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Four brokers cover almost every situation a Swiss resident will face. This page ranks those four on what they actually charge, checked against each provider’s own pricing page on 6 August 2026, then shows the Swiss app brokers worth knowing and the platforms I deliberately do not rate.
The four brokers I have reviewed
These four are ranked on cost and on how well they suit a Swiss resident buying shares and ETFs for the long term. Every figure below comes from the provider’s own pricing page, with the source links at the foot of this page.
| Provider | What a trade costs | Ongoing cost | My take |
|---|---|---|---|
 Interactive Brokers Founded 1978 ★ 4.8 Best value Open account |
CHF 5.00On a CHF 10,000 SIX order. 0.05%, minimum CHF 1.50, capped at CHF 49. US markets from USD 0.35 | CHF 0No custody fee. Currency conversion 0.002% | Cheapest by a wide margin, and the gap compounds. Built for professionals, so the first hour is confusing. Your account sits with Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited, not a Swiss bank. |
 eToro Founded 2007 ★ 4.5 Best for beginners Open account Read my review |
CHF 0No commission on ETFs at all. Individual shares cost USD 1 a side | CHF 0No custody fee, but there is no CHF account, so francs convert at about 1% each way | The easiest account here to open. Free ETF trades look unbeatable until you count the currency conversion, roughly 1% in and 1% out on a bank transfer. |
 DEGIRO Founded 2013 ★ 4.5 |
CHF 6On SIX, whatever the size. Core Selection ETFs cost EUR 1 all in. US shares EUR 2 | CHF 0No custody, inactivity or withdrawal fee. Currency conversion 0.25% | The sweet spot between price and usability. Flat, predictable pricing and a clean app. Not a Swiss bank. |
 Swissquote Founded 1996 ★ 4.5 Swiss bank Open account Read my review |
CHF 3Up to CHF 500, rising to CHF 29 above a CHF 2,000 order. Add CHF 0.85 a transaction | CHF 86A year on a CHF 50,000 portfolio, including VAT | A FINMA licensed Swiss bank with a Swiss IBAN and a Swiss tax statement. Since March 2026 it converts currency at the interbank rate with no markup, which closed most of the gap. |
Fees verified against each provider’s own pricing page on 6 August 2026. A trade on SIX is priced on a CHF 10,000 order except where a flat fee applies. Swiss banks and Swiss securities dealers also collect Swiss stamp duty on top of the fees above, which foreign brokers generally do not. See my guide to Swiss taxes for how that works.
My picks
Nothing else available in Switzerland comes close on price, and the gap widens the longer you hold. Accept that the first session is bewildering and that your money sits with a UK entity rather than a Swiss bank. If you are buying a global ETF once a quarter and holding it for twenty years, this is the account.
A real Swiss bank, a Swiss tax statement at the end of the year, and support in your own language. It is not the cheapest and the custody fee is real, but for a lot of people the reduction in friction is worth CHF 86 a year. The March 2026 move to interbank currency rates closed most of the gap on foreign trades.
Which broker suits which job
| What you are doing | Where I would go | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Buying a global ETF once or twice a year and holding it | Interactive Brokers | Lowest trade cost, no custody fee, and the cheapest currency conversion by a wide margin |
| Buying a global ETF every month with CHF 200 to CHF 500 | neon invest or Yuh | Both let you buy selected ETFs on a recurring plan at 0%, which beats paying any flat fee on a small order |
| You want a Swiss bank, a Swiss IBAN and a Swiss tax statement | Swissquote | The only FINMA licensed bank in the main table, and its currency conversion is now at the interbank rate |
| Your first ever share purchase and you want it to feel easy | eToro | The gentlest onboarding of the four, with no commission on ETFs. Budget for the currency conversion |
| Buying individual US shares regularly | Interactive Brokers or DEGIRO | USD 0.35 and EUR 2 respectively, against CHF 3 and up at Swissquote once the trade grows |
| Trading with leverage or on margin | None of them, for most people | See the section on CFD platforms below before you go near this |
Worth knowing, but not yet reviewed
Three more are worth your attention. Two Swiss apps have quietly become the cheapest way in the country to invest small amounts every month, and Saxo is a licensed bank that deserves a proper look. None has a full review on Investing Hero yet, so none carries a rating. The fees below are still verified at source.
| Provider | Trading fee | Ongoing cost | What stands out |
|---|---|---|---|
| neon investOne to watch | 0.5%Swiss shares and all ETFs, minimum CHF 1. International shares 1%. Selected ETFs are 0% inside the investment plan | CHF 0No custody fee, no exchange fee, and currency exchange is free | A free monthly plan on a global ETF is a genuinely remarkable thing to find in Switzerland, and the currency exchange costing nothing is close to unheard of. The universe is about 490 assets, so check yours is on it. |
| YuhOne to watch | 0.50%To CHF 10,000, then 0.35% to CHF 20,000 and 0.25% above. Recurring buys on eligible ETFs are free | CHF 0No custody fee. Currency exchange 0.95% on the interbank mid rate | Backed by Swissquote, so you get a Swiss banking foundation in a much simpler app, with pillar 3a and everyday banking in the same place. Free recurring ETF buys, but you still pay the fee when you sell. |
| SaxoOne to watch | 0.08%On SIX, minimum CHF 3. US markets 0.08%, minimum USD 1. Falls to 0.05% and then 0.03% on the Platinum and VIP tiers | CHF 0Saxo states it charges no custody fees | A licensed bank with a real Swiss presence and by far the widest instrument range here, so it suits someone who has outgrown a simple app. A percentage commission with no cap means a large single trade costs more than it would at the flat fee brokers above. |
Both are worth a look if you are investing a few hundred francs a month. Once the balance grows into the tens of thousands, a percentage fee starts to lose to the flat fees in the table above. That crossover matters more than the headline rate.
What a trade actually costs
Buying CHF 10,000 of an ETF listed on SIX
The same order, priced at each provider using its published rates. This is the number that decides which account you should open, and it is the number almost no comparison table shows you.
Now hold that position for a year. Interactive Brokers, DEGIRO, Saxo, neon and Yuh all charge nothing to keep it. Swissquote charges CHF 20 a quarter on a portfolio up to CHF 50,000, which is CHF 86.48 a year once you add 8.1% VAT.
Over ten years of buying once a year, that is roughly CHF 50 at Interactive Brokers, CHF 60 at DEGIRO and CHF 1,163 at Swissquote once custody is counted. The trade fee was never the expensive part.
Figures exclude Swiss stamp duty, which Swiss securities dealers collect and foreign brokers generally do not, and exclude the fund’s own ongoing charge, which you pay wherever you buy.
The platforms I do not rate, and why
⚠ CFDs are a different product, and I do not rate them
A contract for difference is not a share. You do not own anything, the position is leveraged, and it is built to be opened and closed quickly rather than held for years. Leverage cuts both ways: a small move against you can wipe out the whole position.
The firms selling them publish the outcome themselves. Pepperstone discloses that 72.9% of its retail investor accounts lose money. IG discloses 69%. Those are regulated disclosures the firms are required to make, not my estimate, and every ESMA-regulated provider publishes a number in that range.
There is a second problem that is specific to Switzerland, and it is the one almost nobody mentions. Because Switzerland sits outside the EU, several of these firms serve Swiss residents through offshore entities that are not required to publish that percentage at all. Open Plus500 from a Swiss address and your counterparty is Plus500SEY Ltd, regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority. The loss figure a British or German customer is shown by law simply is not shown to you.
So platforms whose business is mostly CFDs, including XTB, Plus500, Trading 212, Libertex, IG, Tickmill, AvaTrade, Pepperstone, CMC Markets, easyMarkets, Admiral Markets, FXTM and Darwinex, carry no rating here. I have not tested them, and a star rating not backed by a review is worth nothing.
If you are going to test the water, do it somewhere proven
eToro sells CFDs too, so this is not a clean recommendation and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But it is the one platform in this corner of the market I have used myself and would point a beginner towards. The share and ETF side of the business is real rather than a shop window, the account is genuinely easy to open, and social trading was an actual innovation rather than a gimmick. If you want to experiment, do it there rather than with an offshore entity you had never heard of until today.
Online Trading in Switzerland
Online trading means buying and selling securities yourself through a platform, rather than paying a bank or an adviser to do it for you. In Switzerland that shift has been dramatic. A trade that cost CHF 40 at a high street bank fifteen years ago now costs between CHF 1.50 and CHF 6 at the brokers in the table above, and you can open an account from your phone in under fifteen minutes.
Two things are worth being clear about before you start. The first is that a trading account and an investment strategy are not the same thing. Choosing the cheapest broker is a solved problem, and this page solves it. Deciding what to buy is the hard part, and the evidence there is uncomfortable: most people who actively buy and sell individual shares underperform a plain global index fund over any long period. If you have not read it yet, start with my guide to investing in Switzerland.
The second is that if you have not filled your pillar 3a for the year, that is almost certainly a better use of the money than a taxable brokerage account, because the contribution comes off your taxable income. Trading accounts are what you use after 3a is full, not instead of it. And if you would rather not pick anything at all, a robo advisor will build and rebalance a portfolio for you.
What is the easiest way to start online trading in Switzerland?
Five steps, in order. This takes an evening, not a weekend.
- Fill pillar 3a first if you have not. The tax deduction is a guaranteed return that no trade will beat. Only once that is done should money go into a taxable brokerage account.
- Pick one broker from the table above. Interactive Brokers if cost is what matters, Swissquote if you want a Swiss bank, neon or Yuh if you are investing a few hundred francs a month. Do not open three accounts to compare, it just triples the paperwork.
- Open the account and verify your identity. All of them do this digitally now, with a passport or ID card and a video or photo check. Expect somewhere between fifteen minutes and two working days before you can trade.
- Transfer the money and watch the currency. This is where beginners lose the most. At eToro there is no CHF account, so francs convert on the way in and again on the way out. At Interactive Brokers convert deliberately rather than letting the platform do it automatically. At neon it is free.
- Buy one broad global ETF and then leave it alone. One fund covering thousands of companies across dozens of countries is a complete portfolio for most people. Set up a monthly buy if your platform supports one, and stop checking the price daily.
If step five sounds too simple to be right, that is rather the point. My course works through exactly this, from the first transfer to a portfolio you do not have to think about.
What should you look for with an online trading platform?
Six things, roughly in order of how much money they will cost you.
- The currency conversion, not the trade fee. Buying a US listed ETF means turning francs into dollars. At Interactive Brokers that costs 0.002%. At eToro on a bank transfer it is about 1%, which on CHF 10,000 is CHF 100 against roughly CHF 2. That single line swamps every commission on this page.
- Whether there is a custody fee. A percentage or flat fee charged every year simply for holding your shares. Four of the six providers here charge nothing. Swissquote charges CHF 86.48 a year on CHF 50,000 including VAT. Over a decade that is the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive account.
- Whether the fee is flat or a percentage. A percentage fee is cheap on CHF 500 and painful on CHF 50,000. A flat fee is the reverse. neon and Yuh win on small monthly amounts, the flat fee brokers win as soon as the balance grows.
- Who actually holds your money. Only Swissquote in the main table is a FINMA licensed Swiss bank. Interactive Brokers serves Swiss residents through Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited, regulated by the FCA under reference 208159. That is not a reason to avoid them, but it is worth knowing rather than assuming.
- Whether the products you want are actually available. neon invest lists about 490 assets. If the specific ETF you have chosen is not on the list, the fee comparison is irrelevant.
- What the platform makes its money from. If a provider’s own risk warning says most of its clients lose money, that tells you what the product is optimised for, whatever the app looks like.
Final thoughts
The honest summary of this page is that broker choice matters less than people think, and currency conversion matters far more. Any of the four brokers above will do the job. The difference between the cheapest and the most expensive on a CHF 10,000 trade is about CHF 45, which is real but is not going to change your life. The difference between converting francs at 0.002% and at 1%, repeated over years of contributions, absolutely will.
What will change your outcome is filling pillar 3a before you fund a taxable account, buying something broad and boring, and then not touching it. The platform is plumbing. Pick one, and spend your attention on the parts that compound.
If you are looking at related decisions, I also compare robo advisors for people who would rather not choose anything themselves, and crypto platforms for Swiss residents.
Thanks for reading,
Mr. IH
Common questions
Which is the best trading platform in Switzerland in 2026?
On cost, Interactive Brokers, and by a clear margin: 0.05% on a SIX trade with a CHF 1.50 minimum, no custody fee, and currency conversion at 0.002%. If you would rather deal with a Swiss bank that gives you a Swiss IBAN and a Swiss tax statement, Swissquote, which since March 2026 also converts currency at the interbank mid rate with no markup on stock and ETF trades.
What is the cheapest broker for Swiss residents?
Interactive Brokers. A CHF 10,000 trade on SIX costs CHF 5.00 against CHF 6.00 at DEGIRO, CHF 29.85 at Swissquote and CHF 50.00 at neon invest or Yuh. It also charges no custody fee, which over a decade matters more than the trade fee does.
Is there a Swiss trading app with no fees?
Close to it. neon invest charges 0% on selected ETFs bought through its investment plan, including a global Vanguard FTSE All-World fund, and its currency exchange is free. Yuh makes recurring buy orders on eligible ETFs free, though you still pay when you sell. For a few hundred francs a month, both beat every flat fee broker on this page.
Do I need a Swiss broker, or can I use a foreign one?
You can use a foreign one, and many Swiss residents do. The practical differences are that a Swiss bank gives you a Swiss IBAN, support in your language and a tax statement formatted for your cantonal return, and that Swiss securities dealers collect Swiss stamp duty which foreign brokers generally do not. Your assets are held separately from the broker’s own money in either case, but the compensation scheme that applies is not the Swiss one. Check where your provider is licensed before you decide.
How much does it cost to buy an ETF in Switzerland?
Between nothing and about CHF 50 on a CHF 10,000 order, depending entirely on where you buy it. DEGIRO’s Core Selection ETFs cost only a EUR 1 handling fee. eToro charges no commission on ETFs at all. neon invest and Yuh charge nothing on selected ETFs bought through a plan. On top of whatever the broker charges, you pay the fund’s own ongoing charge, which is the same wherever you buy.
Are CFD platforms like Plus500 or XTB worth using?
Not for building wealth, no. A CFD is a leveraged bet on a price rather than ownership of a share, and the firms selling them publish the outcome themselves: Pepperstone discloses that 72.9% of its retail investor accounts lose money, and IG discloses 69%. Worse, because Switzerland sits outside the EU, some of these firms serve Swiss residents through offshore entities that never have to show you that number at all. If you want to own companies and hold them, use one of the four brokers at the top of this page instead.
Should I use a trading account or a robo advisor?
A trading account if you are willing to choose a fund and place the order yourself, which will always be cheaper. A robo advisor if you would rather someone built and rebalanced the portfolio for you, which typically costs somewhere between 0.4% and 0.9% a year. Neither is wrong. See my robo advisor comparison if the second sounds more like you.
Do I pay tax on shares I buy through a Swiss broker?
Capital gains on private wealth are generally not taxed in Switzerland, which is unusually generous. You do pay income tax on dividends, and your holdings count towards cantonal wealth tax. Swiss securities dealers also collect stamp duty on transactions. My guide to Swiss taxes covers how this works in practice, and I am not a tax adviser, so check anything material with one.
Sources. Every fee on this page was read from the provider’s own pricing page on 6 August 2026. Interactive Brokers stock commissions and spot currency commissions · eToro fees and conversion fees · DEGIRO fees · Swissquote stock fees and account fees · neon invest · Yuh pricing · Saxo stock commissions. CFD loss figures are the providers’ own published risk disclosures, read on 7 August 2026: Pepperstone and IG. The Plus500 Seychelles entity is stated on its own Swiss site. If you find a figure here that no longer matches the provider’s page, please tell me and I will correct it.
Compare & choose
The other comparisons on Investing Hero, each built the same way: every fee read from the provider’s own pricing page.