I also have an account with Freetrade, but more on that later. Launched in the UK in 2016, it stood out with commission‑free trading, an intuitive web and mobile interface and full FCA regulation. I first joined Hargreaves Lansdown around 2014, when brokers charged up to £11.95 per trade. If you traded often or in small amounts, those fees could quickly erode your returns. Uninvested cash within the platform earns an Annual Equivalent Rate (AER) that is variable.

  • As of 2025, the company reports having approximately 4.5 million users with funded accounts.
  • Launched in the UK in 2016, it stood out with commission‑free trading, an intuitive web and mobile interface and full FCA regulation.
  • Trading 212 operates a commission‐free model for its stock trading services, meaning that clients are not charged commissions or custody fees for holding assets on the platform.
  • 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).

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.

Just select the deposit amount and the frequency, and funds will automatically be added to your pie based on your weighting preferences. One of the standout features of Trading 212 is its user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for even novice traders to buy and sell assets. The platform’s layout is clean and straightforward, and it offers several customisation options, allowing users to tailor their trading experience to their needs. In this review I take a close look at the UK’s most popular investment platform.

Support Contact Methods And Working Hours

This is where you learn how to use Trading 212 and get to grips with buying and selling stocks. 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.

What trading platforms are supported?

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.

  • With its commission‑free trading, intuitive web and mobile apps and FCA regulation, Trading 212 has become the go‑to platform for new UK investors.
  • When I switched to Trading 212, the stock wasn’t available, so I contacted them about it, and the stock was added a few days later.
  • The company also provides debit cards and other banking services alongside a financial news website.
  • There’s basic data and financials but not on the scale of HL, and only on the top/most popular companies.
  • This is a traditional trading account, with more than 10,000 securities (shares and ETF’s) available to trade.

There’s a whole section https://traderoom.info/is-trading212-a-reliable-brokerage-firm/ on the Trading 212 community boards, discussing and sharing pies. The cool thing about pies is that if you see a pie you like created by someone else, you can copy it, and add it your own portfolio, or share your pie for others to copy. Trading 212 on the other hand is straight forward and intuitive. 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.

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.

Swap Fee at Trading 212

Trading 212 serves clients worldwide, with operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. As of 2025, the company reports having approximately 4.5 million users with funded accounts.

One of the features that helped Trading 212 to grow as much as it has done is its ‘free fractional shares’ offer. Another new feature of Trading 212 is the share lending program. This is a way to make additional returns from shares you are holding long term.

In summary – Is trading 212 worth it?

All trades are commission-free across Invest, ISA, and CFD accounts. You can trade Forex, stocks, ETFs, indices, commodities, and treasuries (13,000+ symbols). The broker offers a proprietary platform (web + mobile) with TradingView-powered charts.

Get a free share worth up to £100

Despite these efforts, some users have reported continued difficulty in getting their issues resolved in a timely manner. This decision was controversial, and some users criticised Trading 212 for limiting their ability to trade, which resulted in losses for some customers. US platforms that did similar were hauled before a senate committee to explain its actions. Taken together, these safeguards mean Trading 212 meets the same “safe-broker” criteria as established platforms such as Hargreaves Lansdown and IG. Retail CFD clients benefit from automatic negative-balance protection, so you can never lose more than your deposited amount.

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.

However, for $2,000+ deposits made via cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and other similar systems, a 0.7% fee is applied. While the proprietary platform is user-friendly and feature-rich for most traders, it’s worth noting that Trading 212 doesn’t support popular third-party platforms like MetaTrader 4 or 5. This could be a drawback for traders accustomed to these widely-used platforms. Client funds are protected by up to EUR 1 million in Lloyd’s indemnity insurance, exceeding typical retail investor protection standards.

Investing and trading in financial markets such as the stock exchange, forex, digital currencies in the form of spot or with leverage face a high inherent risk. According to the statistics of all exchanges and brokers, more than 75% of people lose! Join Trading 212 and get up to £100 worth of free shares with promo code MSA212

I cover account types, fees, platform features, real‑world user experience, and the controversies and concerns that have emerged over the years. Trading 212 is a British financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It operates an electronic trading platform that enables trading in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and contracts for difference (CFDs). The company also provides debit cards and other banking services alongside a financial news website. While these features offer some level of automated investing, they don’t quite match the sophistication of copy trading platforms offered by some competitors.

#3 Choose Your Account Type

For example, the S&P 500 is a popular choice, representing the top 500 companies in the US, but also used to a benchmark for US stocks as a whole. Trading the S&P 500 allows you to bet for, or against the US stock market, and the economy in general. If you want to trade a particular stock exchange itself, then trading 212 has you well covered here.