Investment firms often give incentives like free cash to get you to give them your money.
These offers are extra cash payments and freebies you can get via starting an investment. We’re only sharing these promotions as a way to get some free cash rather than a recommendation of individual investment platforms or funds.
If you are wanting to invest for the best returns then we recommend you do your research and look elsewhere as these won’t necessarily have the lowest fees. And remember, the value of investments can go up as well as down.
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When you open these accounts you can open up an ISA and a general investing account. If you haven’t used your full £20,000 ISA allowance this financial year, and you don’t plan to do so before 5 April, then that’s the best account for you as any gains you make will be tax free.
If you can’t or don’t want to add any more to an ISA, you can opt instead for the general investing account. In this account you’ll only pay tax on profits after selling your share if it brings you over the Capital Gains Allowance – which is £3,000 in 2023/24.
Trading 212: Free fractional share worth up to £100
Going via our link in the button below will give you a free fractional share on the Trading 212 app if you’ve never had an account before. The value of the share is between £8 and £100.
When I signed up a few years ago my freebie was for General Electric and valued at $10.70, which converted to £7.92.
You get the free share if you sign up by this link or entering the code BCWYC. It’s only eligible for the Trading 212 Invest account (a General Investment Account) or Trading 212 Stocks & Shares ISA. It won’t work for the Cash ISA or CFD accounts.
Once the account is open, you then need to add at least £1 to your account within 10 calendar days. You can keep that in the account and choose to invest it, keep it as uninvested cash or you can withdraw it.
It will take about three days for the share to be added after adding the £1. You can sell your free share as soon as you get it, but it will take 30 days for you to receive the cash. Or you can keep it invested.
Remember, the value of any money invested, which includes your free share, could go up or down.
Once you have a Trading 212 account you can also
- Open a Trading 212 Cash ISA paying 5.17%
- Earn 5.17% interest on uninvested cash
- Earn cashback on spending with the connected Trading 212 Cashback debit card,
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+ Get a £20 Quidco bonus (new members only). More details
Cashback bonuses
Cashback via ISAs
If you sign up for a Stocks & Shares ISA via Quidco or TopCashback you will be able to earn some cashback. Among the providers you can choose between are:
- Scottish Friendly Investment ISA,
- Scottish Friendly Junior ISA,
- Shepherds Friendly Junior ISA,
- Shepherds Friendly Stocks & Shares ISA,
- Foresters Friendly Society,
- Fidelity Stocks and Shares ISA
- Moneyfarm Stocks and Shares ISA
- Interactive Investor ISA
- Nutmeg ISA
Make sure you read all the terms and conditions of these accounts, for example you might need to keep investing for a number of months, and there might be exit fees if you take the money out before a set date.
One we spotted required you to keep your money invested for five years or pay an exit fee.
There are often extra bonus cashback rates offered for short periods, often towards the end and the start of a financial year.
Again, this is a great hack to get bonus cashback. If your priority is investing you might want to consider other platforms.
With Scottish Friendly you’ll also get access to further deals (see below).
Remember, new users of the cashback sites can get a bonus on your first purchase. More details here.
Editor’s savings pick
Earn a market leading 5.17% AER from this Trading 212 Cash ISA
Remember, we’re just sharing offers here and not recommending any individual ISA investment platforms, so do your research before applying.
InvestEngine: Up to £2,500 ISA transfer bonus (expired)
Transfer your existing Stocks & Shares ISA to InvestEngine and there’s a bonus ranging from £20 to £2,500 available.
You need to be a new InvestEngine customer, though do check in the app if you already have an account as you might find a similar offer.
The offer ends 31 May 2024, and you must keep the amount you transfer in the new ISA for 12 months AFTER you get the bonus, which will be within 30 working days of the offer ending. So that means you may need to keep your cash invested there until the end of June 2025.
Since transfers can take a while, you just need to start the process by the end of May this year to qualify.
It’s the initial amount you transfer that qualifies you for the bonus, not the value of your investments at the end of May 2025. Here’s how much you can expect:
| Investment amount | Bonus |
| £1,000 | £20 |
| £5500 | £55 |
| £8000 | £70 |
| £15,000 | £120 |
| £20,000 | £150 |
| £30,000 | £225 |
| £45,000 | £325 |
| £65,000 | £525 |
| £100,000 | £750 |
| £120,000 | £1100 |
| £300,000 | £2,500 |
Trading212: 1% ISA cashback (expired)
Open a Stocks & Shares ISA with Trading212 before 30 April 2024 and you’ll get 1% cashback on your deposit.
Since the most you can add to a new Stocks and Shares ISA is £20,000, the freebie is capped at £200.
You must:
- Open a Trading 212 ISA for the first time
- Activate the ISA between January 29, 2024 and April 30, 2024
- Have an active Trading 212 Invest account
- Be a UK resident aged 18 or above
The cashback won’t count towards your ISA allowance, but you won’t be able to access it for 12 months.
To ensure you’re eligible, its worth clicking on the Trading 212 ISA tab on the app and seeing if the offer shows. If not, keep an eye on your email as you might be sent confirmation of the offer later.
Remember, under the new rules you’re able to add money to more than one Stocks & Shares ISA in a financial year, though you’re still limited by the £20,000 annual allowance cap.
Other offers
Scottish Friendly: discounts at retailers
Open an ISA with Scottish Friendly and you’ll get access to “Friendly Rewards” which offers discounts at cinemas, shops, restaurants and more. I use it to get 6% off each time I do the shopping at Waitrose. There’s also the chance of cashback on top.
I’ve opened accounts at both Trading 212 and Freetrade and received the free shares – thanks Andy. However, for anyone who intends to engage in more extensive share trading activity I’d sound a word of warning about Freeserve. Most share trading platforms only allow you to trade in whole shares. Some allow trading in “fractional” shares – instead of specifying the number of shares you want to buy you specify the amount you want to spend. So you might end up with, say, 2.3456789 shares in a particular company. That can be handy for “balancing” a portfolio or buying US stocks, which are typically much more expensive per share than UK ones – some US stocks cost hundreds of dollars for a single share. Where a platform offers fractional shares you usually get both options (Trading 212 provides this) – to buy a certain number of shares or set what you want to spend, in which case you’ll end up with a fraction. Freetrade, however, ONLY offers fractional shares and, even if you try to buy a set number by entering the precise price you’ll often end up with a tiny fraction more or less due to miniscule price changes between placing the order and execution. None of this is a problem in general use and provided you want to continue dealing through Freetrade. BUT fractional shares cannot be traded on the markets and, if you want to transfer away from Freetrade – say they change their fee free model and hike their dealing/platform costs – you’re going to have problems moving to a platform that doesn’t support fractional shares.
I should have added that this only applies to US shares – UK shares, ETFs etc can only be bought as whole shares. Although this isn’t entirely clear (and somewhat confusing) as you still have to enter the amount you want to spend rather than number of shares you want to buy, so you have to do a little mental arithmetic if you have a particular number of shares in mind.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo the cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5% per annum, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage too.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo tha cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5%, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage to.
I can’t get the Freetrade offer as I’m a dual British/US citizen
Hi Andy,
I followed your link to receive the free share, but the section of the Trading 212 where I land had absolutely no mention of the free offer. Are you sure the link is correct?
Yes it’s strange isn’t it! But it does work
Hi. Was there an actual promo code for Trading 212 in the article? I just clicked on the link and it prompted me to download app and sign up. Didn’t see a box for a promo code.
Yes, it’s weird isn’t it!? I thought the same. But the link does work.
Did the same had to chase and show evidence of offer but got allocated a redrow share worth £5.73 after contacting them.
Hi Andy, pretty certain you can open an investment ISA if you’ve already paid into a Cash ISA in the current tax year, just not if you’ve already paid into another investment ISA. You can open Junior ISA in addition in either case. Cheers
I received my 1 free share in National Grid within an hour. £8.71 value.
Cheers Andy
ahh wish i knew about the £50 offer earlier. I don’t think i can open a current account in a date in time. I need a new stock and shares isa account. Do you have anymore recommendations?
I’ve heard Vanguard have very low fees for trackers.
Invest Engine have zero platform fees and offer Vanguard funds