Featured partnerSign up to Lightyear and get up to €100 in a free fractional shareCapital at risk, terms apply. Seek guidance if necessary. Claim Up to €100 Capital at risk, terms apply. Seek guidance if necessary. - Interactive Brokers is the largest online broker available to European investors by client assets, far ahead of every other platform in this ranking even after converting to euros.
- The established national platforms form a clear middle layer: Hargreaves Lansdown, Fineco and Saxo lead the home-market brokers, with the Nordics and Switzerland close behind.
- App-based brokers are bigger by customer count than by assets. Trade Republic is the largest pan-European neobroker by assets, while Trading 212, eToro and XTB still have smaller average account sizes.
- Size is one data point, not the whole decision. Regulation, segregated assets, investor compensation, total fees and portfolio transfers matter more than a broker simply being the biggest.
When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
When people ask which online broker is the biggest, they usually mean one of two things: who has the most customers, or who holds the most client money. For European investors, the second question is more useful. A broker with hundreds of billions in client assets is not automatically the best choice, but it usually tells you something about scale, trust, product depth and staying power.
This ranking focuses on online brokers that are relevant to European investors. That does not mean every company must be headquartered inside the EU. Interactive Brokers, for example, has a US parent company but serves EU clients through its Irish entity and remains one of the most important brokers for European investors. By contrast, Robinhood and Webull are included only as global context because they are less relevant as broad stock and ETF platforms for EU residents.
The ranking, and what we are measuring
Broker asset figures are useful, but only if the definitions are clear. Here is what sits behind the table.
The chart gives the quick visual version before the detailed table. Interactive Brokers is so much larger than the rest of the field that the smaller platforms look compressed, which is useful context in itself.
| # | Broker | Client assets | Clients | As of | Metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interactive Brokers | €804.6B | 4.99M | May 2026 | Client equity |
| 2 | Hargreaves Lansdown | €199.7B | 2.02M | Jun 2025 | Investment AUA |
| 3 | Fineco Bank | €162.1B | 1.80M | Q1 2026 | TFA, including deposits |
| 4 | Trade Republic | €150B | 10M+ | 2026 | AUM including cash |
| 5 | Saxo Bank | €133B | 1.52M | Dec 2025 | Client assets |
| 6 | AJ Bell | €125.7B | 723K | Mar 2026 | Platform AUA |
| 7 | Nordnet | €112.2B | 2.43M | Mar 2026 | Savings capital |
| 8 | Avanza | €99.3B | 2.30M | Mar 2026 | Savings capital |
| 9 | Swissquote | €96.9B | ~1.2M | Dec 2025 | Client assets |
| 10 | flatexDEGIRO | €94.5B | 3.58M | Mar 2026 | Assets under custody |
| 11 | Trading 212 | >€30B | 4.5M | May 2025 | Client assets milestone |
| 12 | Scalable Capital | >€30B | 1M+ | Mar 2026 | Client assets milestone |
| 13 | IG Group | €21.0B | 753K | Dec 2025 | AUA, incl. Freetrade + Independent Reserve |
| 14 | eToro | €16.1B | 4.07M | Apr 2026 | Assets under administration |
| 15 | XTB | €11.6B | 2.5M+ | Mar 2026 | Client assets, mixed metric |
Figures are rounded. Reference periods vary by broker. Trading 212 and Scalable Capital are self-reported milestone figures rather than audited period-end numbers.
The ranking tells a clear story. Interactive Brokers is far ahead by client assets, even after converting everything to euros. Behind it sits a European middle layer of established national platforms: Hargreaves Lansdown in the UK, Fineco in Italy, Saxo in Denmark, AJ Bell in the UK, Nordnet and Avanza in the Nordics, Swissquote in Switzerland, and flatexDEGIRO across Germany and the Netherlands.
The newer app-based brokers are much bigger by customer count than by assets. Trade Republic has more than 10 million customers and €150 billion on the platform, which makes it the largest pan-European neobroker by assets. Trading 212, Scalable Capital, eToro and XTB are important, but their average account size is still much smaller than the older, wealthier platforms.
ScopeShould this be Europe-only or European-headquartered only?
We would not make the article European-headquartered only. That would remove Interactive Brokers, which is one of the most relevant brokers for EU investors and the clear leader by client assets. The better filter is whether the broker is meaningfully available to European investors, whether it offers real stock and ETF access, and whether its published asset figure can be verified from official sources.
The biggest broker is not automatically the best broker
Size is a useful signal, but it should not decide the choice by itself. A large broker can still have high FX fees, weak customer support, limited portfolio transfers or a product range that is not right for your country. A smaller broker can be perfectly reasonable if it is well-regulated, transparent, and fits how you actually invest.
For most EU investors, the practical checklist is still: regulation, asset segregation, investor compensation, total fees, currency conversion costs, ETF access, tax reporting and whether you can transfer your portfolio out later. We cover those details in our Interactive Brokers review, IBKR safety analysis, Trading 212 guide, Trade Republic review and eToro review.
Interactive Brokers: the largest online broker in this Europe-focused ranking by client assets
Who did not make the list?
Revolut is the obvious missing name. It has tens of millions of customers, but it does not disclose a clean investing-specific client asset number. Its headline customer balances are a banking metric, not the same thing as client assets held in a stock and ETF broker account.
Freedom24 is also excluded from the ranking because we could not verify a comparable client-assets figure from official disclosures. That does not make it automatically bad, but it means we cannot place it in a table built around client assets without guessing.
Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard are also excluded from the main ranking. They are far larger than every company in this table, but they are custody, brokerage and asset-management giants with a very different business model. Including them would make the European online broker comparison less useful.
TakeawayWhat this means for European investors
The most useful takeaway is not that everyone should choose the largest broker. It is that scale gives you one extra data point. Interactive Brokers has unmatched breadth and low costs, but it can feel complex. Trade Republic has huge customer growth and a German banking licence, but customer support and portfolio transfer complaints matter. Trading 212 is simple and low-cost, but still smaller by client assets. eToro is large and public, but its currency-conversion structure is a real cost for euro-based investors.
If you are building a long-term ETF portfolio, start with the basics: choose a well-regulated broker, keep fees and FX low, make sure you can access UCITS ETFs, and understand how your country taxes dividends and capital gains. Our ETF investing guide for European investors, our roundup of the best ETF brokers in Europe and our walkthrough on how to invest in the S&P 500 from Europe are the natural next steps.
FAQFrequently asked questions
Interactive Brokers is the largest online broker relevant to European investors by client assets, with around €804.6 billion in client equity as of May 2026. Among European home-market platforms, Hargreaves Lansdown, Fineco and Trade Republic are the biggest names in this dataset.
Trade Republic is the largest pan-European neobroker by client assets in this ranking, with about €150 billion on the platform and more than 10 million customers. It is not larger than Interactive Brokers by assets, and it sits behind Hargreaves Lansdown and Fineco if you include national platforms.
Not automatically. Size can indicate trust and business stability, but your protection comes from regulation, segregated client assets and investor compensation schemes. Across the EU, investor compensation is usually at least €20,000, but that protects against broker failure or shortfalls, not normal investment losses.
AUM usually means assets under management, where a firm actively manages money for clients. Most stock brokers simply administer or custody assets while you make your own investment decisions. That is why AUA, AUC, savings capital or client equity are often more accurate terms for brokers.
Revolut does not publish a clean investing-specific client asset figure. Its total customer balances are mainly a banking metric, so including it would compare banking deposits with stock and ETF portfolios at other brokers.
No. The better question is whether the broker is properly regulated for your country, whether your assets are segregated, what investor compensation scheme applies, what fees you pay, and whether the broker lets you transfer your portfolio later. A non-European parent company can still be a strong choice if the European entity is well regulated.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk. eToro discloses that 51% of retail CFD accounts lose money when trading CFDs with them.
Trading 212: When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. This is not investment advice. Do your own research.
EU Investing Hub does not provide investment advice; content is for educational purposes only. Ranking figures were last reviewed in June 2026, are sourced from public filings and self-reported broker disclosures, and can change, so confirm current details on each broker's website. This content contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you.
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