What Trade Republic actually does
Trade Republic is a Berlin-based mobile brokerage that also happens to be a fully licensed bank, built around flat, usage-based pricing rather than a subscription or percentage-based commission.
The core product
Trade Republic Bank GmbH was granted a full banking licence by the European Central Bank in December 2023 and is supervised on an ongoing basis by BaFin, Germany's federal financial regulator — so it's a licensed bank in its own right rather than a brokerage operating under someone else's licence.
The app lets users invest from as little as €1 across a range of asset classes:
- Stocks and ETFs
- Bonds
- Derivatives
- Cryptocurrencies
It also offers recurring savings plans and an interest-bearing cash account for money not yet invested. There's no monthly account fee, and recurring savings-plan purchases carry no Trade Republic trading fee at all — a genuinely rare combination among European brokers, most of which charge something for either the account or the plan itself.
What's new or notable
Trade Republic currently advertises 2.25% per annum interest on uninvested cash held in the account, turning what would otherwise be idle balance into a small return while it sits waiting to be invested. It also offers a debit card tied to the account with no separate card subscription fee, paying a 1% "Saveback" reward on card spending — a cashback-style feature that links everyday spending back into the investing app rather than requiring a separate rewards program.
One-off orders — a single stock, ETF or crypto purchase outside a savings plan — carry a small flat fee (around €1 at Trade Republic's default execution venue, per its own pricing page) rather than a percentage-based commission, though routing an order to a specific exchange instead of the default venue costs more.
Who should use Trade Republic
Great fit if…
- You invest via recurring savings plans — these carry no Trade Republic trading fee at all, making dollar-cost-averaging into an ETF genuinely free.
- You want your uninvested cash to earn something — the 2.25% p.a. rate on cash balances is a real return while money waits to be invested.
- You want simple, flat, predictable pricing — a small flat fee per one-off order beats percentage-based commissions for most order sizes.
Skip it if…
- You need advanced order types or research tools — the app is deliberately simple, with a narrower range of exchanges, order types and research features than a full-service broker.
- You trade specific exchanges often — routing away from Trade Republic's default execution venue costs more than the standard flat fee.
- You expect to move your whole portfolio elsewhere later — transferring out to another broker carries a per-security-line transfer fee on top of anything the receiving broker charges.
Pricing in detail
Costs are usage-based: the account itself and savings plans are free, and only one-off orders and portfolio transfers carry a fee.
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Account & savings plans | Free — no monthly fee, no fee on savings-plan purchases | Investing from €1, recurring savings plans across stocks, ETFs, bonds and crypto, plus 2.25% p.a. interest on uninvested cash and a debit card with 1% Saveback |
| One-off order (default venue) | Small flat fee, around €1 | A single stock, ETF or crypto purchase or sale outside a savings plan, executed at Trade Republic's default venue |
| One-off order (specific exchange) | Higher than the default flat fee | Routing an order to a specific exchange instead of the default execution venue |
| Portfolio transfer out | Per-security-line fee | Moving a full portfolio to another broker |
Where it falls short
- Fees appear when you trade actively — a one-off stock, ETF or crypto order carries a small flat fee at the default venue, and routing to a specific exchange instead costs more.
- Narrower feature set than a full-service broker — a limited set of exchanges and order types, and no dedicated research or advanced charting tools inside the app.
- Leaving costs money — moving a full portfolio to another broker carries a per-security-line transfer fee from Trade Republic, on top of anything the receiving broker charges.
Privacy & data
As a fully licensed bank under BaFin and ECB supervision, Trade Republic is bound by GDPR and German/EU banking data-protection rules, and account opening involves standard identity-verification checks required of any regulated European bank or broker.
Trade Republic's public pricing page doesn't detail specifics like its exact encryption implementation or biometric login setup, so beyond standard EU banking data-protection law we can't independently confirm more than that — its own privacy policy is the place to check for specifics.
How we checked this
This review is based on Trade Republic's official pricing page (traderepublic.com/pricing), checked on 2026-09-04; the page's detailed fee tables are rendered dynamically and couldn't be fully extracted by automated fetch, so pricing figures here combine what could be confirmed from the page's own published statements (interest rate, Saveback rate, no-subscription card) with Trade Republic's own previously verified fee structure for one-off orders and transfers. We did not open an account or place a trade, so always confirm the live fee shown before an order in the app.