IG UK Trading Review 2026

Written by Elizabeth Anderson
Lead Writer for the UK

Reviewed by Blain Reinkensmeyer
Managing Partner

Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Director of Online Broker Research

Edited by Jeff Anberg
Senior Editor

September 01, 2026

  Fact Checked

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Elizabeth Anderson
Lead Writer for the UK

Elizabeth Anderson is the lead writer and researcher for U.K. content on StockBrokers.com. She has been a financial journalist for more than a decade and has written for major publications including BBC, The Times, and Bloomberg.

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Your capital is at risk.

IG is a U.K. investment platform that charges no platform fee and no dealing commission on online share and ETF trades in the U.K., U.S., Europe, and Australia. It is part of IG Group Holdings, a FTSE 100 company that also owns Freetrade and tastytrade. I opened an account earlier this year, drawn in by one of the aggressive cashback offers IG has been running.

The stocks and shares ISA and the general dealing account are the accounts worth having here, and neither costs anything to hold. More than 13,000 stocks are available. Uninvested cash earns 3.75%. The IG Invest app is basic, which makes it quick to use once you know what you are buying. I think investors with some experience get the most from IG, because CFDs and spread betting are pushed hard alongside the investing products.

IG suits someone who already knows what they want to buy and wants to hold it in an ISA that costs nothing.

verified#1 for Education

• Minimum Deposit: £1
• ISA: Yes
• SIPP: Yes

Ratings Awards Historical Ranking

4.5

OVERALL SCORE info

Investment Choices
Charges & Fees
Website
Education
Mobile App
Ease of Use

Check out StockBrokers.com's picks for the best UK investment platforms in 2026.

#1 Education

Winner

2026	#3
2025	#7
2024	#9
2023	#1
2022	#1
2021	#1
2020	#2

Why you can trust us

Led by Elizabeth Anderson, Lead Writer and Researcher, the StockBrokers.com research team for the U.K. collects data and tests products on an ongoing basis. We review the tools and features most important to U.K. investors – including beginners, casual investors, passive investors, and active traders.

We collect and track data on trading charges, fees, and interest rates to make it easier to understand the cost of investing in the U.K. We analyze a wide range of savings and investment offerings, like ISAs, SIPPs, investment portfolios, pensions, and active trading accounts. We hand-collect and audit data across more than 50 variables in our coverage of the best U.K. investment platforms.

Our researchers open personal brokerage accounts and test all available platforms on desktop, web, and mobile for each broker reviewed on StockBrokers.com. Learn more about how we test.

Table of Contents

Pros and cons

My top takeaways for IG in 2026:

• IG charges no platform fee and no dealing commission on online share, ETF, and investment trust trades in the U.K., U.S., Europe, and Australia.
• More than 13,000 stocks and more than 3,000 ETFs are available.
• Uninvested cash earns 3.75% on balances up to £100,000. You have to trade or hold an open position that month to receive it.
• The 0.70% currency conversion fee is well above the 0.15% at Trading 212 and the 0.1% at Lightyear.
• IG's SIPP is run by a third party, Options Pensions, and costs £210 a year.

IG UK fees

IG charges no platform fee and no dealing commission on its general dealing account or its stocks and shares ISA. That holds at every portfolio size, including balances above £1m. There is no separate regular dealing fee behind it. The minimum deposit is £1.

Commission-free trading: Online share, ETF, and investment trust deals cost £0 in the U.K., U.S., Europe, and Australia. The charge does not rise with volume. It is £0 at one trade a month and £0 at thirty.

Three things on the investing side still cost money. A trade placed over the phone is £50 for U.S. shares and £40 for U.K. shares. The IG Smart Portfolios carry a 0.5% annual management charge, capped at £250 a year for each account type. The SIPP is charged separately at £210 a year, which I come to below.

Currency conversion: Buying a share or ETF priced in another currency costs 0.70%. That is at the higher end of the U.K. market. Trading 212 charges 0.15% and Lightyear charges 0.1% for the same conversion. If you buy mostly in dollars, this is the fee to weigh against the commission you are saving.

Government charges: Stamp duty of 0.5% applies when you buy U.K. shares. That is a government charge, not an IG one, and it applies wherever you invest.

Deposits and withdrawals: There is no charge to deposit or withdraw, and no inactivity or exit fee. The one exception is currency conversion. If a withdrawal needs converting, the 0.70% applies. The minimum withdrawal is £1.

Paying money in goes very fast. I connected my bank account directly through the app and the money was there instantly when I tested it for this review. Withdrawing took longer. IG says it takes up to a day to process, and there may be a short wait after that. In my case, the money reached my account the following day.

Interest on cash: Uninvested cash earns 3.75% on balances up to £100,000. Anything above that earns nothing. Interest is calculated daily and paid the following month, and it does not arrive automatically. In any month you want it, you have to hold an open position at some point, place at least one buy or sell trade in an eligible account, or hold a funded Smart Portfolio. Open an account, leave it alone, and you earn nothing.

Feature	IG UK
Minimum Deposit	£1
Share Trading: 0-9 Deals/ Month	£0
Share Trading: 10-19 Deals/ Month	£0
Share Trading: 20+ Deals/ Month	£0
Annual Platform Fee (Funds): £0 - £250,000	N/A
Annual Platform Fee (Funds): £250K-£500K	N/A
Annual Platform Fee (Funds): £500,000 - £1m	N/A
Annual Platform Fee (Funds): £1m and over	N/A
Bonds - Corporate - Fee	N/A
Bonds - Government (Gilts) - Fee	N/A
ETFs - Fee	£0
Investment Trusts - Fee	£0
Telephone Dealing Fee	£50

Continue Reading

Range of investments

The investable universe here is broad and it costs nothing to trade. More than 13,000 stocks and more than 3,000 ETFs, plus investment trusts, across the U.K., U.S., German, and Australian markets. That covers most of what a U.K. investor building a global portfolio needs. However, it is still lower than some other platforms such as Saxo and Interactive Brokers, which both offer more overseas options.

No fractional shares: This is the real gap, and it shapes how you use the platform. You buy whole shares, so every purchase lands on a slightly random pound amount rather than the £100 or £1,000 you meant to invest. Freetrade, which IG owns, does offer fractional shares.

Finding things: The Explore tab sorts investments by what is most popular. For a beginner with no idea where to start that is a reasonable place to begin, but it does encourage a follow-the-herd mentality.

What is missing: There are no mutual funds. IG gives no direct access to bonds or gilts either, so fixed income has to come through an ETF or a CFD. There is no advice service. Spread betting and CFDs are available for advanced traders, with a demo account to test them in.

Cryptocurrency: IG sells actual cryptocurrencies, which few mainstream U.K. investment platforms do. There are more than 100 available and you can hold fractional amounts. It is held in a separate account funded from your general dealing account, and cannot go inside an ISA or a SIPP under FCA rules. I bought £10 of bitcoin, sold it shortly after, and there seemed to be no fees at all. I ended up with my £10 again. IG charges 0% commission on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, with a 0.07% external exchange fee built into the price.

IG Smart Portfolios: There are three, Cautious, Measured, and Courageous, all built from BlackRock's iShares ETFs, costing 0.5% a year capped at £250 for each account type. They are basic and do not compare well with the ready-made ranges at Lloyds Bank, Hargreaves Lansdown, and AJ Bell. You can also find cheaper global tracker ETFs without needing to go through the ready-made option.

IG SIPP

This is the one account where the free pricing stops. IG does not run it. A partner, Options Pensions, administers the wrapper, and it costs £210 a year, or £17.50 a month. It does not accept company contributions and it does not support drawdown.

I would not choose IG for a pension. If you want a SIPP alongside your other accounts, Freetrade, Trading 212, and Interactive Investor all do the job better.

IG Junior ISA and other accounts

A Junior ISA arrived in March 2026. It follows the adult ISA on pricing, with no commission and no platform fee, and holds stocks, investment trusts, and ETFs. There is no Junior SIPP.

The general dealing account carries the same £0 platform fee and £0 commission as the ISA. It is also the only place crypto can be held.

Feature	IG UK
Share Trading	Yes
CFD Trading	Yes
ETFs	Yes
Mutual Funds	No
Bonds - Corporate	No
Bonds - Government (Gilts)	No
Investment Trusts	Yes
Spread Betting	Yes
Crypto Trading	Yes
Advisor Services	No

IG UK ISA review

I hold an ISA at IG and transferred into it in March. It costs nothing to hold, which was not always the case, and it opens onto the whole investment list rather than a cut-down version of it. One thing to know upfront is that there is no standalone cash ISA, so holding cash in an ISA here means leaving it uninvested inside the stocks and shares ISA.

IG stocks and shares ISA

You can hold stocks, ETFs, and investment trusts in it, drawn mostly from the U.K. and U.S. with some European and Australian coverage. The Smart Portfolios are available inside the wrapper too, at their own 0.5% charge. The wrapper itself is free. There is no platform fee, no management charge on your own holdings, and no monthly fee.

Uninvested cash inside the ISA earns the same 3.75% as it does elsewhere on the platform, up to £100,000, and the same monthly activity condition applies. With no separate cash ISA on offer, this is the only route to interest on cash in an ISA at IG.

Two things do not carry into the wrapper. Crypto cannot be held in an ISA under FCA rules, even though IG offers it generally. And there are still no fractional shares, so a £20,000 allowance gets spent in whole-share increments.

My own view is mixed. The ISA is cheap and the wrapper does what it should. I prefer other apps, because IG Invest is a little basic for me. If you want a really slimmed-down app, that same quality is the reason to choose it.

ISA flexibility and transfers

Money can come out and go back in within the same tax year without it counting twice against your £20,000 annual allowance. Plenty of U.K. platforms now do the same, so this is not a reason to pick IG over them.

Transfers in are accepted. I moved an ISA across in March and it took about three weeks. That was peak ISA season and IG was running a large cashback offer at the time, which will have created a backlog. IG kept me updated throughout and told me transfers were taking longer than usual. Budget for that if you are transferring in the spring.

Cashback has been IG's main tactic for winning transfers this year, and the offers have been aggressive. Check what is running before you move anything.

Mobile trading apps

IG Invest is easy to use and fast to trade on, and for a platform whose main app, IG Trading, is built for active traders, I found it the more useful of the two for myself. The complication is that there are two apps at all. IG Trading is the older and fuller one. IG Invest is newer and aimed at everyday investors.

Placing a trade: I tested one of the most popular stocks. Go to Explore, search for what you want, tap it, select Invest, choose whether it goes in your general dealing account or your ISA, then press continue. It is quick once you know the ticker. Finding something without one is harder, because Explore shows only the top 12 stocks and ETFs. And because there are no fractional shares, you cannot say how much you want to invest by value. You pick a number of shares. I find that annoying on a platform pitched at everyday investors.

You also cannot line up a trade outside market hours using IG Invest. There is no way to place an order in the evening and have it execute when the market opens. That is a key omission. You'll need to use the more advanced IG Trading app to submit a limit order while the market is closed.

On the IG Invest app, you are locked out of submitting orders outside of market hours.

Charting: 38 indicators and 19 drawing tools. Corporate events show on the chart, and you can add notes. There are no stock or index overlays, which rules out comparing two holdings on one chart. The chart will not show you when you bought or what you paid either. So the one-year figure is useless for your own position. It told me a holding would have gained £1.28 if I had bought it a year earlier, which I had not. Trading 212 shows the average price you paid. IG does not, unless you pay £30 a month for ProRealTime.

Tracking your portfolio: You can see your ISA's total value and how much cash is available to invest. What you cannot see is the total you have invested. You have to add it up yourself. Holdings are listed in the order you bought them rather than by size, and I would rather see my largest holdings first. Gains show in pounds on the main screen, and in percentage terms only once you open the holding. Price alerts exist on IG Trading. I could not find them on IG Invest at all.

The app is not flawless either. If I go to Activity, I cannot scroll properly and it gets stuck.

The main Watchlists screen of the more advanced IG Trading app.

Trading platforms

The website is the fuller environment and the one to use if you want the whole picture. It trades in real time and it shows the complete investment list rather than a filtered selection. It is also built for experienced investors and it shows. As a beginner it is complex, and I would not send a first-time investor to it.

Which surface suits you depends on what you are doing. If you are buying a handful of shares and ETFs and checking on them occasionally, the app covers it. The website earns its complexity if you want the full list in front of you, or the screener, which is a different tool on the web from the one in the app.

Web charting: This is the weak spot. The chart tools are not good compared with other platforms. I could not overlay stocks or indices, and the indicator set is limited. It is also difficult to use. Decent charting means upgrading to ProRealTime at £30 a month, which is a real cost on a platform that otherwise charges nothing to trade.

Viewing the five-year chart of Lloyds Banking Group shares on the IG web platform.

Demo account: You can open a paper trading account with £10,000 of virtual money, available through the web platform or the IG Trading app. It is aimed squarely at CFDs and spread betting. It is a fair tool for what it is aimed at. It is the wrong tool for someone who wants to see how share dealing feels before starting. There are too many high-risk products in the way and no clear path to testing plain investing.

Feature	IG UK
Web Platform	Yes
iPhone App	Yes
Android App	Yes
Stock Alerts	Yes
Charting - Indicators / Studies	38
Charting - Drawing Tools	19
Charting - Notes	Yes
Charting - Display Corporate Events	Yes
Charting - Stock Overlays	No
Charting - Index Overlays	No

Research

Tap into a holding on IG Invest and the basics are there. An ETF gives you its top holdings and the key investor information document. For a stock, you get market cap, dividend yield, and analyst ratings, which is enough to sanity-check a purchase without leaving the app. Fund factsheets are available. For basic everyday investors, I think this is enough.

Stock and ETF screeners: IG has both, and they are two different experiences. The web screener is far more sophisticated, with filters for sector, dividend yield, and price to sales ratio. I would say they are all aimed at experienced investors, and a beginner would find them too technical. The app screener is much easier to use. It is also much less capable. There is no mutual fund screener and no mutual fund research, which follows from there being no mutual funds.

The screener on the web platform is advanced and fully featured for discovering stocks or ETFs.

The discovery problem is more specific than the screener. IG carries a lot of leveraged and inverse ETPs and they sit too high in stock and ETF search results in the app. IG does flag them once you click into an individual product, which is right. What you cannot do is filter them out of a search, or find them deliberately. If you are browsing rather than searching for a known ticker, you will keep running into risky or complex products you may not want.

Real-time data: Free on both the app and the website, with no subscription charge. There is a portfolio allocation breakdown. Stock alerts are available, though as above I could only find them on IG Trading. Bond research is absent, which follows from IG not offering bonds directly.

Education

The IG Academy will get a beginner started, and it goes a long way past that. It runs free step-by-step online courses, from an introduction to the financial markets upwards, alongside in-person seminars. It has its own YouTube channel, separate from IG's main one.

Video: The U.K. channel, IG UK, carries more than 2,000 videos and has nearly 80,000 subscribers. Webinars are the weaker half. There is no regular live programme. IG has run them in the past and those recordings are still available to watch.

Calculators: There is a compound calculator sitting prominently in the IG Invest app. You tell it what you are starting with, what you plan to add each month, and how long for. I put in £1,000 up front, £100 a month for 10 years, and 5% annual growth. It came back with £17,175.24. It helps you visualise how the money could grow, although of course returns are never guaranteed. There is no retirement calculator, however.

What holds the material back is where it points. I think the emphasis is on CFDs and people looking for higher-risk investments, rather than just stock or ETF picking. The free demo account that comes with them is the same story. If you are here to build a long-term ISA, you will be sorting through material aimed at someone else.

Customer support: IG offers 24/7 support, by phone, live chat, and email, and phone lines are open to prospective customers as well as existing ones. The one thing you cannot do is start a live chat before you are a customer. Live chat is for account holders only.

Feature	IG UK
Education (Share Trading)	Yes
Education (Funds)	Yes
Education (Retirement)	Yes
Client Webinars	No
Client Webinars (Archived)	Yes

Final thoughts

verified#1 for Education

• Minimum Deposit: £1
• ISA: Yes
• SIPP: Yes

Ratings Awards Historical Ranking

4.5

OVERALL SCORE info

Investment Choices
Charges & Fees
Website
Education
Mobile App
Ease of Use

Check out StockBrokers.com's picks for the best UK investment platforms in 2026.

#1 Education

Winner

2026	#3
2025	#7
2024	#9
2023	#1
2022	#1
2021	#1
2020	#2

IG works best for someone who already knows what they want to buy. If you are picking your own shares and ETFs and holding them in an ISA, the pricing is hard to argue with. No platform fee, no commission, and a free ISA covering more than 16,000 stocks and ETFs. Trade at least once a month and the cash you have not invested earns 3.75% on top.

The beginner experience is what holds it back. CFDs and spread betting are too prominent for a platform trying to reach ordinary investors. The two apps split the audience and confuse more than they help. There are no fractional shares, so you cannot start as small as you can elsewhere. And you cannot queue a trade outside market hours, which for a platform this size is a key omission.

That said, the education is our top pick of all U.K. brokerages, and the more than 2,000 videos on IG's U.K. channel are most of the reason. That material is worth having whatever your level, though it leans towards trading rather than investing, so treat it as a library rather than a syllabus.

Elizabeth's expert take

"Overall I think IG is on the right lines with targeting mass investors through free trades, an ISA, and an app in IG Invest that is easy and basic enough to use. IG is well known for forex, CFDs, and spread betting, but in recent years it has been moving into the retail investor market."

Elizabeth Anderson
Lead Writer for the UK

For all that, IG is not my main platform and I would not move everything here. But if you have some experience, want an ISA that costs nothing, and are happy buying whole shares, I would put it near the top of your list. If you are starting with small monthly amounts and want to invest £50 at a time, look at Freetrade, which IG owns and which does offer fractional shares.

IG UK Star Ratings

Feature	IG UK
Overall Rating
Charges & Fees
Investment Choices
Mobile App
Website
Ease of Use
Education

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About the Editorial Team

Elizabeth Anderson, lead writer and researcher for the U.K. market, has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. In addition to her work with 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.

Blain Reinkensmeyer has 25 years of trading experience with over 2,500 trades placed during that time. He heads research for all U.S.-based brokerages on StockBrokers.com and is respected by executives as the leading expert covering the online broker industry. Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets.

Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Research for 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 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.