Avanza vs XTB — which broker is better?

Pros

• Start class: 0% courtage on Stockholmsbörsen and 100% of fund fees refunded for customers who have never had SEK 50,000 in total savings at Avanza, until SEK 50,000 or more than 500 free trades in 12 months
• Mini class from 0.25% with a SEK 1 minimum on Stockholmsbörsen and First North, and a USD 1 minimum on US shares
• Avanza Bank AB is a Swedish bank supervised by Finansinspektionen, and the parent Avanza Bank Holding AB is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm as AZA
• Two Swedish schemes: the deposit guarantee covers uninvested cash up to SEK 1,150,000 per customer and institution, the investor compensation scheme covers securities up to SEK 250,000
• SEK 0 annual, management and deposit fees on every account type in the price list, ISK, kapitalförsäkring and pensions included, and no minimum deposit
• Wide range for a domestic bank: shares in the Nordics, North America and nine further European markets online, desk orders on most other exchanges, funds without courtage, ETFs, options, futures, certificates, warrants and bonds
• Avanza calculates the ISK flat-rate income and reports it to Skatteverket, and the pre-filled K4 form costs SEK 0 since January 2026
• Free real-time prices for the Nordic markets, Nasdaq and NYSE, and US trading from 11:00 to 22:30 Swedish time

Cons

• The website and app address residents of Sweden; residents abroad cannot trade European shares online, and we found no route in from Germany, Austria or Switzerland
• Automatic currency exchange costs 0.25% in each direction, 0.5% on a round trip; the manual service at 0.125% per direction does not cover funds and, according to Avanza, cannot be added to an ISK and needs an approved securities credit on the aktie- och fondkonto
• One courtage class applies to all orders on all accounts: a SEK 10,000 order costs SEK 25 in Mini but SEK 39 in Small, SEK 69 in Medium and SEK 99 in Fast Pris
• We found no demo account and no source for fractional shares; crypto exposure is limited to exchange-traded certificates, and Avanza does not sell crypto assets directly
• Support in Swedish, by phone and by secure message in the logged-in area; we found no live chat and no email address, and general opening hours were not readable on the pages we could open

Pros

• xStation 5 is one of the strongest platforms in the commission-free bracket - a real screener, market heat map, sentiment data, economic calendar and news in one workspace, on web, desktop and mobile with near-identical features.
• Commission-free real stocks and ETFs up to EUR 100,000 of turnover per calendar month; above that only the excess is charged at 0.2% with a EUR 10 minimum.
• No minimum deposit at all, plus fractional shares, so a monthly savings plan can start at almost any amount.
• Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since 2016 under XTB, with audited financials and a KNF licence held continuously since 2005.
• EUR/USD spreads averaging around 0.9 pips on the Standard account with no separate forex commission - competitive for a spread-only model.
• Support is genuinely multi-channel including a phone line, with local-language desks across its main European markets - a real differentiator against the chat-only app brokers.
• The mobile app keeps the analysis tools rather than stripping them out, so charting and screening actually work away from a desk.

Cons

• The 0.5% currency conversion charge applies whenever the instrument currency differs from your account currency. For a EUR investor buying US stocks it is charged on the way in and again on the way out, and it dwarfs the commission it replaces.
• Outside the German branch, a EUR 10 monthly inactivity fee still kicks in after 365 days without a trade and 90 days without a deposit (XTB S.A.'s Polish table, XTB Limited Cyprus) - a charge Trading 212 and eToro have both abolished.
• Four disclosed regulatory actions since 2018: a PLN 9.9m KNF fine for asymmetric slippage (2018), a EUR 300,000 AMF fine for compliance failures and misleading advertising (2021), a Brazilian CVM stop order (2023) and a PLN 20m KNF fine over MiFID II CFD sales breaches (2026).
• No exchange-traded futures, no individual bonds and no mutual funds. Options exist but only just over 180 on US stocks and ETFs, priced through a 0.25% mark-up built into the premium rather than a per-contract commission.
• At the Cyprus entity, the account page still marks CFD-account withdrawals as free only above EUR/USD 100, although its fee table of 19.10.2026 lists no withdrawal fee - small accounts should check before withdrawing. XTB S.A.'s German branch charges nothing at any amount.
• The Belize entity (XTB International Limited, FSC registration 6442514) is a tier-3 offshore licence with materially weaker recourse than the Polish or UK entities. Check which entity you are onboarded to.