Trading 212

Trading 212 started in Bulgaria in 2004, originally under the name Avus Capital, and is now headquartered in London. The group operates through several regulated entities: Trading 212 UK Ltd is authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (609146), Trading 212 Markets Ltd by CySEC (398/21), and Trading 212 Ltd by Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission, with further entities under Germany's BaFin and Australia's ASIC. Trading 212 reported more than 4.5 million clients and over £25 billion in client assets going into 2026, making it one of the larger commission-free investing apps in the UK and EU.

Trading 212 does not accept US residents. It is available across most of the UK and EU/EEA and a growing list of other markets, but product access varies by country.

Trading 212 offers three main account types: Invest, Stocks and Shares ISA (UK residents only) and CFD. The Invest and ISA accounts give commission-free access to real stocks and ETFs, including fractional shares. The CFD account offers leveraged derivatives and carries the risk warnings standard to that product category.

The platform pays interest on uninvested cash, with variable rates that differ by account type, and charges no share-dealing commission, platform fee or ISA account fee, though a small FX conversion fee applies when trading instruments priced outside your account's base currency. Trading 212 also issues a debit card with cashback on spending.

Trading 212's standing new-client promotion gives a free fractional share to anyone who opens and funds a new Invest account or Stocks and Shares ISA. The account must be new: anyone who has ever held an Invest or ISA account with any Trading 212 Group entity, anywhere in the world, is excluded. CFD accounts and Cash ISA accounts do not qualify.

To claim it, sign up with a promo code or a referral link, complete identity verification, and deposit at least £1 or €1 within 10 calendar days of registering. The share is credited within 3 business days and its value is chosen at random and weighted toward the low end: roughly 80% of rewards land between €8 and €25, about 15% fall between €25 and €50, and only around 2% reach the €75 to €100 range. The up-to-£100 headline is technically accurate but not typical.

You can sell the share as soon as it is allocated, but the cash proceeds are frozen for 30 days from allocation before you can withdraw them to your bank. Your own deposited money is never locked. The promo-code version of the offer has recently listed the United Kingdom as the eligible country and is explicitly unavailable to Trading 212 AU clients, so confirm your local eligibility before signing up outside the UK.

Trading 212 also runs an Invite a Friend program, open to existing Invest or ISA clients who receive a promotional link (links are issued on a limited basis, not to every client). When a new client signs up through that link, opens a first-time Invest or ISA account, verifies their identity and deposits the minimum within 10 calendar days, both the referrer and the new client receive a randomly selected free fractional share worth between €8 and €100, using the same weighted odds as the sign-up offer.

A referrer can earn rewards for a maximum of five converted friends per campaign. As with the welcome offer, each reward share's cash value is locked for 30 days from allocation, and CFD and Cash ISA accounts are excluded. Eligible countries for the referral offer have included the UK, most of the EU/EEA, Switzerland, several Latin American markets and a handful of Gulf states; check the current terms for your country.

If you trade CFDs with Trading 212 and wonder why there is no deposit bonus tied to that account, it is not an oversight. Since 2018, ESMA product-intervention rules, mirrored by the FCA after Brexit and applied by CySEC and ASIC in their own markets, prohibit CFD providers from offering monetary or non-monetary incentives to retail clients. That is why Trading 212's promotions are structured around the Invest and ISA accounts rather than CFDs.

Reward shares are held in the same account as your other investments, so normal capital gains and dividend tax rules apply outside an ISA. Inside a Stocks and Shares ISA, gains, dividends and interest are free of UK income and capital gains tax.

Common ways to lose the reward: missing the 10-day funding deadline, opening a CFD or Cash ISA account instead of an Invest or Stocks ISA account, having held a Trading 212 account before under any entity, or withdrawing your entire deposited balance immediately after the share lands, since the terms allow clawback in cases that look like gaming the promotion. Employees of Trading 212 and their close relatives are not eligible.