Trade Republic review

Table of contents

• Important risk warnings
• Fees, charges, and key terms
• At a glance
• Overview
• Platform, products and support
• Fees, interest and taxes
• Safety and regulation
• Pros and cons
• Verdict

Fees, charges, and key terms

At a glance

Overview

Trade Republic Bank GmbH is a Berlin-based bank, founded in 2015, that began as a mobile-only broker and now combines investing, a cash account with interest, a Visa debit card and savings plans in one app. Its Italian website and press materials describe a bank with a full German licence, supervised by BaFin and the Deutsche Bundesbank. By its own figures it serves more than 10 million customers in 18 European countries with more than €150 billion of customer assets, and on 15 April 2026 it announced that it had passed 1 million customers in Italy, doubling its Italian base in a year.

This review covers the Italian offer. Trade Republic opened an Italian branch on 30 January 2025, introducing an Italian IBAN, a current account and the Regime Amministrato, in which it acts as withholding tax agent (sostituto d’imposta) for its Italian customers. Several features differ by country, so the terms of a German or French account can be different.

Independence: Trade Republic is neither a sponsor nor an affiliate partner of BrokerFind. The link on this page is the plain official URL, BrokerFind earns no commission if you open an account, and the score is not influenced by any commercial relationship. This review is documentary: it is based on Trade Republic’s official documents (price list, Customer Agreement, information sheet, Help Center, press releases), on regulator and ECB pages and, where flagged, on independent press. It is not a live-account test, so execution quality and service levels are described from company statements.

Platform, products and support

Trade Republic is app-first: you need an iOS or Android smartphone to open the account, and you can trade in the mobile app or on the web. In July 2026 it also added a web terminal with charts, live market data and portfolio analysis at no extra cost, according to test.de. The interface is built for simple investing rather than for professional charting or advanced order tools.

Products: stocks and ETFs (fractional orders from €1 and savings plans), corporate and government bonds from €1 including US bonds, around 50 crypto-assets with a built-in wallet and staking, leveraged derivatives where available, and Private Markets, which are ELTIF funds managed by Apollo and EQT, from €1. The Help Center cites more than 2,000 ETFs and up to 7,500 stocks, but those articles are undated, so check the live catalogue in the app.

Execution: for stocks and ETFs you choose Best Price, where an algorithm compares tradable quotes on the relevant exchanges and executes at the best available price, or Direct Price, where you pick a specific exchange. According to test.de this model started in July 2026, after the EU ban on payment for order flow took effect, with access to about 30 exchanges. For fractional orders the Help Center describes market orders executed on the LS Exchange electronic system with Trade Republic as counterparty. Euro bonds trade on Lang & Schwarz Exchange and US-dollar bonds with Walter Ludwig, derivatives over the counter with HSBC, Société Générale, UBS and Vontobel, and crypto through Tradias.

Banking and card: the Italian account has an Italian IBAN and handles salary credit, free instant transfers, bills, standing orders and SEPA direct debits. The Visa debit card pays 1% Saveback on eligible spending up to €1,500 a month into your savings plan if you invest at least €50 a month in savings plans; Round up invests the spare change, and paying with crypto earns 2% under the same conditions. Payments in other currencies carry no Trade Republic markup.

Support: on 15 April 2026 Trade Republic announced 24/7 phone and live-chat support with real agents inside the app (more than 1,000 agents, eight languages), together with 30+ app updates including authenticator-app two-factor authentication and a detailed, exportable tax report. The roll-out to all Italian customers was due over the following weeks, so check how it works in practice. Unresolved complaints can go to the Arbitro Bancario Finanziario and the Arbitro per le Controversie Finanziarie.

Fees, interest and taxes

Trade Republic’s model is no order commission and one euro to settle. The July 2026 price list shows €0 order commission, a €1 fixed settlement fee per transaction and free savings-plan executions (€10 to €10,000 per execution). Fractional trades cost €1 on both purchase and sale, plus spread and third-party costs, according to the Help Center. A €1 fee is negligible on a €1,000 trade but weighs on very small manual orders, which is why savings plans are the better route for small recurring amounts.

What the headline leaves out: Trade Republic says it receives discounts from commercial partners, and the price list notes that spreads and third-party costs, such as an ETF’s annual fee or retrocessions, may apply. Spreads are not itemised, so the all-in cost of a trade depends on the instrument and the moment. Foreign-currency income such as foreign dividends is converted to euro, and the 1% charge on deposits by card or mobile wallet is avoided by funding the account with a bank transfer.

Cash interest: Trade Republic’s Italian page offers 3% a year to new customers on cash up to €50,000, funded by partner banks, money-market funds and an extra reward; balances above that earn the ECB deposit rate, which it gives as “currently 2.5%”. That matches the ECB’s deposit facility rate of 2.50% since 16 September 2026. Interest is calculated daily, paid monthly and must be activated in the app, and the company says rates can change. The January 2025 launch announced 3% with no cap, so the terms have changed since: re-read the current offer. With an Italian IBAN a 26% tax is withheld at source on interest, and Trade Republic states that without an Italian IBAN you do not receive interest on uninvested cash.

Taxes: in the Regime Amministrato Trade Republic calculates, withholds and pays the tax on your investments, so for these items you do not file a declaration. Italian rules apply 26% to capital gains (12.5% on qualifying government bonds), with losses offset against gains and carried forward for up to four years. For crypto, Trade Republic says it calculates, withholds and reports tax on realised gains, staking rewards and transfers to an external wallet, with no need to declare them, including in Quadro RW. This applies to customers who completed the migration to the Italian branch with an Italian IBAN and tax code. The official documents reviewed do not describe how stamp duty (imposta di bollo, 0.2% a year on financial products under Italian law) is handled, so ask support or check your statements. Trade Republic does not give individual tax advice.

Safety and regulation

Licence and supervision: Trade Republic Bank GmbH (Brunnenstrasse 19–21, Berlin; commercial register HRB 244347 B, BaFin ID 10150368) is a German bank with a full banking licence, supervised by BaFin and the Deutsche Bundesbank. The Italian branch is listed in the Banca d’Italia register under number 3674.9 and, for the custody of financial instruments and for deposit-taking on the Italian IBAN, is supervised by Banca d’Italia; other services, such as payments, are provided cross-border from Germany.

Cash: money is held in omnibus trust accounts at partner banks and is protected by each partner bank’s deposit guarantee scheme up to €100,000 per customer. Trade Republic’s pages list between four and eight partner banks, including Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan SE, HSBC Continental Europe, Citibank Europe, Natixis CIB, Société Générale, SEB and Crédit Agricole CIB, so check the app for the current list. Larger balances are diversified into money-market funds held in segregated custody accounts, kept apart from Trade Republic’s own assets and, according to the company, protected without a limit. Those funds carry market risk.

Securities: stocks, ETFs and bonds in your custody account remain your property, are held by Trade Republic at national and international depositories and are not covered by the deposit guarantee. Trade Republic is assigned to Germany’s Entschädigungseinrichtung deutscher Banken (EdB): if BaFin finds that the bank cannot return securities, statutory investor compensation covers 90% of the claim up to €20,000 per customer. This is protection against the failure of the bank, not against investment losses.

Disclosure and complaints: Trade Republic publishes capital-requirement disclosure reports, top-five execution venue reports and a 2026 complaints report for the Italian branch. Complaints go to reclami@traderepublic.com, with an answer due within 15 working days, extendable to 30, according to the information sheet.

Pros and cons

The strengths are a regulated full-licence bank, very low published trading costs, free savings plans, automatic Italian tax handling and a single app for investing, cash and card. The weaknesses are limited tools for active traders, costs that are not fully itemised, a cash-interest offer that is promotional and tied to the ECB rate, and cash and securities protections that depend on partner banks and a compensation scheme with limits.

Verdict

Trade Republic earns a provisional 8.0/10 editorial score. It gains points for its banking licence and supervision, a published price list with no order commission and free savings plans, the Italian branch with automatic tax handling, and a broad product range from €1. The score is held back because spreads and third-party costs are not itemised, the execution model is new since July 2026, the best interest rate is a promotion for new customers, the compensation limits on cash and securities are modest, the stamp-duty treatment is not described in the documents reviewed, and the tools are basic for active traders. The score is based on documents, not on a live-account test, and we will revisit it as we collect evidence.