We explore the different investment options available with Trading 212
Trading 212 is an investment provider with a free Stocks & Shares ISA. Rather than save cash, you can buy and hold investments with it. Trading 212 lets you invest in a range of different types, including stocks and shares, funds and even precious metals like gold.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA.
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Here at Be Clever With Your Cash, we’re not regulated to give you financial advice. We aim to give you the facts about a provider or investment but it’s up to you to decide if it’s suitable for you. If you’re looking for more personalised guidance, find a financial adviser who can give you specific advice. Remember that your capital is at risk when investing — don’t invest more than you are prepared to lose.
The Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA is a free account where you can buy and sell investments using its mobile app or desktop platform.
Like other Stocks and Shares ISAs, you can invest up to £20,000 per tax year. You won’t pay any tax on your earnings, which includes interest, dividends and capital gains. Your £20,000 allowance is split between all the ISAs you have — both with Trading 212 or other providers. So you’ll have to consider any money you deposit into Cash ISAs, Lifetime ISAs or other Stocks and Shares ISAs.
The Trading 212 ISA is flexible, which means that you can withdraw money from it within a tax year and replace it within the same tax year without losing that chunk from your allowance. However, be careful with this, as you ideally want to leave money invested for at least five years to allow the stock market to fluctuate.
You can transfer in an ISA from another provider. This lets you keep it within the ISA “wrapper” and therefore won’t count as a new deposit into an ISA, for the sake of your ISA allowance. You can transfer in either cash or investments, as long as these are available to invest in with Trading 212.
It also pays interest on uninvested cash.
Other Trading 212 products
If you’ve already made use of this year’s ISA allowance or don’t want to invest in the ISA, you can also invest in a General Investment Account (GIA) with Trading 212, however, you’ll get smaller tax-free allowances. Trading 212 doesn’t offer pensions or Lifetime ISAs.
You can also invest in riskier contracts for difference (CFDs), but these are for people with advanced stock market experience – and they aren’t available in the ISA – so we won’t cover them in this review.
It also offers a decent-paying Cash ISA and a debit card that earns you cashback on your spending.
What you can invest in with Trading 212
Broadly speaking, you can invest in two things with Trading 212: exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and company shares.
Most investors are looking for ETFs, which are funds sold on stock exchanges. They’re made from various investments, which are good for passive investing as they’re already fairly well diversified.
You still have to keep an eye on your investments to ensure the funds remain invested in a way that suits you.
Unlike some managed or robo-investing platforms, you can buy individual and fractional shares with Trading 212, including for UK and international companies. You need to have a pretty solid understanding of the stock market to invest in this way, as you’d need to create a portfolio (a collection of investments) and manage it yourself, which means keeping an eye on the performance and deciding when is the best time to buy and sell.
Does Trading 212 offer managed portfolios?
Trading 212 doesn’t offer robo advice or any kind of managed investing, so if you’d prefer to pick a ready-made portfolio to invest in, you’d probably want to check out a provider like Dodl, Nutmeg, Wealthify or Moneybox. All of these let you choose portfolios by your risk appetite (how much risk you want to take on), with some offering ethical portfolios.
While the Pies feature technically means you can invest in ready-made portfolios, the portfolios on offer aren’t fully managed and all the investment decisions are still made by you.
What are Trading 212 Pies?
Trading 212 Pies are a method of “auto investing”. Effectively, you decide how you’d like your investments broken down by percentage and every time you add money to your investments, Trading 212 will automatically invest it proportionately into your pie.
You can choose to copy Pies made by other investors or Pies created by Trading 212, which are made from ETFs.
Trading 212 fees
Trading 212 is a popular trading app because it lets you buy and sell investments without trading fees or platform fees. Meanwhile, other platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown charge up to £11.95 per trade.
You’ll still have to pay a fee for some things, like foreign exchanges and some deposits.
| Fee | Cost | What it’s for |
| Platform fee | Free | A fee for using the investment platform |
| Trading fee | Free | Buying and selling investments |
| Deposits | Free via bank transfer. Free up to £2,000 for card payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits, 0.7% over £2,000 | Putting money in your account |
| Withdrawals | Free | Withdrawing money from your account |
| Custody fee | Free | A fee for holding your investments |
| Foreign exchange fee | 0.15% | Exchanging money into another currency |
Features for beginner investors
While Trading 212 doesn’t offer robo-advice or ready-made portfolios, which are usually the best way for beginners to get started with investing, Trading 212 is a good platform for you to learn how to invest yourself, as you can open a demo account. This account lets you invest with virtual money to get the hang of the tools and features available to you.
Annoyingly, you do have to sign up for a Trading 212 account to be able to use the demo account, which can be a pain if you give it a go and discover that it’s not the platform for you.
Is Trading 212 safe?
Trading 212 is FCA-regulated in the UK.
Your funds are ring-fenced, which means they’re kept separate from Trading 212’s own money. Uninvested cash in your account is also covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which protects up to £85,000 — this can be claimed in the case that Trading 212 goes bust.
However, if you choose to earn interest on your uninvested cash, this isn’t protected by this scheme – we’ve covered this in more detail in our review of Trading 212’s interest on savings.
Investments in your account are also ring-fenced, which means they’re kept separate from Trading 212’s assets. They’re safeguarded by Interactive Brokers and Bank of New York Mellon so if Trading 212 or any of its partners were to go bust, you’d still be able to access them.
What’s the Trading 212 platform like?
You can use Trading 212 on a desktop and in a mobile app. It’s quite easy to search for and buy investments.
Beginner investors might find the platform a little too much, while more advanced investors might feel that there aren’t enough features. For example, the charts and key stats for each investment are really useful if you know what you’re looking at, but can be a little confusing for beginners.
There’s a “News” tab which can give extra details on what’s going on with companies in the stock market, including annual reports, acquisitions and newsworthy events that might lead to a drop or rise in stock prices. These can be helpful to keep an eye on if you’re interested in learning more about DIY investing long-term.
To open a Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA, you need to be 18 or over and have a valid form of ID.
To sign up, either download the mobile app or go to its website and click “open an account”. You’ll be asked for personal details, including your National Insurance number.
You’ll be asked during the sign-up process which of the three accounts you want to sign up for.
You’ll also need to provide a form of ID to verify your identity. In addition, Trading 212 asks you to take a small selfie video alongside it.
Trading 212: free fractional share worth up to £100
Going via our link in the button below will give you a free fractional share valued between £8 and £100 at Trading 212.
You get the free share if you sign up with this link or enter the code BCWYC. It’s only eligible for you if you haven’t had an account before and 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 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 to receive the cash. Or you can keep it invested.
Remember, the value of any money invested, including your free share, could go up or down.
Once you have a Trading 212 account you can also
- Open a Trading 212 Cash ISA which pays 5.1%
- Earn 4.9% interest on uninvested cash
- Earn cashback on spending with the connected Trading 212 Cashback debit card
Pros and cons of Trading 212
Pros
- Commission free investing
- Offers a demo account
- Has a mobile app
- Can invest in stocks and ETFs
Cons
- Can be confusing for beginners
- No robo-advice or managed portfolios
Trading 212 reviews
On our sister site, Smart Money People, Trading 212 customers have rated it 4.75 out of 5. Customers find it easy to use and like to make use of the interest rate offered on cash. Positive reviews rave about the low fees and customer service.
Some negative reviewers had issues transferring ISAs or contacting customer service.
Read customer reviews of Trading 212
Is Trading 212 any good?
Zoe’s analysis
For more experienced investors who are looking to buy individual shares or exchange-traded funds, Trading 212 is a good platform. The Stocks and Shares ISA is free and you can transfer in existing ISAs from most other platforms. It’s also flexible, although you ideally aren’t withdrawing money from investments within a year, otherwise, it’s probably not money you’d want to invest.
However, it’s not the best option for those looking for ready-made options or passive investing, as you’re in charge of creating and managing your own portfolio and would need to stay on top of the performance of your investments. You can invest in a range of different funds to passively invest, but it’s still more hands-on than ready-made portfolios are
If you find yourself bogged down by the key stats and don’t understand how to compare investments, you’d probably be better off with a platform that offers both stock investing and ready-made portfolios so that you can learn more about investing in tandem with a managed portfolio. If you’re not interested in managing your own portfolio at all, you’re better off with a robo-advisor.
Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA
| Platform fees | £0 |
| Trading fees | £0 |
| Minimum deposit | £1 |
| Transfer in existing ISA? | Yes |
| Interest on uninvested cash | 4.9% |
| Flexible ISA? | Yes |