What Lightyear actually does
Lightyear is an investing app built by a team of ex-Wise engineers and executives, aimed at giving European retail investors access to global stocks, ETFs and money-market funds without the layered fees typical of older brokers. Its EU business is run through Lightyear Europe AS, licensed as an investment firm by Estonia's Finantsinspektsioon, with a separate authorisation covering crypto-asset services; a UK-facing entity, Lightyear UK Ltd, is separately authorised by the FCA. The company is headquartered in Tallinn with a London office, and its founders' Wise background shows up clearly in the product's focus on transparent, itemised pricing rather than a single all-in spread.
The core product
ETFs trade with no execution or custody fees at all, Lightyear's most distinctive claim. Individual stocks are priced differently depending on market: UK shares cost £1 per order, EUR-denominated shares cost €1 per order, US stocks cost 0.1% per order capped at $1 with a $0.10 minimum, and other European stocks are charged at 0.1% with a market-dependent minimum. Currency conversion is charged at 0.35% over the live interbank rate, which is transparent but not free. Uninvested cash can be allocated into money-market funds that currently yield a modest return, 0.15% or less after fees according to the platform's own pricing page, giving users somewhere for idle cash to sit rather than earning nothing.
What's new or notable
Lightyear has been expanding beyond plain stock and ETF trading, adding money-market fund access as a de facto cash-management feature and layering in crypto trading under its separate Estonian crypto-asset licence, a notable structural detail, since crypto trading in the EU sits outside the investor-protection framework that covers regulated securities. The company has also pushed multi-currency account functionality, letting users hold balances in several currencies to reduce how often they need to convert money and pay the 0.35% FX fee.
Who should use Lightyear
Great fit if…
- You mainly buy ETFs and hold long-term — the zero-fee ETF trading is the strongest reason to choose Lightyear over a percentage-commission broker.
- You want a transparent, itemised fee schedule — every cost is published per market rather than bundled into a spread, making it easier to estimate the true cost of a trade in advance.
- You want uninvested cash to do something — routing idle cash into money-market funds beats leaving it at zero, even if the current yield is modest.
Skip it if…
- You trade individual stocks frequently — per-order fees on stocks, as opposed to free ETFs, add up faster than on a broker with flat zero-commission stock trading.
- You need deposit-guarantee-level protection on cash — as an investment firm rather than a bank, Lightyear's client-money protection sits under the lower investor-compensation cap, not a bank deposit guarantee.
- You regularly receive USD wires — the flat per-wire USD receiving fee is a real cost for anyone paid or transferring money in dollars.
Pricing in detail
There's no monthly subscription and no account-opening fee. ETFs trade free of execution or custody charges. Individual stocks are charged per order depending on market, see table below. Currency conversion costs 0.35% over the interbank rate, card deposits cost 0.6%, and local bank transfers out are free while USD wire receipts cost a flat $6.11. A business-investing account carries an additional annual LEI fee of €48 plus VAT, which is a regulatory identifier cost rather than a Lightyear markup.
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| ETF trading | Free | No execution or custody fees on ETFs |
| UK / EUR stock trading | £1 or €1 per order | Flat per-order fee on UK and EUR-denominated shares |
| US / other stock trading | 0.1% per order (min./max. apply) | Percentage fee with a market-dependent floor and cap |
| Money-market cash | Free to hold, yield varies | Uninvested cash can be swept into money-market funds |
Where it falls short
- No flat-fee stock trading — unlike its ETF trading, individual stocks always carry a per-order cost, however small.
- Client protection is capped lower than a bank account — the €20,000 investor-compensation ceiling is meaningfully below the €100,000 typically guaranteed on bank deposits.
Privacy & data
As an EU-regulated investment firm, Lightyear is subject to GDPR and to standard financial-services identity-verification and transaction-monitoring requirements. Operating two regulated entities, in Estonia and the UK, means data can be processed across both depending on which entity holds the customer relationship, which is disclosed in the company's terms rather than hidden, but is worth knowing for anyone weighing where their data sits.
How we checked this
Pricing details were checked against Lightyear's own pricing page and its regulatory-status help page on 2026-09-05. The Estonian investment-firm licence and its scope were confirmed via Finantsinspektsioon's public announcement, and the €20,000 investor-compensation ceiling was confirmed on the Estonian Guarantee Fund's own FAQ page. We did not find a Lightyear-published page spelling out compensation amounts directly, so that figure is sourced from the regulator rather than the company.
What you get, what you give up
What you get
- Genuinely free ETF trading with no execution or custody fees, useful for buy-and-hold index investors.
- Uninvested cash can be swept into money-market funds for a yield rather than sitting idle, inside the same app.
What you give up
- Individual stock trades still carry a fee (a flat £1/€1 or 0.1% depending on market), so it isn't commission-free across the board the way its ETF trading is.
- Receiving a USD wire payment costs a flat $6.11 fee, which can matter for users who get paid or transfer money in US dollars.