DEGIRO Review: The Broker That Changed European Investing (For Better and Worse)
DEGIRO review — Expert-Backed Solutions for Complete Peace of Mind
Understanding DEGIRO review is essential for making informed decisions in today’s market.
If you’ve spent any time looking at low-cost brokers in Europe, you’ve hit the DEGIRO wall. Everyone talks about it. Reddit threads are full of it. Your cousin who started buying ETFs last year won’t shut up about it.
“So here’s the thing: most DEGIRO reviews out there are either written by affiliates trying to grab a referral bonus or by people who opened an account and never actually traded anything meaningful.”
This isn’t that.
“This is a proper DEGIRO review based on what the platform actually does well, where it falls flat, and who should genuinely consider using it.”
DEGIRO launched in 2013 out of Amsterdam, originally serving institutional clients before opening up to retail investors. The pitch was simple: cut the fat, slash fees, and give regular people access to global markets without the legacy Broker markup. And honestly, for a while, they delivered on that promise in a way that made traditional European banks look like they were running a scam. But the landscape has shifted. Competitors have caught up. DEGIRO got acquired by flatexDEGIRO AG, a German brokerage giant. And some of the things that made DEGIRO special have either been matched or quietly degraded.
So let’s get into it.
Throughout this guide, we’ll explore DEGIRO review and how it directly impacts your financial future.
What DEGIRO Actually Offers in 2024 – DEGIRO review
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DEGIRO gives you access to stocks, ETFs, bonds, options, futures, and a limited selection of mutual funds across 50 markets in about 30 countries. That’s a lot of reach for a Broker that started as a niche Dutch operation. You’re trading on exchanges like Euronext, NYSE, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Xetra, and a bunch of smaller ones. If you want to buy a US-listed stock or a European ETF, DEGIRO handles it.
The platform comes in three tiers: Basic, Active, and Trader. Basic is what most people start with. You get standard order execution, which means DEGIRO routes your order to a single venue. Active adds multi-venue routing, which can get you slightly better prices on larger orders. Trader is for people placing high-volume orders and needs direct market access. For the average person buying ETFs once a month, Basic is fine. You don’t need to overthink this.
One thing that stands out in any honest DEGIRO review is the product range for ETFs. DEGIRO maintains a core selection of ETFs that you can trade commission-free once per calendar month per exchange. That list includes heavy hitters like the Vanguard FTSE All-World (VWRA), iShares Core MSCI World (IWDA), and a bunch of bond and sector ETFs. If you’re building a simple two or three fund portfolio, this is genuinely useful. You’re not paying €2 or €3 every time you buy your monthly ETF allocation.
But here’s where it gets complicated. The commission-free list is curated. It’s not every ETF on the market. If you want something specific, a niche clean energy fund or a small-cap value ETF, you might not find it on the free list. And if it’s not on the list, you’re paying a connectivity fee plus a per-trade cost. That’s where people get frustrated.
The Fee Structure: Simple Until It Isn’t – DEGIRO review
DEGIRO’s fee model is one of the main reasons people write DEGIRO reviews in the first place. It’s cheap. That’s the headline. A stock trade on Euronext Amsterdam costs €1.00 plus €0.004 per share. A US stock trade costs €1.00 plus $0.004 per share. For ETFs on the core list, it’s free once per month per exchange. Compared to a traditional European bank broker charging €10 to €25 per trade, this is a different universe.
But the fee structure has layers. There’s a €1.00 connectivity fee per exchange per year. If you trade on three different exchanges, that’s €3.00 annually. There’s a currency conversion fee of 0.25% when you buy assets in a currency different from your account base currency. That’s not nothing if you’re regularly buying US-listed ETFs with euros. There’s also a small fee for dividend processing, and if you want real-time market data, that’s an extra monthly subscription depending on the exchange.
The currency conversion fee is the one that catches people off guard. Let’s say you’re investing €500 into a US-listed ETF every month. That’s €1.25 in conversion fees each time, or €15 per year. Over a decade of regular investing, that adds up. Interactive Brokers charges 0.20% for currency conversion, and some brokers like Scalable Capital offer free conversion on certain plans. So DEGIRO isn’t the cheapest option for US-denominated assets anymore. It’s just cheap compared to the old guard.
“DEGIRO’s fee structure looks simple on the surface, but the currency conversion cost quietly eats into returns if you’re buying US assets regularly. Always do the math before committing.”
Platform and User Experience
Let’s talk about what it’s actually like to use DEGIRO. The web platform is functional. It’s not beautiful. It looks like it was designed by engineers who heard that traders need charts and decided that a basic line graph with no customization was sufficient. You can place orders, view your portfolio, check transaction history, and read basic company information. That’s about it.
The mobile app is slightly better in terms of design but still bare-bones. You can buy and sell, check your balance, and see price movements. There are no advanced charting tools, no technical indicators, no screeners worth mentioning. If you’re the type of person who wants to draw trendlines or set up complex alerts, DEGIRO is not your platform. TradingView exists for a reason, and most serious traders use it alongside their broker anyway.
Order types are limited. You get market orders, limit orders, and stop-loss orders. That covers the basics, but there’s no trailing stop, no conditional orders, and no bracket orders. For a buy-and-hold investor, this is irrelevant. For someone actively trading options or trying to manage risk on volatile positions, it’s a real limitation.
One thing DEGIRO does well is the onboarding process. Opening an account takes about 10 to 15 minutes. You verify your identity, answer some questions about your trading experience, and you’re in. Funding the account is done via bank transfer, and depending on your country, it takes one to three business days. There’s no instant deposit option, which is annoying if you want to catch a market dip on a specific day.
Customer Support: The Weakest Link
This is where most DEGIRO reviews get heated, and for good reason. Customer support has been a persistent problem. DEGIRO offers email support and a limited phone line. There’s no live chat. Response times for email can range from a few hours to several days, depending on the complexity of your issue and how busy they are.
The quality of support is inconsistent. Some users report helpful, knowledgeable agents. Others describe frustrating back-and-forth exchanges where the agent clearly didn’t understand the question. If you have a straightforward issue, like a missing dividend or a question about fees, you’ll probably get a decent answer. If your problem is complex, like a transfer issue or a tax documentation error, prepare for a longer wait.
Since the flatexDEGIRO acquisition, there have been reports of support quality declining further. The merged entity has a larger customer base but hasn’t proportionally scaled its support infrastructure. That’s a common problem in broker acquisitions, and DEGIRO customers are feeling it.
My honest take: if you need hand-holding or expect quick responses to nuanced questions, DEGIRO will test your patience. If you’re self-sufficient and rarely need to contact support, it won’t matter much.
Safety and Regulation
DEGIRO is regulated by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) following the flatexDEGIRO merger. Client assets are held in segregated accounts, meaning your money is kept separate from the company’s operating funds. If DEGIRO went bankrupt, your assets should theoretically be protected.
There’s also investor compensation under the German depositor protection scheme, which covers up to €20,000 per person. That’s lower than some other European schemes, which go up to €100,000. It’s worth knowing about, though the practical risk of a regulated broker collapsing and taking client money with it is low.
One concern that pops up in DEGIRO reviews is the practice of lending out client shares. DEGIRO’s terms allow them to lend securities held in your account to third parties, typically for short selling. You can opt out of this, but it’s not the default. If you’re uncomfortable with your shares being lent out, you need to actively disable this in your settings. It’s not a dealbreaker for most people, but transparency matters, and DEGIRO could do a better job of making this clearer during onboarding.
DEGIRO vs. the Competition
No DEGIRO review is complete without comparing it to alternatives. The European brokerage space has gotten crowded, and DEGIRO no longer has the “cheapest by default” crown it once held.
Here’s a detailed comparison of DEGIRO against its main competitors:
The table tells a clear story. DEGIRO is still cheap, but it’s not uniquely cheap anymore. Scalable Capital’s Prime Free plan offers unlimited free ETF trades on a curated list, which undercuts DEGIRO’s once-per-month limitation. Trade Republic charges a flat €1 per trade with no currency conversion fee, which is simpler and sometimes cheaper for US assets. Interactive Brokers is more expensive per trade but offers a far superior platform, fractional shares, and better execution quality.
DEGIRO’s advantage now is breadth of market access and the fact that it’s been around long enough to have a track record. But “we’ve been around longer” isn’t a feature. It’s just a fact.
Who Should Actually Use DEGIRO
After all of this, who is DEGIRO actually good for? Let me be direct.
DEGIRO makes sense if you’re a European investor who wants low-cost access to a wide range of global markets, you’re primarily buying ETFs on the core list, you don’t need advanced trading tools, and you’re comfortable figuring things out on your own without relying on customer support. If that describes you, DEGIRO is a solid choice. Not the best choice, necessarily, but a solid one.
It does not make sense if you’re an active trader who needs advanced order types and charting, if you’re buying US-denominated assets frequently and want to minimize currency conversion costs, or if you value responsive customer support. In those cases, Interactive Brokers or even Scalable Capital will serve you better.
There’s also a specific type of investor who should avoid DEGIRO: the person who wants to set up a complex portfolio with fractional shares across multiple asset classes. DEGIRO doesn’t offer fractional shares. If you have €200 to invest and want to split it across five different ETFs, you’ll have trouble allocating precisely. Some brokers handle this gracefully. DEGIRO doesn’t.
The Securities Lending Thing Deserves Its Own Section
I mentioned this earlier, but it’s worth expanding because it’s one of those details that separates a surface-level DEGIRO review from one that actually helps people make decisions.
When you hold shares in a DEGIRO Basic account, those shares can be lent out to third parties. This is common across the brokerage industry. It’s how brokers generate extra revenue. The borrower typically pays interest, and the broker keeps most of it. You, the shareholder, get nothing unless you’re on a specific account type.
The risk is that if the borrower defaults and the broker can’t recover the shares, you might not get your shares back. In practice, brokers require collateral from borrowers to mitigate this, so the risk is low. But it’s not zero. And the fact that DEGIRO enables this by default, without making it obvious during signup, is something that bothers a lot of people.
You can disable securities lending by switching to a different account type, but that comes with different fee structures and conditions. It’s not as simple as flipping a switch. This is the kind of thing that makes people leave negative reviews, and honestly, they’re not wrong to be annoyed.
Tax Reporting and Documentation
DEGIRO provides an annual tax report that summarizes your transactions, dividends, and any taxes withheld. For investors in the Netherlands, Germany, and a few other countries, this report is reasonably comprehensive. For everyone else, it’s a starting point, but you’ll likely need to do your own calculations or use a third-party tool.
One pain point: DEGIRO doesn’t automatically handle tax optimization strategies like tax-loss harvesting. If you’re in a country with complex capital gains rules, you’re on your own. Interactive Brokers offers more detailed tax reporting and supports more jurisdictions natively. For a casual investor, DEGIRO’s tax documents are fine. For someone with a large, diversified portfolio across multiple countries, they’re inadequate.
What People Get Wrong About DEGIRO
There’s a narrative floating around that DEGIRO is the best broker in Europe for beginners. I disagree with that, and here’s why. Being cheap doesn’t mean being beginner-friendly. A beginner needs clear guidance, responsive support, and a platform that doesn’t confuse them. DEGIRO is cheap, but the platform is bare-bones, support is slow, and the fee structure has enough hidden layers to trip someone up.
A better broker for a true beginner might be Scalable Capital or even Trade Republic, where the experience is more guided and the fee structure is simpler. DEGIRO is best for someone who already knows what they want to do and just wants to do it cheaply. That’s a different audience than “beginner.”
The other thing people get wrong is assuming that DEGIRO’s low fees automatically mean higher returns. Fees matter, absolutely. But execution quality, currency conversion costs, and the ability to invest precisely how you want matter too. A broker that charges €1 per trade but gives you worse execution on a €10,000 order is not necessarily cheaper than one that charges €3 but fills you at a better price. DEGIRO’s execution quality is decent but not exceptional. For small orders, it’s fine. For larger orders, the difference can be noticeable.
“Low fees don’t automatically mean higher returns. Execution quality, currency costs, and platform limitations all eat into your performance. Choose a broker based on the full picture, not just the fee schedule.”
The Acquisition Changed Things
When flatexDEGIRO acquired DEGIRO, the promise was that the combined entity would offer the best of both worlds: DEGIRO’s low fees and flatexDEGIRO’s banking infrastructure. What actually happened is more mixed. Some fees went up. The platform didn’t improve meaningfully. Customer support got worse, or at least didn’t get better despite the larger organization.
There’s also the question of long-term direction. flatexDEGIRO is a publicly traded company with shareholders to please. DEGIRO was a private company that could afford to prioritize user experience over margins. That cultural shift matters. It doesn’t mean DEGIRO is going to turn into a bad broker overnight. But the trajectory isn’t obviously positive, and people who opened accounts five years ago will tell you the experience has changed.
Final Verdict
DEGIRO is a good broker that used to be a great one. It still offers competitive fees, broad market access, and a no-nonsense approach to investing. But the competition has caught up, the platform hasn’t evolved enough, and the post-acquisition experience has been underwhelming in places.
If you’re choosing a broker today, DEGIRO should be on your shortlist but not automatically at the top. Compare it against Scalable Capital, Trade Republic, and Interactive Brokers based on your specific needs. If you’re already with DEGIRO and it’s working for you, there’s no urgent reason to switch. But if you’re frustrated with the platform or the support, know that you have real options now. You didn’t always.
FAQ
Is DEGIRO safe to use? – DEGIRO review
Yes, DEGIRO is regulated by the AFM and BaFin, and client assets are held in segregated accounts. The risk of losing your money due to broker insolvency is low, though the investor compensation limit is €20,000 under the German scheme, which is lower than some other European protections.
What are DEGIRO’s fees for ETF investing? – DEGIRO review
DEGIRO offers a selection of commission-free ETFs that you can trade once per calendar month per exchange. For ETFs not on the core list, you pay a connectivity fee of €1.00 per exchange per year plus a per-trade cost. There’s also a 0.25% currency conversion fee for non-base currency trades.
Can I buy fractional shares on DEGIRO?
No, DEGIRO does not offer fractional share trading. You can only buy whole shares, which can make precise portfolio allocation difficult with smaller amounts of money.
How does DEGIRO compare to Interactive Brokers?
Interactive Brokers offers a more advanced platform, fractional shares, better charting tools, and more detailed tax reporting. DEGIRO is simpler and sometimes cheaper for basic European ETF investing, but Interactive Brokers is the better choice for active traders and those who need more sophisticated tools.
Can I transfer my DEGIRO account to another broker?
Yes, you can transfer your holdings to another broker using an ACAT or manual transfer process, depending on the receiving broker. DEGIRO may charge a transfer fee, so check their current fee schedule before initiating a transfer.
Does DEGIRO lend out my shares?
By default, yes. DEGIRO can lend out securities held in your Basic account to third parties. You can opt out by switching to a different account type, but this may change your fee structure and account conditions.
Sources
- DEGIRO Fee Schedule
- flatexDEGIRO AG Investor Relations
- Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM)
Conclusion
If you’ve read this far, you know that DEGIRO isn’t the runaway best choice it was five years ago, but it’s also not a bad broker. It’s a decent one operating in a market that’s gotten a lot more competitive. Here’s what I’d suggest as your next steps.
First, define what you actually need. Are you a passive investor buying ETFs once a month? DEGIRO’s core list might work well for you. Are you trading actively or buying US stocks frequently? Look at Interactive Brokers or Scalable Capital instead.
Second, do the math on currency conversion. If you’re buying US-listed assets, calculate the annual cost of DEGIRO’s 0.25% conversion fee and compare it to alternatives. That number might change your decision.
Third, open a demo or research the platform before committing. DEGIRO doesn’t offer a demo account, but you can browse screenshots and user videos to get a feel for the interface. Make sure it’s something you’re comfortable using, because switching brokers later is a hassle.
And fourth, if you do go with DEGIRO, disable securities lending in your settings unless you’re comfortable with it. It takes two minutes and gives you one less thing to worry about.
The European brokerage market is better than it’s ever been for regular investors. DEGIRO helped make that happen. But “helped make it happen” isn’t the same as “is still the best option.” Keep your options open, do your own research, and don’t let a referral code make the decision for you.
