Trading 212 review is it any good? 2025

Uninvested cash earns 4.05% AER, often higher than many cash ISAs. I’m a financial journalist and have used Trading 212 for more than eight years. In that time I’ve invested over £40,000 via the Invest account and Stocks and Shares ISA, earned thousands in returns and interest, and taken a few losses on CFDs. Trading 212 serves clients worldwide, with operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region.

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• Especially when it comes to US or other foreign shares, which HL insist on showing in pounds and pence rather than the original currency.
• These are set at 0.50% vs. 0.15% for the Invest and ISA accounts.
• Trading 212 serves clients worldwide, with operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region.
• To begin trading with Trading212, you need to create an account and verify your identity.

Exchange traded funds (ETFs)

• This decision was controversial, and some users criticised Trading 212 for limiting their ability to trade, which resulted in losses for some customers.
• Other than the variable spreads and other fees mentioned above, there are no costs for inactivity periods, deposits, and withdrawals.
• All that, before mentioning that it’s the cheapest platform around.
• If there is a stock you are interested in that isn’t yet covered, you can contact Trading 212, and they will consider adding it to the platform if the demand is high enough.

Similar criticisms were made of US trading platform Robin Hood, and were raised during a US Senate committee hearing in 2021. Despite not charging commission, Trading 212 does charge some small fees for certain transactions (see below), but payment for order flow is a main source of income. This revenue model has been criticised by some as potentially leading to conflicts of interest.

How does trading 212 make money?

In fact, it’s been criticised for almost being too easy, making trading seem more game-like and thus detaching users from the risks involved when trading. Compared to HL, IG and Vanguard, Trading 212 offers a clean, simple, easy-to-use interface. By contrast, IB’s interface (in 2023) resembles 1993’s release of Microsoft Windows 3.11. CFDs are leveraged trades, and it’s easy to lose more than you expect if you don’t fully understand how they work. You can start with £1 and deposit up to £20,000 each tax year.

It’s worth pointing out though, that unlike your savings in a bank account, those in your Trading 212 account may be held in qualifying money market funds (QMMF). Especially when it comes to US or other foreign shares, which HL insist on showing in pounds and pence rather than the original currency. I won’t go into detail what a limit or a stop order is here, but briefly, such orders are used to buy or sell and assets when a price reaches a certain level. They can used to stop losses or limit the amount you are willing to pay for certain shares.

Stocks and Shares ISA

After years of trialing other platforms Trading 212 is my go to investment platform these days. It’s quick and easy to open an account, and the modern intuitive interface not only sets it apart from traditional trading platforms, but makes it easy for beginners to feel comfortable. Stocks and shares are the bread and butter of any online trading platform, so it’s no surprise then that Trading 212 covers over 10,000 stocks from exchanges around the world. Since its launch, over 4.5 million accounts have reportedly been opened and funded, with total client holdings of over £25 billion. The platform has no trading or platform fees and allows minimum investments of £1. Trading 212 offers Invest, CFD, and ISA accounts for stocks, ETFs, and leveraged CFD trading.

The platform also offers a comprehensive Help Centre on its website, which includes answers to frequently asked questions and detailed explanations of its features and services. Overall though the fees are still much lower than any traditional platform in the UK, and compare well, if not better than its peers. I actually found that the spreads were better or equal to many of the more established trading platforms, so Trading 212 must be making its money in a different way. In addition to earning interest on uninvested cash, Trading 212 now offers a debit card that you can use to access the money in your invest account.

Deposit Methods at Trading 212

A lot of platforms have an auto invest function, some such as HL are even free (only UK stocks, ETFs, and funds). Users can purchase portions of shares, broadening access to high-priced stocks. Investors may select ready-made portfolios or pies based on different risk levels. These tools allow users to automatically sell assets if values drop below or rise above preset thresholds.

You get £50,000 in virtual funds to test trades, chart tools and order types before using real money. Today you can use Trading 212 to deal in shares, ETFs, CFDs, commodities and forex. Direct cryptocurrency trading is no longer offered here – if crypto is your focus, I’d point you towards a specialist like eToro. Trading 212 is one of the UK’s most popular online trading platforms and the most downloaded trading app on iOS and Android.

In addition to the spread, CFD trades also attract higher currency conversion fees. These are set at 0.50% vs. 0.15% for the Invest and ISA accounts. In the UK we’re charged stamp duty when buying UK shares over £1,000. This is currently charged at 0.5%, There’s also a £1 PTM levy on UK shares for transactions over £10,000. As well as referral links Trading 212 regularly offers promotional codes that give users free shares or bonuses when they sign up for an account.

It’s pretty common to keep somewhere between 5-15% of your investment portfolio in cash. That doesn’t need to be in an investment app, it could be in an easy access savings account (see our guide to the best easy access digital savings accounts). The screen shot below shows a limit order on BP shares, which will buy BP shares if/when the price drops to 548.3p at some point during the current trading day. When it comes to order execution Trading 212 offers comprehensive stops and limits options. Other platforms offer these too, but the implementation in Trading 212 is probably the cleanest and easiest I’ve come across. Trading 212 has all of the usual features you’d expect from a top trading platform.

Many of these are available to some degree in other platforms, so I’ll use this section to cover the most popular, and important features, found on Trading 212. There’s also an overnight fee if you hold a position open for more than a day. You can see the full breakdown on Trading 212’s CFD pricing page. This is where you learn https://traderoom.info/is-trading212-a-reliable-brokerage-firm/ how to use Trading 212 and get to grips with buying and selling stocks.

As of 2025, the company reports having approximately 4.5 million users with funded accounts.