Avanza

Avanza prices share trades through courtage classes that the customer chooses. One class applies to every order on every account, and Avanza's courtage page says it can be changed free of charge at any time. The order sizes in the second column are Avanza's own suggestions, not automatic thresholds.

The SEK 1 minimum in Mini stops binding at SEK 400, so a SEK 500 purchase costs SEK 1.25 and a SEK 10,000 purchase SEK 25. The same SEK 10,000 order costs the SEK 39 minimum in Small, SEK 69 in Medium and SEK 99 in Fast Pris. At SEK 100,000 the order runs the other way: SEK 250 in Mini, SEK 150 in Small, SEK 69 in Medium and SEK 99 in Fast Pris. Because one class covers everything, it should match the usual order size rather than the occasional large one.

Start is the entry offer: 0% courtage on Stockholmsbörsen and 100% of fund fees refunded, open only to customers who have never had SEK 50,000 or more in total savings at Avanza. First North (from SEK 1) and Spotlight (from SEK 19) are priced separately. At SEK 50,000 of savings, or after more than 500 free trades within 12 months, the customer moves to Mini automatically and cannot choose Start again.

Beyond courtage, the account price list read on 2 November 2026 shows SEK 0 for the annual fee, percentage fee, deposit fee and management fee on the aktie- och fondkonto, ISK, kapitalförsäkring, sparkonto, IPS and the pension accounts, and a deposit requirement of SEK 0. Funds carry no courtage, except Brummer and Lynx funds with a 1% buy fee. We found no inactivity fee in the price lists, but also no sentence ruling one out. Currency exchange is the cost that adds up on foreign shares; it is covered under markets and products below.

Avanza's investment and savings accounts are held by Avanza Bank AB, which Finansinspektionen lists as a bankaktiebolag under institute number 35171 (organisation number 556573-5668). The register shows a banking licence since 6 December 2005, investment-service authorisations since 2007, discretionary portfolio management since 19 November 2025 and life-insurance licences since 28 January 2026. The parent, Avanza Bank Holding AB (publ), is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker AZA and publishes quarterly reports. At 30 September 2026 it reported 2,391,100 customers and SEK 1,276.6 billion of savings capital; for the third quarter of 2026 it reported operating income of SEK 1,283 million and an operating profit of SEK 920 million.

Protection works in layers, and Avanza's safety page sets them out:

• Cash: uninvested money on the aktie- och fondkonto, ISK and sparkonto falls under the Swedish deposit guarantee, up to SEK 1,150,000 per customer and institution, plus up to SEK 5 million for deposits linked to particular events such as the sale of a home, an inheritance or an insurance payout. The money is due within seven working days of the guarantee taking effect.
• Securities: holdings on the aktie- och fondkonto and ISK are kept together on a nominee account at Euroclear Sweden in Avanza's name and recorded per customer, funds are nominee-registered with the fund companies, and options are registered at Nasdaq in the customer's own name. In a bankruptcy customers therefore have a right of separation. If securities still cannot be returned, the investor compensation scheme pays up to SEK 250,000 per customer; the claim must reach Riksgälden within one year of the bankruptcy decision.
• IPS, kapitalförsäkring and pensions work differently. The securities on an IPS account are segregated, but cash on it is not, and neither scheme covers IPS holdings. Kapitalförsäkring and pension assets sit with Försäkringsaktiebolaget Avanza Pension, a separate life insurer registered with Finansinspektionen under institute number 21116, in a priority register, which gives policyholders a priority claim for the full value rather than a capped guarantee.

Riksgälden lists Avanza Bank AB among the institutions in the investor compensation scheme. None of this makes any broker guaranteed safe; it describes what happens to client assets if the bank fails.

Avanza runs a website and an app for iOS and Android, and offers the third-party Infront terminal for active traders.

The website is the full workspace. Avanza's history page lists the additions of 2024: an analysis tab with report data and historical ratios, technical analysis through TradingView's charting tools, algorithmic TWAP and VWAP orders, and access to Nasdaq's Nordic@Mid dark pool for larger orders. The product-news page adds the 2026 changes: Limit on Close orders (January), Xetra as the data source for German shares with five levels of order depth (February), real-time US prices for every customer (July), insider transactions on Swedish shares (July), US trading from 11:00 to 22:30 Swedish time including pre-market and after-hours sessions (September) and a net-asset-value chart for investment and property companies (October). The add-on price list shows real-time prices for the Nordic markets, Nasdaq and NYSE at SEK 0; Canadian real-time prices cost SEK 125 a month.

The app carries order entry, watchlists that can be configured and sorted (February 2026), price alerts, the weekly analyses and the account overview. We have no dated source for app-store ratings, so we quote none.

Infront Active Trader is a Windows application with no macOS version. It brings real-time news, advanced charts, an Excel link, its own alerts and order entry linked to the Avanza account, with real-time Nordic prices and five levels of order depth (Oslo excluded) in the base package. It costs SEK 999 a month for Brons, Silver, Guld and Platina customers, SEK 699 for Private Banking and nothing for Pro 2 and above (SEK 399 for Pro 1), with a 14-day free trial. The Pro tier requires two minimum-courtage trades a day or SEK 280,000 of daily turnover and brings courtage from 0.034%, contract-note merging and half the ordinary currency spread.

We found no demo account and no documented retail API in the sources we read.

Avanza's range is wide for a domestic bank and runs from Swedish small caps to listed derivatives.

• Shares and ETFs on Stockholmsbörsen, First North, NGM, Nordic MTF and Spotlight, on the other Nordic exchanges, in the US and Canada, and in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK. In March 2026 Avanza added over 150 shares in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. Most other exchanges are reached through the brokerage desk, at 0.30% with a SEK 749 minimum, or 0.15% in Australia (minimum AUD 50) and Hong Kong (minimum HKD 400).
• Funds without courtage, including Avanza's own index funds; Avanza Sweden, launched in May 2026, charges 0.17% according to Avanza.
• Options and futures on Swedish shares and indices: options from 0.80% in Start and Mini down to 0.60% in Fast Pris with a SEK 49 minimum, index futures SEK 20 per contract in Start and Mini, plus clearing fees.
• Certificates, warrants and mini futures, including Bull & Bear certificates and Mini futures from Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc sold as Avanza Markets: no courtage on website orders of at least SEK 1,000. Avanza discloses that it receives SEK 0–550 per trade from the issuer, a conflict worth knowing about.
• Bonds: premium and corporate bonds from 0.30% (0.15% from Small upwards) with a SEK 99 minimum.
• Short selling through a share loan, at SEK 199 plus interest of at least 1.50% for OMXS30 shares and at least 3% for others.
• Crypto only through certificates on Bitcoin, Ether and other coins; Avanza's academy page says customers cannot buy crypto assets directly from Avanza. We found no CFDs or spot forex in the price lists.

Currency is the cost that matters most on foreign shares. When a trade needs an automatic conversion, Avanza applies a 0.5% spread, 0.25% in each direction. Its own example: buying shares for EUR 1,000 at a rate of SEK 10 costs SEK 10,025, and selling them returns SEK 9,975. On a SEK 50,000 US purchase that is SEK 125 each way. The manual exchange service lets the customer choose when to convert, at a total markup of 0.25%, or 0.125% per direction, on top of the market spread; it does not apply to funds. According to Avanza's Europe and US trading pages it can only be added to an aktie- och fondkonto with an approved securities credit, not to an ISK, and Avanza's product news offers a currency account on the kapitalförsäkring to Private Banking and Pro customers only. On an ISK, therefore, foreign trades always carry the automatic 0.25% per direction. Dividends from foreign shares are converted to SEK at 0.25%, and Pro customers get half the ordinary spread.

Avanza's accounts follow the Swedish wrapper system, and the tax handling is where a domestic bank does work that a broker without Swedish tax reporting leaves to the customer.

An investeringssparkonto (ISK) is not taxed on gains or dividends. Skatteverket instead taxes a flat-rate income (schablonintäkt). For 2026 the rate is the government borrowing rate of 30 November 2025, 2.55%, plus one percentage point, so 3.55% of the capital base, taxed at 30%, which comes to 1.065%. From 1 January 2026 the first SEK 300,000 of combined savings in ISK, kapitalförsäkring and PEPP products is tax-free. Avanza states that it calculates the flat-rate income and reports it to Skatteverket, where it appears pre-filled in the tax return, so no individual trade is ever declared. The ISK costs SEK 0 in fixed, deposit and withdrawal fees, a customer can hold more than one, and an ISK cannot hold unlisted securities or short positions. Securities credit is possible through a linked credit account.

A kapitalförsäkring (KF) is an insurance wrapper provided by Avanza Pension and is also taxed on a flat-rate basis. It always includes a repayment protection that pays out the value plus 1% when the insured person dies; that extra 1% carries a risk cost. Beneficiaries can be named, and if Avanza Pension failed, policyholders would have a priority claim on the registered assets.

The aktie- och fondkonto is the ordinary taxable account that every customer receives: realised gains are taxed at 30%, and fund holdings carry an annual fund tax of 0.12% of their value. On foreign dividends Avanza deducts Swedish preliminary tax next to the foreign withholding tax, usually 15% each, adding up to 30%; on an ISK or KF only the foreign withholding tax is deducted. Since January 2026 the pre-filled K4 form for reporting sales costs SEK 0.

Pension accounts (IPS, pensionsförsäkring and tjänstepension) show SEK 0 account fees in the price list. Avanza added an age-based automatic product, Autopension, in February 2026, and since January 2026 shares can be kept during pension payouts instead of being sold first. For a household that wants its ISK, KF, pension and savings account under one login, that consolidation is the practical strength of the offer.

Opening an account is free and, in Avanza's words, takes three minutes with BankID, the Swedish electronic ID. How to open an account without BankID was not stated on the pages we could read. Options and short selling need separate agreements, requested by secure message and signed with BankID, and short selling first requires an approved securities credit. For more complex instruments such as options and exchange-traded products, Avanza's knowledge test has to be passed for each category before it can be traded.

The limit is residence. Avanza's terms of use state that the information on its website and app is aimed at people resident in Sweden and is not an offer to people in countries where that would be unlawful, naming the US, Australia, Canada and Japan in particular. Customers who live abroad cannot trade European shares on the site or app for tax reasons, and Avanza asks residents abroad for additional information. We found no route in for investors resident in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, so for them the comparison ends here. Avanza appointed a country head for Denmark who started on 12 October 2026, and its third-quarter report books SEK 11 million of costs for the expansion abroad, but no launch date had been published by 2 November 2026.

Funding runs through Swedish bank accounts:

• Direct deposit is free and credited in real time, from 07:00 to 23:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 08:00 to 23:00 on other days. Through Swish it works for up to SEK 150,000, with the limit set at the customer's other bank; through Trustly any amount works for customers of Swedbank, SEB, Nordea, Handelsbanken, Skandia, Länsförsäkringar and Danske Bank.
• Bank transfer works from every bank and normally takes up to one business day.

Withdrawals through the website are free and go only to accounts registered to the customer's own personal identity number; Avanza checks this with the receiving bank and refuses other destinations. A withdrawal by phone costs SEK 39, an express withdrawal requested before 15:00 SEK 499, and a withdrawal in a foreign currency SEK 499. How long a standard withdrawal takes was not stated on the pages we could read. Cards, e-wallets and crypto funding do not appear in the sources.

Research on Avanza leans on content from inside the group. Since April 2026 share analyses, buy recommendations and market commentary from Placera and Affärsvärlden appear in the app and on the site every week, and Private Banking customers also get analyses from Kepler Cheuvreux. Avanza's product-news page notes that Avanza and Placera Media belong to the same group, which is worth keeping in mind when reading a buy recommendation. The tools around it include a share screener, the analysis tab with report data and historical ratios, a dividend calendar (March 2026), insider transactions on Swedish shares (July 2026) and the net-asset-value chart (October 2026). Paid add-ons are billed monthly: Börsdata Pro+ SEK 499, Affärsvärlden Digital SEK 416 (SEK 208 for Platina), Simply Wall St SEK 99, SME Direkt SEK 99 and the Placera morning report SEK 9 (free for Platina).

Education runs through Avanza Akademin, a library of articles on saving strategy, funds, shares, borrowing against a portfolio and crypto, and through the Avanzapodden podcast. The academy texts are written plainly and carry risk notes; the crypto article, for instance, explains the difference between holding a coin at a crypto exchange and holding a certificate in an ISK.

Support is reached by phone and by secure message in the logged-in area. The number +46 8 409 420 00 serves customer service and the brokerage desk, which takes phone orders on weekdays from 08:00 until 22:00 according to Avanza's world-markets page (its Europe page says 20:00); Pro customers have their own line, +46 8 409 420 10, and some Avanza pages give +46 8 562 250 00 for customer service and for reporting phishing. The general customer-service pages are rendered by JavaScript we could not read, so we cannot state opening hours beyond the desk, and we found no live chat and no email address. Support is in Swedish.

On reputation, Avanza's own report for the third quarter of 2026 (published 16 October 2026) says it has won the Swedish Quality Index (SKI) award for the most satisfied savings customers in each of the past 16 years, and that it was named "Nordic's Best Personal Investment Platform" at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2026. Both are Avanza's statements about third-party awards; we have not looked at the surveys behind them.