DEGIRO vs Saxo Bank (2026):
What each one costs in France, the Netherlands and Belgium
DEGIRO offers exceptionally low costs on its Core Selection through Tradegate. Saxo Bank is a Danish bank whose pricing differs meaningfully between its French, Dutch and Belgian entities — including on scheduled investing plans, custody, and which account envelopes you can open at all. This page compares the two using each broker’s published pricing documents, country by country, because there is no single pan-European answer. Investing involves risk of loss.
Some of the links on this site are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you if you sign up through them. This does not affect our reviews or recommendations — we only feature products we genuinely believe are useful for investors. This site provides educational content only, not personalized investment advice. Investments can lose value and past performance does not guarantee future results. You are responsible for your own financial decisions and for confirming the tax and legal rules that apply in your country.
TL;DR — the answer changes by country
The single most useful thing to know before reading further: for a monthly ETF purchase, Saxo’s scheduled plan costs less than DEGIRO’s Core Selection in the Netherlands and France, and more in Belgium. Everything else follows from what you need beyond that one trade.
Saxo has more on offer here — but the two headline features do not combine. The Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo carries no purchase commission, custody is 0 euros, and Saxo offers the PEA and PEA-PME, envelopes DEGIRO does not offer at all. The catch: the scheduled plan is not available inside a PEA, so you pick one or the other, not both.
DEGIRO remains relevant if you want the Core Selection on Tradegate across a wider list, where the 1.00 EUR handling fee applies and currency or external product and spread costs may apply, or if you are not investing through a PEA.
Saxo AutoInvest costs 0 euros per monthly purchase order, against 1 euro per Core Selection trade at DEGIRO, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply. Over twelve months that is 0 euros against 12 euros.
Against that: AutoInvest covers a selection of funds and ETFs on SaxoInvestor, sell orders revert to standard rates, and a 0.01% monthly service fee applies before being refunded as trading credit.
DEGIRO costs less on the trade itself — 12 euros a year against 24 euros for Saxo AutoInvest at 2 euros a month. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
Against that: the Belgian tariff sheet prices automatic settlement of the stock exchange tax, withholding tax and other applicable costs and taxes, including ADR fees and stamp duty, at zero — administrative value the 12 euro gap does not capture. Saxo also reimburses the transfer-out costs your current bank charges when you move a portfolio in, up to 1,000 euros as trading credit valid six months, on proof of cost.
Side-by-side, at the entry tier
Saxo figures below are entry-tier only. Where a line differs between the French, Dutch and Belgian entities, all three are shown rather than averaged.
| Feature | DEGIRO | Saxo Bank (entry tier) |
|---|---|---|
| ETF commission, Euronext | 3.00 EUR per trade (2.00 commission + 1.00 handling) plus connectivity fee where the exchange is not exempt | 0.08%, minimum 2 EUR (NL: maximum 150 EUR) |
| ETF commission, Tradegate Core Selection | 1.00 EUR all-in (0.00 commission + 1.00 handling); exempt from the connectivity fee. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply | Not applicable — no equivalent list |
| ETF commission, Xetra | 3.00 EUR per trade plus connectivity fee where not exempt | 0.08%, minimum 3 EUR |
| Connectivity fee | 2.50 EUR per exchange per calendar year, capped at 0.25% of total account value — you pay whichever is lower. Exempt venues are set per entity | None |
| Custody / platform / service fee | No platform fee, no inactivity fee — transaction fees and currency, connectivity, external product and spread costs may apply | FR: 0 EUR custody · BE: free · NL: 0.01% per month, max 40 EUR, refunded next month as trading credit |
| Currency conversion | 0.25% AutoFX; manual conversion 10.00 EUR + 0.25% (NL, DE, FR, IE, CH) | 0.25% |
| Scheduled monthly investing | Not offered | NL: AutoInvest 0 EUR per transaction · BE: AutoInvest 2 EUR per month · FR: Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo, no purchase commission (not available inside a PEA) |
| Credit interest on uninvested cash | Not covered here — see note below | NL: 0% up to 100,000 EUR at all tiers; above that, top tier only at Saxo Benchmark rate minus 1.00%, floor 0% · BE: top tier only, none on the first 20,000 EUR · FR: not published in the 2026 brochure |
| Bonds, entry tier | Available; priced per exchange | FR: 0.20%, min 20 EUR · NL: 0.12%, min 5 – max 150 EUR · BE: 0.12%, min 5 EUR, no cap |
| Equity options, entry tier | Available on an upgraded profile | 0.75 EUR per contract (FR, NL, BE) |
| Account envelopes | Personal securities account | FR: compte-titres, PEA & PEA-PME, Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo, compte-titres société, all opened fully online · NL and BE: a self-directed securities account; no PEA-equivalent tax wrapper is offered on either schedule |
| Outgoing transfer | 20.00 EUR per position + external costs (NL, FR, IE, UK, CH); internal transfer 7.50 EUR per position | FR: 50 EUR per line (compte-titres), 15 EUR per line max 150 EUR (PEA/PEA-PME) · BE: 75 EUR per line · NL: 25 EUR per line |
| Inactivity fee | None | None (FR brochure: 0 EUR) |
| Compensation cover | 100,000 EUR cash (German Deposit Guarantee Scheme); 90% of losses capped at 20,000 EUR on securities | 100,000 EUR cash only, via the Danish Garantiformuen, aggregated across all your Saxo accounts (200,000 EUR joint). Securities compensation limit not stated in the documents we hold |
Sources: DEGIRO published fee schedules; Saxo Banque France Tarifs 2026 (from 5 May 2026); Saxo Nederland Tarieven Zelf Beleggen (NL/TAR-ZB/UNIFIED/DIGI/13072026); Saxo Belgium Tarieven Zelf Beleggen (from 1 October 2025) and Tarieven AutoInvest (from 16 May 2025). Verified August 2026. Fees are subject to change. Compensation figures cover broker failure only and do not protect against investment losses. Investing involves risk of loss.
On DEGIRO cash interest: we do not state a credit interest rate for uninvested cash at DEGIRO on this page, because we have no primary source for one. Check DEGIRO’s current terms directly if cash interest matters to your decision.
What each broker charges on a trade
DEGIRO’s cost is a flat handling fee with conditions attached to the venue. Saxo’s is a percentage with a per-exchange minimum, which is what actually binds at retail trade sizes.
- Core Selection ETFs on Tradegate: 0.00 EUR commission plus the 1.00 EUR handling fee, so 1.00 EUR all-in. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
- Other exchanges: 3.00 EUR per trade (2.00 commission plus 1.00 handling).
- Connectivity fee: 2.50 EUR per exchange per calendar year, capped at 0.25% of total account value, whichever is lower. The basis is your whole account value, not the position on that exchange. Exempt venues are set per entity and the lists differ — for Dutch clients they are Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Brussels, OTC Tradias and the ETF Kernselectie; on the French schedule they are Euronext Paris, Euronext Brussels, OTC Tradias and the Sélection principale d’ETF. DEGIRO publishes no Belgium-specific schedule, so there is no separate Belgian exemption list to quote.
- Currency conversion: 0.25% via AutoFX on products priced outside your account currency; manual conversion 10.00 EUR + 0.25% on the Dutch, German, French, Irish and Swiss schedules. Currency fluctuations can impact your returns.
- No platform fee and no inactivity fee — transaction fees and currency, connectivity, external product and spread costs may apply.
- Euronext (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lisbon): 0.08%, minimum 2 EUR. The Dutch sheet also caps the entry tier at 150 EUR.
- Deutsche Börse XETRA and Milan: 0.08%, minimum 3 EUR. London: 0.08%, minimum 3 GBP. Nasdaq and NYSE: 0.08%, minimum 1 USD.
- Custody: France 0 EUR (exception: non-listed securities inside a PEA at 0.4% of plan value plus 25 EUR per line held per year). Belgium free. Netherlands a service fee of 0.01% per month, maximum 40 EUR, on portfolio value excluding derivatives, refunded the following month as trading credit valid one month.
- Currency conversion: 0.25%, at every tier in all three entities. Currency fluctuations can impact your returns.
- No inactivity fee. The French brochure also prices account opening, account maintenance and account closure at 0 EUR.
The percentage almost never binds — the minimum does
Saxo’s headline entry-tier rate on Euronext is 0.08%. On a 500 EUR purchase that is 0.40 EUR, well under the 2 EUR minimum, so you pay 2 EUR. The percentage only starts to matter above 2,500 EUR per order on Euronext, and above 3,750 EUR on Xetra where the minimum is 3 EUR. Below those sizes, Saxo’s manual pricing behaves as a flat fee, not a percentage.
That matters for the comparison because DEGIRO’s Core Selection is a flat 1.00 EUR handling fee regardless of order size, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply. So on manual orders the two brokers are 1 EUR against 2 EUR per trade at small sizes, and Saxo’s percentage becomes the larger cost only once orders run into the thousands.
Saxo tier names and thresholds
Saxo uses two naming conventions depending on the entity. Everything else on this page uses the entry tier only, since the higher tiers require deposits well beyond a standard retail starting portfolio.
| Entity | Entry tier | Middle tier | Top tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | Classic — no stated minimum | Platinum — minimum deposit 200,000 EUR | VIP — minimum deposit 850,000 EUR |
| Netherlands and Belgium | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| Euronext commission by tier (France) | 0.08%, min 2 EUR | 0.05%, min 2 EUR | 0.03%, min 2 EUR |
| Euronext commission by tier (Netherlands) | 0.08%, min 2 – max 150 EUR | 0.05%, min 2 – max 75 EUR | 0.03%, min 2 – max 75 EUR |
Sources: Saxo Banque France Tarifs 2026 (from 5 May 2026), page 5; Saxo Nederland Tarieven Zelf Beleggen (NL/TAR-ZB/UNIFIED/DIGI/13072026), page 2. Verified August 2026. Subject to change.
Full fee walkthroughs: DEGIRO fees explained · Saxo Bank fees explained
Scheduled investing: Saxo offers it in all three markets, DEGIRO does not
This is the single largest structural difference between the two for someone investing a fixed amount each month — and the terms differ per Saxo entity, so the cost is not the same in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.
0 EUR per transaction on monthly purchase orders.
Available for a selection of investment funds and ETFs on the SaxoInvestor platform, for clients with a EUR account. Sell orders are charged at standard transaction rates. Fund and spread costs are built into the instrument price and are not billed separately, but they still affect your return.
No purchase commission and no monthly fee, no minimum deposit, and no minimum or maximum monthly amount.
Purchases execute on the 5th of each month, or the next banking day if that falls on a weekend or holiday. If the balance is short, the plan skips the whole cycle rather than investing what is there — so a partial month is a missed month, not a smaller purchase. You can run up to 10 instruments per sub-account and up to 10 sub-accounts. Sell orders are charged at standard rates. Disposals flow into the IFU, the French annual tax statement.
Two limits that decide whether this is usable for you. The eligible universe is 20 ETFs — 14 Amundi, 5 iShares and 1 SPDR, five listed on Xetra and fifteen on Euronext Paris. And the plan is not available inside a PEA. Six of the twenty carry “PEA” in the fund name, which is a naming convention rather than an indication that the plan reaches inside a PEA wrapper — it does not.
A fixed 2 EUR per month, per AutoInvest account.
Charged even in months where the order cannot be executed — for example because there is not enough cash on the account, or the plan is paused. Sell orders are charged at standard rates. That flat monthly charge is why Belgium is the one market of the three where DEGIRO’s Core Selection costs less over a year.
A caveat on this figure. The Tarieven AutoInvest sheet carries no entity address of its own and is dated 16 May 2025, well before Saxo’s other current schedules. We read it as Belgian, but that is inferred rather than stated. Confirm the current AutoInvest price with Saxo before acting on the Belgium comparison.
DEGIRO: manual execution only
DEGIRO’s order execution policy sets out the order types available on its platform — combination, standard, limit, market, stop loss, stop limit, trailing stop and value orders — with two validity durations, day and good-till-cancelled. None of them is a scheduled or recurring purchase. Every buy is placed by hand: log in, find the instrument, choose the exchange, place the order. Source: DEGIRO, Nadere Informatie Beleggingsdiensten — Orders en Orderuitvoeringsbeleid (flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch, August 2025), sections 3.2 and 3.3. Order types are a platform-level feature rather than a per-country priced one, so the same set applies to French and Belgian clients.
DEGIRO’s own help centre states that it facilitates whole shares only and does not offer fractional share trading. On some products you can enter an order by value rather than by quantity, but without fractionals the order still fills in whole units and any remainder stays as cash on the account.
Whether that matters is a behavioural question rather than a cost question. If you reliably place the trade each month, manual execution costs you nothing extra. If you skip months, the missed contribution will outweigh any fee difference discussed on this page.
A 500 EUR monthly ETF purchase, priced per country
Twelve purchases a year of 500 EUR each, in a EUR-denominated ETF, so no currency conversion applies on either side. DEGIRO is priced on the Core Selection via Tradegate; Saxo is priced both through its scheduled plan and as a manual Euronext order.
| Country | DEGIRO — Core Selection | Saxo — scheduled plan | Saxo — manual Euronext | Lower annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 1.00 EUR × 12 = 12.00 EUR | 0.00 EUR purchase commission = 0.00 EUR | min 2 EUR × 12 = 24.00 EUR | Saxo, via the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo (outside a PEA) |
| Netherlands | 1.00 EUR × 12 = 12.00 EUR | 0.00 EUR per transaction = 0.00 EUR | min 2 EUR × 12 = 24.00 EUR | Saxo, via AutoInvest |
| Belgium | 1.00 EUR × 12 = 12.00 EUR | 2 EUR per month = 24.00 EUR | min 2 EUR × 12 = 24.00 EUR | DEGIRO, by 12.00 EUR |
Sources: DEGIRO published fee schedules; Saxo Banque France Tarifs 2026 and the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo product and eligible-ETF listings on saxobanque.fr; Saxo Nederland Tarieven Zelf Beleggen (NL/TAR-ZB/UNIFIED/DIGI/13072026); Saxo Belgium Tarieven Zelf Beleggen and Tarieven AutoInvest. Verified August 2026. Excludes the Dutch service fee of 0.01% per month (max 40 EUR), which is refunded the following month as trading credit. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply on DEGIRO’s Core Selection; fund and spread costs are built into instrument prices at both brokers. Fees are subject to change.
What the table says plainly
In the Netherlands and in France, Saxo’s scheduled plan costs less than DEGIRO’s Core Selection for a monthly ETF purchase — 0 EUR in purchase commission against 12 EUR a year. That is not a marginal difference and it is not hedged.
In Belgium the direction reverses, because AutoInvest carries a flat 2 EUR monthly charge that applies whether or not the order executes. There, DEGIRO’s Core Selection costs 12 EUR a year against 24 EUR.
What the table does not capture
- Saxo’s plans cover a selection of eligible funds and ETFs on SaxoInvestor. DEGIRO’s 1 EUR handling fee applies across the whole Core Selection list on Tradegate, with no cap on monthly trades.
- Sell orders on a Saxo plan revert to standard commission — the 0 EUR rate is a purchase rate.
- DEGIRO’s connectivity fee is 2.50 EUR per exchange per calendar year, capped at 0.25% of total account value, and applies on any non-exempt exchange you use outside the Core Selection.
- Transfers out differ sharply: 20.00 EUR per position plus external costs on DEGIRO’s Dutch, French, Irish, UK and Swiss schedules, against 50 EUR per line in France, 25 EUR in the Netherlands and 75 EUR in Belgium at Saxo. DEGIRO publishes no Belgian schedule, so there is no Belgium-specific transfer-out figure to quote. Running the other way, Saxo Belgium reimburses your outgoing costs at the other bank on an incoming transfer, up to 1,000 EUR as trading credit valid six months, on proof of cost.
Related: how fees compound over time
Account envelopes: the difference that outranks every fee line
For a French resident this section decides the comparison on its own, before any commission figure is considered. Tax rules depend on your circumstances and country of residence — confirm your own position with a qualified adviser or your tax authority.
Saxo offers the PEA and PEA-PME. DEGIRO does not.
The Tarifs 2026 brochure lists four account lines at Saxo Banque France, all opened fully online: the compte-titres, the PEA and PEA-PME, the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo, and the compte-titres société. DEGIRO offers a securities account. If you want to invest inside the PEA envelope, Saxo is the only one of the two that can do it, and no fee comparison changes that.
The two do not stack. The Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo is a separate account line and is not available inside a PEA. A French investor choosing Saxo therefore picks between the zero-commission scheduled plan on a compte-titres and the PEA’s tax treatment on manually placed orders — not both at once. Six of the twenty ETFs eligible for the plan carry “PEA” in the fund name, which does not change this.
- PEA and PEA-PME pricing is capped at the French legal maximum: 0.5% of the transaction for orders placed online, 1.2% for orders transmitted by other means.
- Custody is 0 EUR, with one exception — non-listed securities held inside a PEA are charged 0.4% of the plan value plus 25 EUR per line held per year.
- Transfers out: 15 EUR per line, capped at 150 EUR, on the PEA and PEA-PME; 50 EUR per line on the compte-titres.
- Also priced at 0 EUR in the French brochure: account opening, account maintenance, account closure, inactivity, outgoing bank transfers, and online statements and IFU tax documents.
Source: Saxo Banque France, Tarifs 2026, applicable from 5 May 2026, pages 3, 5 and 16. Verified August 2026. Subject to change.
Saxo settles the stock exchange tax and withholding tax at no charge
The Belgian tariff sheet prices automatic settlement of the stock exchange tax, the withholding tax and any other applicable costs and taxes — it names ADR costs and stamp duty as examples — at zero, under Extra diensten. In practice that means the settlement happens at broker level rather than falling to you to compute and remit. Note that on a non-EUR account, currency conversion costs can apply to the exchange tax and withholding tax as well as to the transaction fee.
Read that for what it is: a settlement service priced at zero on a tariff sheet, not tax advice, and not a removal of your own filing obligations. Confirm what applies to your situation with the Belgian tax authority or a qualified adviser. Source: Saxo Belgium, Tarieven Zelf Beleggen, in force from 1 October 2025.
The service fee, and what it actually costs
Saxo Nederland charges a service fee of 0.01% per month, capped at 40 EUR, calculated on portfolio value excluding derivatives. The sheet states it is refunded the following month as trading credit, valid for one month.
So the net cost depends on whether you trade enough in the following month to consume the credit before it expires. For a buy-and-hold investor placing one monthly order, some of that credit may go unused. On a 20,000 EUR portfolio the gross charge is 2 EUR a month. DEGIRO charges no platform fee and no inactivity fee, though transaction fees and currency, connectivity, external product and spread costs may apply.
What you can actually buy at each
For a standard UCITS ETF portfolio, both cover the ground. The gap opens on bonds, funds and multi-asset access.
- Stocks, UCITS ETFs and bonds across more than 45 markets in 30 countries. Using markets outside the exempt list triggers the connectivity fee of 2.50 EUR per exchange per calendar year, capped at 0.25% of total account value, whichever is lower — and products priced outside your account currency carry the 0.25% AutoFX conversion. Currency fluctuations can impact your returns.
- Over 1,000 products in the ETF Core Selection on Tradegate, at the 1.00 EUR handling fee. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
- Options, futures and warrants are available on an upgraded account profile, which is not relevant to a standard long-term ETF plan.
- No fractional shares, and no scheduled purchase plan.
- The wider product range of the two, on the French schedule: shares, SRD, ETFs, ETNs and ETPs, OPCVM funds, bonds, Saxo turbos, third-party turbos, warrants, certificates, futures, options, share and ETF CFDs, index CFDs, commodity CFDs, bond CFDs and forex. The Dutch and Belgian schedules are narrower — neither carries a CFD line, and the Belgian sheet lists warrants on Euronext Paris only.
- The French brochure states more than 70,000 financial products across the 50 main exchanges in France, Europe, the US and Asia, and 133 billion EUR in client assets (2026 data).
- Funds — read these as two different products, not one price that varies. France and Belgium price off-exchange fund subscriptions and redemptions: France 0 EUR brokerage per order, 0% entry charge on partner funds, 0 EUR exit; Belgium 0 EUR on both buy and sell for non-listed funds. The Netherlands line is for exchange-traded fund shares at 0.15%, minimum 8 EUR and maximum 150 EUR. Implicit fund and spread costs sit inside the instrument price in all three and are not billed separately.
- Bonds, entry tier: France 0.20% with a 20 EUR minimum; the Netherlands 0.12% with a 5 EUR minimum and a 150 EUR cap; Belgium 0.12% with a 5 EUR minimum and no cap. US sovereign bonds carry an additional 0.0004% market-access charge included in the price.
- Equity options: 0.75 EUR per contract at the entry tier in all three entities.
Sources: DEGIRO published fee schedules; Saxo Banque France Tarifs 2026 (pages 2, 4, 5 and 7); Saxo Nederland Tarieven Zelf Beleggen (NL/TAR-ZB/UNIFIED/DIGI/13072026), pages 2 and 4; Saxo Belgium Tarieven Zelf Beleggen. Verified August 2026. Subject to change.
Platforms
Saxo runs two platforms, described in the French brochure as SaxoInvestor for beginners and SaxoTrader for experienced investors, both at 0 EUR. The brochure also lists real-time Euronext prices, mobile apps, screeners, advanced and conditional orders, alerts, webinars and the ProRealTime technical analysis platform with order entry included, all at 0 EUR. Note that AutoInvest in the Netherlands runs specifically on SaxoInvestor.
DEGIRO offers a web platform and a mobile app built around placing and reviewing orders rather than around research or discovery. For a quarterly buyer, that is a short workflow and little time spent in the interface.
Where they are equivalent
Currency conversion is 0.25% at both, so on a USD-denominated purchase neither has an advantage. In both cases the fix is the same: buy a EUR-denominated listing of your UCITS ETF where one exists, and check the listing currency on the exchange you intend to use before buying. Currency fluctuations can impact your returns.
Neither charges an inactivity fee. Both carry implicit fund and spread costs inside instrument prices, which are not billed separately but still affect returns.
Background: UCITS vs US ETFs · how to choose an S&P 500 UCITS ETF
How each is structured, and what the compensation schemes cover
Regulatory status describes supervision and compensation arrangements. It is not a judgement on whether a broker suits you, and it does not address investment risk.
DEGIRO is the trading name of flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch, the Dutch branch of flatexDEGIRO Bank SE. flatexDEGIRO Bank SE is primarily supervised by the German financial regulator (BaFin). In the Netherlands, flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch is registered with DNB and supervised by AFM and DNB. The entity changed its legal form from AG to SE on 30 December 2025.
Under the German schemes, cash is covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to 100,000 EUR, and investor compensation covers up to 90% of losses with a maximum of 20,000 EUR per client in the event of insolvency.
DEGIRO is an execution-only broker and does not provide investment advice — its own order execution policy states this directly. Orders are routed either directly to the reference exchange under DEGIRO’s own membership or through third-party brokers, currently ABN AMRO Clearing Bank and Morgan Stanley, whose execution quality DEGIRO monitors and publishes.
Saxo Bank A/S is a single Danish credit institution. Saxo Banque France, Saxo Nederland and the Belgian operation are branches of that one legal entity, under one Danish banking licence — not separate local banks. That matters for protection: cover is calculated per institution, so holdings across those branches aggregate rather than stacking.
Cash is covered by the Danish deposit guarantee, Garantiformuen, administered by Finansiel Stabilitet, up to 100,000 EUR per depositor across all your Saxo accounts, rising to 200,000 EUR on joint accounts, with payout within seven business days. French clients are handled through the FGDR and Dutch clients through DNB; the Belgian routing is not stated in the documents we hold. This covers your cash balance only — shares, bonds and other investments held in your portfolio are not covered by the deposit guarantee. We do not state a securities compensation figure for Saxo, because no such figure appears in the pricing or deposit-guarantee documents we hold; check Saxo’s current terms directly if that matters to your decision.
Ownership: the J. Safra Sarasin Group completed its acquisition of approximately 71% of Saxo Bank on 2 March 2026, having announced the deal in March 2025, buying out Geely Financials Denmark, Mandatum and other minority holders with clearance from FINMA and the Danish FSA. Founder Kim Fournais retained approximately 28% and moved from chief executive to Chairman, with Daniel Belfer, previously CEO of Bank J. Safra Sarasin, taking over as CEO. In July 2026 the group agreed to acquire the remaining 28.69% of Saxo Holding AG through a call option, which would take it to full ownership on completion.
For disputes, the French brochure sets out the route: client services first, then a formal complaint through the platform, then free recourse to the AMF ombudsman.
Which one fits, by situation
Saxo Bank fits if…
- You are in France and want a PEA or PEA-PME — DEGIRO does not offer either, so this ends the comparison.
- You want a scheduled monthly plan and you are in France or the Netherlands, where the purchase commission is zero — accepting, in France, that the plan sits outside the PEA.
- You are in Belgium and value having the stock exchange tax, withholding tax and related charges settled automatically at no charge, and the incoming-transfer reimbursement on the way in.
- You want individual bonds, a broader fund range, or listed options alongside your core ETF holdings.
- Your target funds appear on the eligible list — 20 ETFs for the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo in France, a selection of funds and ETFs on SaxoInvestor for AutoInvest.
DEGIRO fits if…
- You are in Belgium, where the Core Selection at 1.00 EUR per trade costs 12 EUR a year against 24 EUR for AutoInvest. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
- Your chosen ETFs are on the Tradegate Core Selection but outside Saxo’s eligible plan list — the 1.00 EUR rate covers over 1,000 products with no monthly cap on trades, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
- You place trades manually anyway and want the lower per-trade cost: 1.00 EUR against a 2 EUR minimum on Euronext, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply.
- You want a simple execution platform without research, screening or multi-asset features you will not use.
- You trade more than once a month, where the absence of a per-trade cap works in your favour.
The summary, without a single winner
There is no pan-European answer here, and any page that gives you one has flattened three different pricing documents into a claim none of them supports. In France, Saxo offers an envelope DEGIRO cannot and prices scheduled purchases at zero commission — though not inside that envelope, which is the detail most comparisons miss. In the Netherlands, the scheduled plan is also free while DEGIRO’s equivalent costs 12 EUR a year. In Belgium, that reverses on the flat 2 EUR monthly AutoInvest charge, on a tariff sheet whose Belgian attribution we could not independently confirm.
Where they converge: currency conversion at 0.25%, no inactivity fee, 100,000 EUR of cash cover on both sides, and implicit fund and spread costs at both. Where DEGIRO holds a consistent advantage across all three markets is the per-trade cost of a manual purchase and the breadth of its 1.00 EUR list, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply; where Saxo does, it is account envelopes, scheduled plans, and product range beyond equities and ETFs.
Neither answer is right in the abstract. Start from your country, then from whether you need a PEA, then from whether your target funds sit on the relevant eligible list. Investing involves risk of loss and this is not investment advice.
Ready to open an account?
Check the current pricing page for your country before you decide — Saxo’s terms differ between its French, Dutch and Belgian entities, and DEGIRO’s connectivity and transfer lines vary by schedule. Investing involves risk of loss. This is not investment advice.
Go deeper
Frequently asked questions
Is DEGIRO’s Core Selection really €1 per trade?
Close to it, with conditions. Core Selection ETFs traded on Tradegate Exchange carry no commission plus a €1.00 handling fee, so €1.00 all-in per trade, and the Core Selection is exempt from the connectivity fee. Currency or external product and spread costs may apply. ETFs on other exchanges such as Euronext Amsterdam or Xetra cost €3.00 per trade (€2.00 commission plus the €1.00 handling fee), plus a connectivity fee of €2.50 per exchange per calendar year, capped at 0.25% of your total account value — you pay whichever is lower.
There is no platform fee and no inactivity fee, though transaction fees and currency, connectivity, external product and spread costs may apply. Figures verified August 2026 against DEGIRO’s published fee schedules. Investing involves risk of loss.
Does Saxo offer scheduled monthly investing in France, the Netherlands and Belgium?
Yes, in all three, on different terms. In the Netherlands, AutoInvest monthly purchase orders cost €0 per transaction, available for a selection of investment funds and ETFs on the SaxoInvestor platform for clients with a EUR account; sell orders are charged at standard transaction rates. In Belgium, AutoInvest costs a fixed €2 per month per AutoInvest account, charged even in months where the order cannot be executed because of insufficient cash or a paused plan; sell orders are charged at standard rates.
In France, Saxo Banque offers the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo, with no purchase commission, no monthly fee, no minimum deposit and no minimum or maximum monthly amount. Purchases execute on the 5th of each month, or the next banking day, and an insufficient balance skips the whole cycle rather than investing partially. The eligible universe is 20 ETFs — 14 Amundi, 5 iShares and 1 SPDR. One limit matters more than the price: the plan is not available inside a PEA, so in France a scheduled plan and the PEA envelope are separate choices. Investing involves risk of loss.
Which broker costs less for a €500 monthly ETF purchase?
It depends on your country and on whether you use a scheduled plan. Twelve monthly purchases of €500 cost €12 a year at DEGIRO using the Core Selection on Tradegate, where currency or external product and spread costs may apply. At Saxo the same twelve purchases cost €0 in purchase commission through AutoInvest in the Netherlands and through the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo in France, €24 through AutoInvest in Belgium at €2 per month, and €24 if placed manually on Euronext in any of the three, where the 0.08% rate falls below the €2 minimum.
So in the Netherlands and France the Saxo scheduled plan costs less than DEGIRO’s Core Selection for this pattern, and in Belgium DEGIRO costs less. The counterpoint: Saxo’s plans are limited to a selection of eligible funds and ETFs on SaxoInvestor and sell orders revert to standard commission, whereas DEGIRO’s €1 handling fee applies across the whole Core Selection list on Tradegate with no monthly cap. This is not investment advice.
Can I open a PEA with DEGIRO?
No. Saxo Banque France offers the compte-titres, the PEA and PEA-PME, the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo and the compte-titres société. DEGIRO does not offer the PEA or PEA-PME. For a French resident who wants to invest inside the PEA envelope, this decides the comparison before any fee figure is considered. One caveat worth knowing before you plan around it: the Plan Épargne Programmé Saxo, which carries no purchase commission, is not available inside a PEA — the two are separate account lines, not a combination. Six of the twenty ETFs eligible for the plan carry “PEA” in the fund name, which does not change that.
On the PEA and PEA-PME, Saxo prices within the French legal maximum of 0.5% of the transaction for orders placed online and 1.2% for orders transmitted by other means. Transfers out cost €15 per line capped at €150 on the PEA and PEA-PME, against €50 per line on the compte-titres. Custody is €0, with one exception: non-listed securities held inside a PEA are charged 0.4% of the plan value plus €25 per line held per year. Tax rules depend on your circumstances and country of residence — confirm your own position with a qualified adviser.
Does Saxo handle Belgian stock exchange tax and withholding tax?
The Belgian tariff sheet lists automatic settlement of the stock exchange tax, withholding tax and any other applicable costs and taxes as free of charge. That is a settlement service at broker level, not tax advice, and it does not remove your own filing obligations. Confirm what applies to you with the Belgian tax authority or a qualified adviser before relying on it. Source: Saxo Belgium, Tarieven Zelf Beleggen, in force from 1 October 2025.
Does Saxo charge a custody fee in France, the Netherlands or Belgium?
Not in the form of a standing annual custody charge in any of the three. In France, custody is €0, with the exception of non-listed securities held inside a PEA at 0.4% of the plan value plus €25 per line per year. In Belgium, custody and annual administration are listed as free. In the Netherlands there is a service fee of 0.01% per month, capped at €40, calculated on portfolio value excluding derivatives, which is refunded the following month as trading credit valid for one month.
DEGIRO charges no platform fee and no inactivity fee, though transaction fees and currency, connectivity, external product and spread costs may apply. Figures verified August 2026 against each broker’s published pricing documents and subject to change.
How are DEGIRO and Saxo Bank regulated, and what compensation applies?
DEGIRO is the trading name of flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch, the Dutch branch of flatexDEGIRO Bank SE. flatexDEGIRO Bank SE is primarily supervised by the German financial regulator (BaFin). In the Netherlands, flatexDEGIRO Bank Dutch Branch is registered with DNB and supervised by AFM and DNB. The legal form changed from AG to SE on 30 December 2025. Under the German schemes, cash is covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to €100,000 and investor compensation covers up to 90% of losses with a maximum of €20,000 per client in the event of insolvency.
Saxo Bank A/S is a Danish credit institution; its French, Dutch and Belgian operations are branches of that single entity under one Danish banking licence, so cover is calculated across all of them together rather than per branch. Cash is covered by the Danish Garantiformuen up to €100,000 per depositor, rising to €200,000 on joint accounts, with payout within seven business days — French clients via the FGDR, Dutch clients via DNB, with the Belgian routing not stated in the documents we hold. That cover applies to cash only; shares, bonds and other investments are not covered by the deposit guarantee. We do not state a securities compensation figure for Saxo because none appears in the documents we hold — check Saxo’s current terms directly if that matters to you.
These schemes address broker failure only. They do not protect against investment losses: investing involves risk of loss, and the value of your investments can fall as well as rise. Regulatory status describes supervision and compensation arrangements; it is not a judgement on whether either broker suits you.
Can I use both DEGIRO and Saxo Bank?
Yes — there is no restriction on holding accounts at both. Some investors use DEGIRO’s Core Selection on Tradegate for execution and Saxo for a scheduled plan, PEA access, or bond and fund coverage. The trade-off is administrative: two sets of statements, a portfolio split across platforms, and two onboarding processes.
Note also that Core Selection positions are held on Tradegate, and not every broker accepts incoming transfers of Tradegate positions, so confirm with the destination broker before building a position you may later want to move. Investing involves risk of loss and this is not investment advice.
Get the free toolkit sample
A working broker cost calculator — IBKR vs DEGIRO vs Trading 212, with verified fees. You’ll also get 4 short emails on cutting your investing costs. Unsubscribe anytime.
QuantRoutine provides educational content only. Nothing on this page is an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any security or to open an account with any specific broker. Investments can lose value, and past performance does not guarantee future results. You are responsible for your own investment, tax, and legal decisions. Always review each broker’s current terms, fees, and eligibility on their official website before opening or funding an account. Fee structures, tax rules, and platform features are updated by brokers periodically — information on this page reflects research conducted in August 2026 and may not reflect subsequent changes.