DEGIRO vs Interactive Brokers — which broker is better?

Pros

• ETF Core Selection trades cost EUR 0 commission plus the EUR 1.00 handling fee - among the cheapest ETF execution available to EU retail investors.
• US and Canadian shares are EUR 1.00 commission plus EUR 1.00 handling, flat, with no percentage component at any order size.
• Options and futures at EUR 0.75 per contract undercut nearly every European retail platform, across eight derivatives exchanges including Eurex and CME.
• No custody fee, no inactivity fee, no deposit or withdrawal fee, and a minimum deposit of EUR 0.01.
• Direct market access to more than 50 exchanges in 30 countries, so you own the actual listed line rather than a synthetic wrapper.
• Sits inside flatexDEGIRO Bank SE, a BaFin-supervised German bank, with cash covered to EUR 100,000 by the German statutory deposit guarantee.
• Parent flatexDEGIRO SE is listed in Frankfurt under FTK, so capital position, client numbers and profitability are published quarterly.

Cons

• The EUR 1.00 handling fee lands on almost every order, so a EUR 200 ETF purchase costs 0.5% before anything else. DEGIRO is cheap per order, not cheap per euro invested.
• AutoFX converts every non-euro trade at a 0.25% markup in both directions; the Manual FX alternative costs EUR 10.00 + 0.25% and only pays off on large conversions.
• The EUR 2.50 per-exchange annual connectivity fee is trivial in isolation but stacks quietly for anyone holding positions across five or six markets.
• No fractional shares and no demo account, which rules out small monthly contributions and leaves beginners nowhere to practise.
• Research is close to non-existent: no analyst ratings, no usable screener, and charting that stops well short of what an active trader needs.
• DEGIRO does not act as a withholding tax agent, so German and Austrian clients declare and pay capital gains tax themselves instead of having it handled at source.

Pros

• US stocks from USD 0.0035 per share on the Tiered plan, minimum USD 0.35 per order and capped at 1% of trade value
• Currency conversion at 0.20 basis points (minimum USD 2) — an order of magnitude cheaper than most European brokers' 0.25%–1.5%
• Roughly 160 market destinations in 36 countries from a single multi-currency account, with 28 settlement currencies
• No inactivity fee since 2021, plus no custody fee and no platform fee
• Trader Workstation offers over 100 order types plus a mature Python/Java/REST API used widely by retail algo traders
• Nasdaq-listed parent (IBKR) with published quarterly financials and around USD 21 billion of equity capital
• Top-tier licences in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, with per-entity investor compensation disclosed
• Paper trading account mirrors the live platform, including the full API

Cons

• Customer support is the most common complaint: many requests go through the ticket system, and public reviews (e.g. on Trustpilot) often cite slow replies and template answers
• Trader Workstation has a genuinely steep learning curve; the first session is intimidating even for experienced traders
• The fee schedule is complicated: Fixed versus Tiered, pass-through exchange fees, and per-exchange minimums make cost prediction harder than it should be
• Real-time market data is a paid subscription per exchange, so the headline commissions understate the true monthly cost for active traders
• Account opening is longer and more document-heavy than at app-first brokers, and the website navigation is poor
• Spot crypto is only available to US clients via a separate arrangement; EEA clients get futures and exchange-traded products instead