fee" and the actual broker spread is zero.
• €0 for any savings plan execution from a €1 minimum. The full ETF universe of ~2,400 funds is eligible.
• €1 per crypto trade plus a 1% spread baked into the price (which is steep — Bitstamp or Kraken Pro will be cheaper for active crypto buyers).
• No FX fee on US stocks because Trade Republic routes them through the EUR-denominated LS Exchange in Hamburg. The catch: spreads on this venue widen outside US market hours.
• Cash interest is paid monthly on uninvested EUR, currently around 3.0% on balances up to €50,000. Above that, the rate drops to 0%. Rate tracks ECB deposit facility minus a small margin and has fallen from the 4% peak of 2024.

There is no inactivity fee, no withdrawal fee, no SEPA fee, and no custody fee.

Real-world cost example

Two scenarios, both compared against a typical Polish broker (XTB) and a typical German broker (DKB):

Scenario A — €100/month savings plan into iShares Core MSCI World, 12 months:

• Trade Republic: 12 executions × €0 = €0/year
• XTB savings plan: 0% commission up to €100k AUM (similar) = €0/year
• DKB savings plan: ~€1.50 per execution = €18/year

Trade Republic ties XTB on the savings-plan use case and beats most traditional brokers comfortably.

Scenario B — €10,000 lump sum into a single ETF, then hold for 12 months:

• Trade Republic: 1 trade × €1 = €1
• XTB: €0 commission up to €100k monthly turnover = €0
• DKB: ~€10 + 0.25% custody = €35

For lump sums, XTB still edges Trade Republic by €1 per trade, but the difference is rounding error if you trade infrequently. The practical conclusion: data shows that for buy-and-hold ETF investors with monthly DCA habits, Trade Republic is among the two cheapest mainstream brokers in the EU.

Investment universe

What you can actually buy:

• ETFs: ~2,400 from iShares, Xtrackers, Amundi, Vanguard, Invesco, WisdomTree. Coverage of MSCI World, S&P 500, FTSE All-World, MSCI Emerging Markets, sector and thematic ETFs. ESG variants well represented. Crucially, the full ETF list is eligible for €0 savings plans, not just a "preferred" subset — a sharp differentiator vs Scalable Free Broker, which limits free savings plans to a narrower issuer list.
• Stocks: 10,500+ across NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, Xetra, Euronext Paris/Amsterdam, Borsa Italiana. All routed through LS Exchange or Quotrix. Single stock savings plans run free for one execution per stock per month — a useful feature for building positions in expensive shares like Berkshire Hathaway A or LVMH without having to buy whole units.
• Bonds: German Bunds, EU sovereigns, investment-grade corporates. Fractional from €1 — a rare feature (most brokers require €1,000+ per bond lot). The bond universe expanded materially in 2024–2025 and now covers most major European corporate issuers, French OATs, Italian BTPs, and a curated list of US Treasuries denominated in USD.
• Crypto: 50+ tokens including BTC, ETH, SOL, ADA, plus several memecoins. Custody via Bankhaus Scheich. Tokens can be bought in fractional amounts from €1 with the standard €1 trade fee plus the 1% spread.
• Derivatives: Knock-out warrants and factor certificates from HSBC, Société Générale, Citi — only available to German residents for regulatory reasons. Other EU residents do not see this tab.

What you cannot buy: mutual funds (only ETFs), US-listed options, futures, leveraged forex, IPO allocations, non-tradable private placements, or pre-IPO secondary shares. There is also no margin lending — every position is fully cash-funded.

Best for / not for

Best for:

• ETF savings-plan investors doing €25–€500/month DCA
• Cost-conscious EU residents who want a single mobile app
• Bond curve enthusiasts who want fractional access to single Bunds and corporates
• Beginners — the UX is genuinely the best among EU neobrokers

Not for:

• Active day traders (no advanced order types, no charting platform)
• Options or futures traders (none offered)
• US residents or non-EU expats (geographic restrictions)
• Investors who want consolidated tax statements outside Germany — Trade Republic provides German Steuerbescheinigung but tax reporting in other jurisdictions is your responsibility

Common pitfalls

1. Cash interest only on €50k. Many investors leave large cash balances expecting full interest; the haircut above €50k is total. If you're parking €100k, split across two providers or sweep into a money-market ETF like Xtrackers EUR Overnight Rate Swap (XEON).
2. LS Exchange spreads widen outside US hours. Buying Apple at 8:00 CET can cost 0.3–0.5% in spread vs the NYSE quote. Place US trades during 15:30–22:00 CET when liquidity overlaps. The same applies, less severely, to UK shares before LSE opens.
3. No portfolio export. Trade Republic does not yet offer a clean CSV export of holdings or transactions in machine-readable format. You can request a PDF — workable but tedious for portfolio tracking. There is an unofficial PDF parser community on GitHub, but it breaks every few months when Trade Republic tweaks the document layout.
4. Crypto custody is opaque. Tokens are held by Bankhaus Scheich, not by you. There is no withdrawal-to-self-custody option in 2026. If self-custody matters, use Kraken or a hardware wallet via a different exchange.
5. Withholding tax on US dividends. Trade Republic applies the standard 15% US withholding for EU residents under the W-8BEN equivalent — but the form is auto-handled, which most users don't realize they can verify. For Polish or Czech residents claiming the additional double-tax-treaty reduction, you still need to file the annual reconciliation yourself.
6. Savings plan execution day is fixed. You pick the 2nd, 9th, 16th, or 23rd of each month. There is no "buy the dip" customization — discipline-friendly, but inflexible if you want event-driven DCA.
7. Customer support is in-app only. No phone number for retail clients in 2026. Response times average 1–3 days for non-urgent issues, which can frustrate users coming from traditional brokers with phone desks.

Alternatives to consider

• Scalable Capital (Free Broker / PRIME+): Similar fee structure, better web platform, slightly fewer ETFs in the free savings-plan universe. Better for users who want a desktop experience.
• DEGIRO: Cheaper for non-savings-plan trades on US stocks, but charges custody connectivity fees and lacks fractional shares.
• Interactive Brokers: Vastly more powerful (options, futures, margin, 150 markets) but worse UX, higher minimum activity, and complex fee structure.
• XTB: 0% commission on stocks/ETFs up to €100k monthly turnover. Polish KNF license. Strong for active traders who want CFDs alongside cash equities.
• Bunq Investing: Robo-advisor model (managed portfolios), not DIY. Better if you don't want to pick funds.

FAQ

Is Trade Republic safe?

Trade Republic Bank GmbH holds a full German banking license and is supervised by BaFin and the Bundesbank. Customer cash is protected by Germany's Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to €100,000 per partner bank — and because cash is spread across four partner banks, total protection scales to €400,000 if your balance is allocated proportionally. Securities are held in segregated custody at HSBC Germany.

How does Trade Republic make money on €1 trades?

Mostly through payment-for-order-flow rebates from LS Exchange and through the spread between what it earns on partner-bank cash and what it pays customers. EU regulators are phasing out PFOF by 2026–2028, so the fee model may evolve.

Can non-EU residents open a Trade Republic account?

No. Account opening requires legal residency in one of the supported EU/EEA countries. UK residents lost access after Brexit and there is no current path back.

What happens if Trade Republic goes bust?

Cash up to €100k per partner bank is covered by Germany's DGS. Securities are segregated and remain your property — they would be transferred to another broker via the standard insolvency process. Crypto is held by Bankhaus Scheich and would follow that institution's insolvency rules separately.

Does Trade Republic offer ISAs or tax wrappers?

No. There are no UK ISAs (Trade Republic doesn't operate in the UK), no French PEA, no Italian PIR, no Polish IKE/IKZE. The platform is a plain taxable brokerage in every market it serves. German residents do benefit from the standard €1,000 Sparer-Pauschbetrag annual capital-gains allowance, which Trade Republic applies automatically once you submit a Freistellungsauftrag in the app.

How long do withdrawals take?

SEPA withdrawals typically arrive within 1 business day to most EU bank accounts. Crypto cannot be withdrawn to an external wallet. Securities transfers out (to another broker via the standard EU portfolio transfer process) take 2–6 weeks and incur €25 per ISIN — the only meaningful exit fee on the platform.

A quick note on tracking

If you split capital across Trade Republic, a German bank, and a crypto exchange — the manual reconciliation in a spreadsheet gets old fast. Freenance lets you connect multiple broker, bank, and crypto accounts in one place and see your real net worth without exporting CSVs every Sunday. Many investors who started on Trade Republic eventually add a second platform once they hit the €50k cash-interest cap; tracking both side-by-side makes the math obvious.

Verdict

For a cost-conscious EU resident building a long-term ETF portfolio through monthly DCA, Trade Republic is hard to beat in 2026. The €0 savings-plan execution, the €1 flat trade fee, fractional ETFs and bonds, BaFin supervision, and a mobile UX that beats every legacy broker make it the default choice for the buy-and-hold crowd. The compromises — no real desktop platform, capped cash interest, opaque crypto custody, and no tax wrappers — matter only for specific user types. Many investors consider Trade Republic the "Vanguard equivalent" of EU neobrokers: not the most powerful, but the cheapest serious option for a passive index portfolio.

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