eToro Review UK: No Commission, 0.75% on Dollars and Up to $10 in Free Stocks. Is It Worth It?

eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. UK customers deal with eToro (UK) Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority with firm reference number 583263, company number 07973792, registered at One Canada Square in Canary Wharf. It is also registered with the FCA for crypto services under the money laundering regulations. The FCA register lists it as authorised under that number. The register also lists clone firms using the eToro name, so check you're on etoro.com before you sign in.

Everything runs through one app or the web platform: shares, ETFs, crypto, CFDs, copy trading, ready-made portfolios and ISAs. Every customer can hold cash in a dollar account, and UK customers can also open a pound account run by a sister company, eToro Money UK Ltd, an FCA-authorised e-money firm (number 900203). You can trade pound-priced assets from it without conversion, and pay in and take out pounds without a conversion fee.

Everyone also gets a free demo account with $100,000 of virtual money, which is a sensible place to learn where the CFD buttons are before you use real money.

eToro (UK) Ltd is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. eToro says any money deposited with it or assets it holds are treated as investments for FSCS purposes, so if eToro UK failed and there was a shortfall, the most the FSCS could pay is £85,000 per person.

The pound account is different. eToro's own risk text says money in your eToro Money account is not protected by a deposit compensation scheme such as the FSCS; it is held in a designated safeguarding account at an authorised bank, and eToro Money can't use it for anything else. Safeguarding helps if eToro Money fails, but it isn't the same as FSCS cover.

ISAs are "powered by Moneyfarm": eToro says the money is held in segregated accounts with MFM Investment Ltd, covered by the FSCS up to £85,000. Crypto has no protection at all. The FCA's own warning, which eToro shows: "Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong."

None of this covers a falling market. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you put in.

This is the eToro question that matters most. eToro says that for stocks and crypto, a non-leveraged long position (a plain buy with no leverage) means you own the actual asset. Short sells and leveraged positions on shares are executed as CFDs (contracts for difference), which track a price without giving you the asset. eToro adds that some non-leveraged buys are also executed as CFDs "due to product restrictions", and any CFD trade is marked "CFD" in the trade window. Look for that label before you confirm.

eToro's help centre says shares you own, whole or fractional, are bought in your name and held by eToro in a segregated omnibus (pooled) account on your behalf, with dividends and proxy voting. A stock CFD gives you no shares and no vote, though eToro adjusts your balance for dividends, and CFD positions are marked 'CFD' in your portfolio.

CFDs carry overnight fees for each night a position stays open (charged Monday to Friday at 22:00 UK time, and triple for the weekend), plus spreads. eToro's FCA warning, as shown on 12 October 2026: "CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider." Its older risk disclosure page still says 50%. Nothing in this review recommends CFDs.

Shares and ETFs. Commission on shares is $0 for UK residents on every exchange in eToro's table, ETFs carry no commission, and there's no custody fee. London-listed shares pay 0.5% stamp duty (SDRT), which is a UK tax rather than an eToro fee. Stock Margin, buying shares partly with borrowed money where eToro offers it, costs 0.15% commission on opening and closing plus an overnight fee on the borrowed amount.

Crypto. Bought without leverage, it's real crypto, at 1% per position to buy and 1% to sell for Bronze, Silver and Gold Club members, with lower rates from Platinum upwards. Moving it to the eToro Money crypto wallet costs 2%.

CopyTrader and Smart Portfolios. CopyTrader copies another eToro user's trades into your account automatically. eToro charges no extra fee for it, but the copied positions pay the same spreads and overnight fees as your own, and eToro's warning is blunt: copying carries a high level of risk even when you copy top performers, because you may be following inexperienced traders or people whose goals and finances differ from yours, and past performance isn't a reliable guide. Smart Portfolios are ready-made themed portfolios with no management fee or commission.

ISAs. eToro offers a Cash ISA, a Stocks and Shares ISA for UK and US assets, and a Managed ISA run for you, all powered by Moneyfarm, and says it handles ISA transfers in at no cost, though transferred holdings are sold and arrive as cash. The usual £20,000 yearly allowance applies across all your ISAs. Check the ISA rates and fees in the app before you transfer.

eToro pays interest on uninvested dollar cash in the investment account: 3% a year for UK residents, or 3.80% if your total balance (cash plus investments) is over $50,000, calculated daily on available cash and paid monthly. It isn't on by default: go to the eToro Club dashboard and switch Interest on Balance from Disabled to Active. Pound cash doesn't earn this rate, and moving pounds into dollars costs 0.75% each way, so a round trip (1.5%) eats about six months of interest at 3%, before any movement in the exchange rate. Outside an ISA, the interest may be taxable.

The pound account comes with an eToro Visa debit card for eligible Club members. eToro lists no fee for issuing the card or paying with it, and free cash machine withdrawals of up to £2,000 a month on the standard (green) card, then 1%.

eToro Club tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Platinum+ and Diamond) depend on the cash balance in your account or a paid subscription, and ISA holdings count towards them. Higher tiers get discounts on conversion fees: 20% for Silver and Gold, 40% for Platinum and Platinum+, 80% for Diamond. Check the balance each tier needs in the app before you count on a discount.

There's no fee to open an account, no management, custody or inactivity fee, and no commission on shares or ETFs for UK residents. eToro says every spread, commission and charge is listed on the trade ticket before you confirm.

Currency conversion is the fee that matters. Trading an asset priced in dollars from your pound account, or moving money between the pound and dollar accounts, costs 0.75%. Paying pounds straight into the dollar account costs 150 pips by card, bank transfer or online banking (a pip is 0.0001 of the exchange rate). Paying pounds into and out of the pound account involves no conversion. The conversion page still advertises a recurring-investment waiver that ended on 31 March 2026, which is one more reason to read the trade ticket.

Withdrawals from the pound account are free. From the dollar account they cost $5, with a $30 minimum. Crypto is 1% per position each way at the lower Club tiers, plus 2% to move coins to the eToro wallet. CFDs on shares and ETFs cost 0.15% per trade, crypto CFDs 1%, plus spreads and overnight fees.

Our link is eToro's Refer a Friend invite. eToro's in-app invite screen, as shown on 12 October 2026, says friends who join through it "can get up to $10 in free stocks". It describes three steps: register through the link, deposit, then "earn exciting rewards when they invest", and it says the offer is subject to eToro's terms and conditions. Those live terms set the exact conditions, including how much you need to deposit and invest and when the stocks arrive, so read them before you pay in.

eToro's UK Refer a Friend terms (last updated 10 September 2026) set who counts as an invited friend: a new customer who hadn't registered with eToro or downloaded its app before the referral, and who completes registration and verification with the same eToro company as the person who invited them. The referral qualifies once that friend, within 90 days of registering, makes a first deposit of at least $100 and opens trades worth at least $100 in total. It's one account per person, per payment method and per household, the programme can't be combined with any other promotion, discount or promo code unless eToro says otherwise, abusing it forfeits the reward, and eToro can change or end it at any time.

Nothing here needs CFDs, leverage or copy trading: if you invest to qualify, a plain buy of shares without leverage is a trade too, and the trade window marks any position that would be a CFD.

Disclosure: the link is GetQuids' own eToro invite, and eToro's invite screen says the person who invites you can get up to $200, so we may receive up to $200 when you qualify. That doesn't change what you get.

At most $10, which is about £7.56 at the ECB's 9 October 2026 reference rate ($1 = £0.75641). The screen says "up to", so you may get less, and from the day the stocks arrive their value moves with the share price.

Turning them into pounds costs a little more. Our assumption is that the stocks are priced in dollars and held in your dollar account. Withdrawing from the dollar account costs $5 with a $30 minimum, so $10 can't come out that way on its own. Selling at the same price and moving the dollars to your pound account costs the usual 0.75%, leaving about £7.51, and withdrawing from the pound account is free. A 10% fall in the price would leave about £6.76, and a 10% rise about £8.26.

For scale, that's about what eToro charges in conversion on a single £1,000 purchase of US shares from pounds (£7.50). The free stocks are a small extra; whether eToro suits you depends on the fees above and how you'd use it.

On 12 October 2026 the eToro app was rated 4.2 from 18,228 ratings on the UK App Store and 4.1 from 156,801 ratings on Google Play, a figure that probably covers every country. On Trustpilot eToro scored 4.0 from 32,195 reviews, with 66% five-star and 20% one-star.

The low ratings repeat the same themes: withdrawals that take a long time or accounts frozen while they're processed; repeated requests for ID and proof of address, often triggered by a withdrawal; support that's hard to reach and replies with templates; conversion and per-transaction fees; login problems after app updates; some shares or products not being available; and the occasional sign-up reward that never arrived. If you join for the free stocks, keep screenshots of the offer and of your deposit.

You open an account in the app or on the website, then complete your profile and verification: identity and address checks. Until you're verified, deposits are capped at $2,250 in total.

PayPal isn't available for deposits to eToro (UK) Ltd. Bank transfers can take 4 to 7 business days to arrive. eToro says the minimum first deposit varies by country between $10 and $10,000, so check the UK figure on the deposit screen before you pay in. Later deposits must be at least $50, or $500 by wire transfer.

To close, eToro's help centre says to close every open position (copies and Smart Portfolios included), withdraw everything from both the dollar and the pound account, and finish any outstanding verification, then go to Settings, Account and "Close your eToro account". A closed account can't be reopened. If you joined for the free stocks, check the offer terms for any holding period before you withdraw or close.

Consider it if you want UK and US shares with no commission in one app, or if you'd use the pound account to keep London-listed shares free of conversion. The free stocks through our invite are a small extra on top.

Skip it if you mostly buy US shares in size, because 0.75% each way adds up (about £15 to buy and later sell £1,000), or if you want the cash you hold covered by the FSCS rather than safeguarded. Leave CFDs, leverage and copy trading alone unless you fully understand them, and don't open an account just for up to $10 of free stocks.