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Vanguard ReviewXTB UK Review
Written by Elizabeth Anderson
Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by Jeff Anberg
Your capital is at risk.
Poland-based XTB made a splash in the U.K. with its July 2023 launch of commission-free share trading — having previously offered only CFD trading — and has set itself up as a strong competitor to other beginner-friendly brokers. XTB aims to be an all-in-one investment app, and its low fees and solid educational content make it particularly attractive to newer investors. Another bonus is that XTB now offers an ISA, so you can invest without worrying about paying tax on potential returns.
-
Minimum Deposit:
£0 -
ISA:
Yes -
SIPP:
No
| Investment Choices | |
| Charges & Fees | |
| Website | |
| Education | |
| Mobile App | |
| Ease of Use |
Check out UK.StockBrokers.com's picks for the best investment platforms in 2025.
| 2025 | #6 |
| 2024 | #10 |
| 2023 | #12 |
Table of Contents
Pros & cons
Pros
- Commission-free stock and ETF trading.
- Easy-to-use mobile trading app.
- Invest through a flexible ISA.
- Pays 4.50% interest on uninvested cash (pound sterling).
Cons
- No mutual funds or bonds.
- Expensive if you trade more than €100,000 a month (and watch out for the £10 monthly inactivity fee).
- No SIPP offering.
XTB fees
Commission-free trading: XTB offers commission-free share and ETF trading for those trading less than €100,000 a month, so you’re unlikely to pay trading fees unless you are a highly active trader. Transactions above this amount are charged a commission of 0.2%, or a minimum of €10, which can quickly add up. On a £350,000 trade, for example, you’d pay a commission of around £574.
This makes XTB great value for many investors, in line with other commission-free brokers like Trading 212 and eToro. There are no custody or platform charges for maintaining an account with a value of less than €250,000, unlike traditional U.K. platforms that either charge a percentage of your portfolio or a flat fee. This means XTB allows you to buy, sell, and hold stocks and ETFs for free, which is great value. However, an FX fee of 0.5% is applied if you are buying stocks or ETFs in another currency.
Stocks and shares ISA: XTB now offers an ISA, which I think is a fantastic recent addition. It means you can now invest without worrying about potential capital gains tax or other taxes. Another bonus is that XTB's ISA is free to hold unlike other platforms such as Freetrade or CMC Invest, which charge a monthly fee for their ISAs. Bear in mind there is an overall ISA allowance of £20,000 you can pay into ISAs each year. Currently, the ISA is only available through the app and not the web platform. There are no plans to launch an XTB self-invested pension (SIPP), which is a shame for those investing for retirement.
Withdrawal and inactivity fees: It’s free to open and close an account with XTB, but a withdrawal fee of £5 is applied if you are taking out less than £50. There is also an inactivity fee of £10 a month charged if you haven’t made a trade for more than 12 months or if no cash has been put in your account in the previous 90 days. Be mindful of opening an account and then leaving it idle, as the costs could quickly rack up.
It’s free to pay GBP into your wallet, but a fee of 2% is charged if you want to hold U.S. dollars (USD). A virtual wallet that can hold multiple currencies is currently being tested to roll out in Poland and Germany but is not currently available to XTB users in the U.K.
Scenario pricing: When calculating annual share dealing costs, trading frequency and account balance are the two most important factors to consider. Assuming a £30,000 portfolio in a traditional, taxable share dealing account, here are four scenarios of how much XTB would cost based on trade frequency:
- 5 trades per year = £0
- 12 trades per year = £0
- 36 trades per year = £0
- 120 trades per year = £0
- 3 fund trades per year = N/A
| Feature |
 XTB
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | £0 |
| Share Trading: 0-9 Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Share Trading: 10-19 Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Share Trading: 20+ Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £0 - £250,000 | 0 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £250K-£500K | 0 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £500,000 - £1m | 0 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £1m and over | 0 |
| Bonds - Corporate - Fee | N/A |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) - Fee | N/A |
| ETFs - Fee | £0 |
| Investment Trusts - Fee | N/A |
| Telephone Dealing Fee | N/A |
What type of trader are you?
New to the world of investing? See my picks for the best UK trading platforms for beginners. More experienced traders should check out my guide to the best UK Trading Platforms for Active Traders. If you're looking to trade shares on the go, read my guide to the best UK stock trading apps.
Range of investments
You can invest in more than 3,000 stocks from 14 stock exchanges through XTB, including the London Stock Exchange, NYSE, and Deutsche Boerse. You can also invest in around 1,350 ETFs, a big jump in the past year. Mutual funds or bonds are not available, so investors looking for these would have to go to another platform such as Hargreaves Lansdown or Interactive Investor.
In my testing, I thought international stocks were nicely integrated into the platform. Simply select ‘stocks’ (STC) and you’ll see a dropdown list of countries that you can open to view available stocks for that particular nation's exchanges. You can also hold and trade in 100 different currencies with XTB eWallet.
For those that don’t feel confident building their own investment portfolio, XTB offers ‘Investment Plans.’ Here, you can design a personalised portfolio from 700 ETFs that align with your risk tolerance, industry preferences, or regional coverage. This means that while XTB doesn’t offer mutual funds, there is still an option for investors to access a diversified, ready-made portfolio at exceptionally low cost. It’s free to set up your investment plan and they are free to run, with a low minimum initial investment of just £15. You can run up to 10 plans at the same time.
XTB also offers generous interest on uninvested cash balances for certain currencies. Investors earn 4.50% interest on GBP, 4.20% a year on USD, and 2.30% on their EUR uninvested holdings — rates that are competitive with bank savings accounts (check XTB's site for the most up-to-date rates).
| Feature |
XTB
|
|---|---|
| Share Trading | Yes |
| CFD Trading | Yes |
| ETFs | Yes |
| Funds | No |
| Bonds - Corporate | No |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) | No |
| Investment Trusts | No |
| Spread Betting | Yes |
| Crypto Trading | No |
| Advisor Services | No |
Mobile trading apps
XTB's stock trading app is nicely laid out, featuring favourites and hot stocks on the homepage which shows which stocks or instruments are currently most popular with traders. All prices are in real-time. The top tabs also feature news, market sentiment, and your watch list — although I found it took a while for my watch list to synchronise from the web platform when first testing the platform.
Elizabeth's take
"During my testing, it was easy to put money into my XTB account using a debit card and I could invest the money straight away. It’s easy to make a trade. Simply select a company (if buying stocks) and choose the amount you’d like to invest."
The charting tools are not as extensive as those offered on the website — for example, you can’t compare different companies or overlay an index on the same chart. However, you can add indicators and drawings, including text.
Tap for a demo of XTB's U.K. trading app.
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Trading platforms
XTB’s xStation 5 web platform has many trading tools for investors. There is a calendar of key economic news along with upcoming dividend announcements. You can view many assets, including indices, stocks, commodities, and currencies.
I did find the platform a little complicated, and I’m not sure the website would be appropriate for new investors. You may be better sticking with the app initially, or choosing a platform such as Trading 212 or AJ Bell’s Dodl, which are more straightforward and easy to use. However, you can open a demo account with XTB to help you get to grips with the platform, or investing in general, without risking any of your own money. You are given £100,000 in virtual money to practice trading through the XTB demo account.
XTB is still primarily a CFD broker and I think this comes across on its web platform. New investors may find it difficult to differentiate between real stocks and CFDs. To access stocks, click on ‘STC’; from there, you can search for stocks by country or by typing the company name or ticker into the search bar at the top. Simply click on the star button to add to your watch list or select the chart icon to bring up a detailed chart of a stock’s recent trading performance.
The charting tools and indicators on XTB are not as extensive as other platforms including Trading 212, IG, and Interactive Brokers. You cannot overlay different stocks or indices on the same chart to make it easier to draw comparisons.
However, up to 16 charts can be created at one time so you can track various assets simultaneously across different charts. This is a great feature not offered by many other platforms. Dividend announcement dates can also be added to a chart, and you can add text to annotate a chart.
| Feature |
XTB
|
|---|---|
| Web Platform | Yes |
| iPhone App | Yes |
| Android App | Yes |
| Stock Alerts | Yes |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 39 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools | 20 |
| Charting - Notes | Yes |
| Charting - Display Corporate Events | Yes |
| Charting - Stock Overlays | No |
| Charting - Index Overlays | No |
Education
XTB has put together a variety of educational content in various formats to help different levels of investors, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced trader. The educational and research material has ramped up in the past year, thanks to a partnership with Blackrock aimed at boosting education about ETFs, which are less well-known in the U.K. than in other countries.
XTB offers ebooks and courses even to users with a demo account. I found the offerings to be very in-depth, with a video course on trading strategies coming in around 1.5 hours long. There is also a five-module course aimed at beginners called Trading Basics, which talks through terms such as ‘long’ and ‘short’. These courses are easily accessible on both the mobile app and website whether you have a demo account or a real one.
When you open an account with XTB, you are contacted by WhatsApp and email by a dedicated account manager ready to answer any questions you have. I found this very helpful. It’s a great feature for those who open an account and need guidance on what to do next.
| Feature |
XTB
|
|---|---|
| Education (Share Trading) | Yes |
| Education (Funds) | No |
| Education (Retirement) | No |
| Client Webinars | No |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | No |
Final thoughts
XTB is a well-established brand that is making further inroads in the U.K. by offering a wider range of assets for retail investors. It appeals to both beginner and experienced investors, with charges that are extremely low unless you are trading a large volume of assets (more than €100,000 monthly).
The lack of a SIPP account is a drawback for those looking for long-term retirement investments, but XTB’s ISA and general dealing accounts are strong rivals to other newer and traditional platforms on both fees and investment choices.
XTB is rapidly increasing its U.K. offerings, and we are excited to see what else it will launch in the coming year.
XTB Star Ratings
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Our testing
Why you should trust us
Elizabeth Anderson has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. She’s written for major national newspapers, contributed to corporate reports and research, and reviewed dozens of share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISAs, and brokerage firms. Elizabeth started her career at Bloomberg and has worked for the BBC, The Telegraph, The Times and the i newspaper. She is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing. A keen investor herself, Elizabeth invests through general dealing accounts, ISAs and several SIPPs.
All content on UK.StockBrokers.com is handwritten by a writer, fact-checked by a member of our research team, and edited and published by an editor. Our ratings, rankings, and opinions are entirely our own, and the result of our extensive research and decades of collective experience covering the U.K. brokerage industry.
Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Click here to learn more about how we test.
How we tested
At UK.StockBrokers.com, our online broker reviews are based on our collected quantitative data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research and collect hundreds of data points while testing brokerage firms, share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISA providers, and other financial service providers relevant to U.K. investors.
Mobile testing is conducted on modern devices that run the most up-to-date operating systems available:
- For Apple, we use MacBook Pro laptops running the latest version of and the iPhone 15 running the latest version of iOS.
- For Android, we use the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra devices running Android OS 14.
All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser.
Our researchers thoroughly test a wide range of key features, such as the availability and quality of trading platforms for web, desktop, and mobile, charting, real-time and streaming quotes, and educational resources – among other important variables. We also evaluate the overall design of the mobile experience, and look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms.
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About XTB
XTB was founded in Poland in 2002 under the name X-Trade Brokers, renaming to XTB in 2004, and now has 13 offices worldwide. It is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE: XTB.PL) and employs around 1,000 people. XTB began offering share trading in the U.K. in July 2023, having previously only offered forex and CFDs. XTB says it has 1.2 million active clients, and has added 800,000 of those in 2024, with the majority attracted by its 0% commission on stocks and ETF trading.
About the Editorial Team
Elizabeth Anderson, lead writer and researcher, has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. In addition to her work with UK.StockBrokers.com, she has written extensively for major publications including BBC, The Times and Bloomberg. A keen investor herself, she is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing.
Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Online Broker Research for UK.StockBrokers.com and ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
Jeff Anberg is a Senior Editor at UK.StockBrokers.com. Along with years of experience in media distribution at a global newsroom, Jeff has a versatile knowledge base encompassing the technology and financial markets. He is a long-time active investor and engages in research on emerging markets like cryptocurrency. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy from San Francisco State University.