Swissquote

Swissquote prices like a Swiss bank, which is to say clearly and not cheaply. All figures are for Swissquote Bank Ltd and the standard eTrading account.

Stock commission is a stepped flat fee by order value:

• Up to CHF 500: CHF 3
• To CHF 1,000: CHF 5
• To CHF 2,000: CHF 10
• To CHF 10,000: CHF 29
• To CHF 15,000: CHF 49
• To CHF 25,000: CHF 79
• To CHF 50,000: CHF 129
• Above CHF 50,000: CHF 190

The same ladder applies to US and European listings. On top sits Swiss federal stamp duty of 0.075% on domestic and 0.15% on foreign securities — a tax rather than a Swissquote charge, but it lands on your contract note all the same.

ETF Leaders is the exception worth building a portfolio around: a curated list of SIX-listed ETFs from major providers priced at CHF 3 / CHF 5 / CHF 9 flat above CHF 1,000, whatever the size. A CHF 30,000 ETF Leader purchase costs CHF 9; the same order in a non-Leader ETF costs CHF 129.

Mutual funds sit outside the stock ladder as well: Swissquote quotes fund trading from CHF/EUR/USD 9 flat per order, so a fund subscription does not scale into the CHF 129 and CHF 190 bands the way an equity order does. The fund's own ongoing charge still applies.

There is no minimum deposit for Swiss residents; non-residents open with EUR 500 from the eurozone or CHF 500 from elsewhere.

Custody is 0.025% per quarter, banded to CHF 20 / 25 / 37.50 and capped at CHF 50 per quarter — CHF 80 to CHF 200 a year, plus 8.1% VAT. The cap is generous for large portfolios and punishing for small ones.

Currency conversion at 0.95% is the number that hurts most. Buying CHF 10,000 of US stock from a CHF balance costs roughly CHF 95 in conversion against CHF 29 in commission. Holding currency sub-accounts and converting in blocks is not an optimisation here; it is the difference between a reasonable and an expensive account. Cash pays 0% interest in every currency.

Structurally, Swissquote is one of the strongest propositions in this comparison set.

Swissquote Bank Ltd holds a full Swiss banking licence from FINMA, granted in 2000, and the parent Swissquote Group has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange under SQN since May 2000 — joining the SMI MID index in September 2025. Public listing means audited annual accounts anyone can read: CHF 88.7 billion in client assets, roughly 750,000 client accounts, CHF 724 million of operating income and CHF 366 million of net income in the most recent full-year figures, with around 1,450 employees.

Protection depends on your booking entity:

• Swissquote Bank Ltd (FINMA): esisuisse covers privileged cash deposits to CHF 100,000 per client. Securities held in custody are your property and sit outside the bank's balance sheet in an insolvency, so they are not capped
• Swissquote Bank Europe SA (Luxembourg, CSSF): deposit guarantee to EUR 100,000 in cash, investor compensation to EUR 20,000 on securities — this entity books most EEA clients
• Swissquote Ltd (UK, FCA): FSCS cover to GBP 85,000
• Further licensed entities operate in Singapore (MAS), Dubai (DFSA), Hong Kong and Malta

Two structural points matter more than the compensation numbers. First, a banking licence plus a public listing is a rarer combination than either alone. Second, Switzerland's insolvency treatment of custodied securities is unusually clean: client securities are segregated as a matter of law rather than contract. None of this makes any broker risk-free, and market losses are never covered — but the structure here is about as conservative as retail trading gets.

Swissquote runs two distinct worlds, and the split is the platform's main design flaw.

Swissquote eTrading is the securities side: a browser platform covering order entry across 60-plus exchanges, watchlists, portfolio and performance analytics, savings plans, corporate actions, Swiss tax documents and — because this is a bank — payments, standing orders and card management. It is clear, dependable and a little conservative. It will not thrill anyone coming from a modern fintech app, but it does not hide anything either, and the integration of banking and brokerage in one login is genuinely useful for Swiss residents.

The mobile app carries the same dual identity: trading, crypto, savings plans, payments and debit card controls in one place. Ratings are solid rather than exceptional, and the app is best understood as a full banking app that happens to trade rather than a trading app that happens to bank.

The leveraged side lives elsewhere. CFXD is the dedicated CFD and forex web platform, on a separate login, and Advanced Trader is the downloadable FX terminal with depth of market, algorithmic order types and multi-chart layouts. MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 are both supported, including expert advisors, which keeps the systematic FX crowd happy. Swissquote publishes average execution around 9ms with a high fill ratio.

For automation, FIX and REST connectivity exist on the forex side; securities API access is more limited than at IBKR or Saxo. If programmatic equity trading is a requirement, this is not the right account.

Swissquote's breadth is genuinely wide — the group advertises over three million tradable products once structured products and warrants are counted — across a set that few competitors match in a single account:

• Stocks on SIX and BX in Switzerland, Euronext, the LSE, Deutsche Börse and other major European venues, NYSE, Nasdaq and TSX in North America, and 14 Asia-Pacific exchanges
• ETFs and ETNs — more than 9,000, with the curated ETF Leaders list priced at a CHF 9 cap
• Options and futures from CHF 1.50 / EUR 1.50 per contract, varying by exchange
• Bonds, mutual funds, structured products and warrants
• Forex on more than 80 pairs plus gold, silver, platinum and palladium
• CFDs on indices, commodities, shares and bonds
• Cryptocurrency — over 50 coins in real custody, not derivatives

Crypto is the differentiator. Swissquote has offered spot crypto with bank custody since 2017 and operates its own SQX exchange, and since 2025 crypto custody is included in the standard securities custody fee rather than charged separately. Holding Bitcoin inside a FINMA-licensed bank, on the same statement as your equities and next to your Swiss bank account, is something almost no competitor offers.

The Swiss-specific products matter too: pillar 3a retirement accounts with ETF-based strategies and Swiss tax deductibility, Invest Easy rules-based portfolios, and savings plans with fractional shares for regular contributions. These are the features that make Swissquote a default choice domestically and largely irrelevant abroad.

Onboarding is fully digital. Swiss residents complete identification by video or photo ID, and applications typically clear in one to three business days. The eTrading account carries no minimum deposit for clients resident in Switzerland; non-residents fund it with EUR 500 from the eurozone or CHF 500 from other countries. Invest Easy starts at CHF 500 and 3a Easy at CHF 100.

The application covers identity, tax residence, source of funds and a suitability assessment. Non-Swiss EEA applicants are routed to Swissquote Bank Europe SA in Luxembourg, which changes the protection scheme and the leverage caps that apply — worth confirming which entity you have been assigned before funding.

Funding routes:

• Bank transfer — free, one to two business days, the default
• SEPA — free inbound, EUR 2 on the way out
• Cards — near-instant but charged 1.9% within Switzerland and Europe, 0% for the rest of the world

Outgoing payments follow Swiss banking conventions rather than broker conventions. Online domestic CHF and EUR transfers are free; international wires run from CHF 2 with shared charges up to CHF 25 when the remitter pays everything. Incoming transfers are always free. Withdrawals typically settle in one to three business days.

Two practical notes. First, open the currency sub-accounts you need before you trade, because 0.95% conversion applied per trade is the fastest way to make this account expensive. Second, Swiss residents get a complimentary eTax statement; the full tax statement costs CHF 85 and is usually worth it.

Swissquote's research is competent, locally relevant and not the reason anyone opens the account.

The in-house team publishes daily market commentary, FX and macro analysis and a regular video and podcast programme, with a Swiss and European lens that larger international providers do not offer — coverage of SMI constituents, Swiss macro data and SNB policy is more detailed here than at a US-centric broker. Chief strategist commentary is syndicated widely in Swiss financial media, which is a fair signal of quality.

Inside eTrading, the practical tools are screeners for stocks, ETFs and funds, integrated news, consensus estimates and fundamental data on instrument pages, plus Theme Trading baskets that bundle instruments around a trend. Charting is adequate for investors and thin for technical traders, who will do their analysis in Advanced Trader or MetaTrader instead.

Education is the weakest of the three pillars. There is a learning centre covering instrument mechanics, platform how-tos and forex basics, plus webinars and a demo account, but the material is neither as structured as IBKR Campus nor as prolific as the large CFD brokers. Someone starting from zero will need to learn elsewhere and use Swissquote to execute.

Where Swissquote does add distinct value is Swiss-specific guidance: pillar 3a mechanics, Swiss withholding tax, stamp duty and the eTax statement. That material is genuinely hard to find well-explained elsewhere, and it is aimed squarely at the audience the bank actually serves.

Support is one of the reasons Swiss clients tolerate the pricing. Swissquote staffs its service from Switzerland in German, French, Italian and English, with additional coverage in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian through its international entities. Channels cover phone, email, live chat and a ticket system, with physical offices in Gland, Zurich, Bern and Geneva — a rarity in online broking and occasionally useful for onboarding or estate matters.

Hours run extended Swiss business hours Monday to Friday, with the forex desk covering market hours. Response quality is generally good on account, custody, tax and payment questions, which is unsurprising for a bank: these are core banking workflows staffed by people who do them daily. Sentiment is meaningfully better than at the global discount brokers, with Swiss-market reviews clustering around 4 out of 5.

The weaker areas are predictable. Complex derivatives questions can bounce between the securities desk and the CFD desk, a direct consequence of the two-platform split. Wait times lengthen at market open and around quarterly custody billing. Non-Swiss clients booked with the Luxembourg entity report a less personal experience than domestic clients get.

The fair summary: Swissquote is not the cheapest place to trade, but it is one of the few where a real person in your own language and time zone will work through a problem with you. For a large share of its client base, that is exactly what they are paying the premium for.