Revolut Investing for ETFs (2026): is it good enough vs a dedicated broker?

By Kestutis Balciunas·Reviewed August 26, 2026

Revolut Investing costs the greater of 0.25% or €1.00 per order once you pass your plan’s free trades — 1 a month on Standard, 3 on Plus, 5 on Premium, 10 on Metal and Ultra (Ultra pays 0.12%). There is no custody fee: Revolut removed it on 13 February 2024, when it was 0.12% a year. There is no FX fee inside the investment account. Assets are protected up to €22,000 by the Lithuanian scheme, because the EEA entity is Revolut Securities Europe UAB, authorised by the Bank of Lithuania.

A proper Revolut Investing ETF review is overdue, because Revolut has quietly become the way millions of Europeans hold their everyday money — and it now offers investing too. The natural question for the tens of millions already using the app is simple: is Revolut Investing good enough for a serious ETF portfolio, or should you use a dedicated broker? This 2026 review gives a straight answer, with the costs, the catches and the convenience weighed honestly. (Revolut’s product and fees change — verify current terms in-app before deciding.)

For the exact steps, see my S&P 500 on Revolut guide.

I’ve used Revolut for travel money for years, so I came to its investing product as an existing fan of the app rather than a sceptic. That matters, because the strongest argument for Revolut Investing is precisely that you already trust the app and already keep money in it. What follows is an honest assessment for ETF investors — what Revolut does well, where it falls short for long-term portfolios, and the sensible path I’d actually recommend. For more detail, see our guide: Trading 212 vs Revolut for ETF Investors (UK).

What Revolut Investing offers

Revolut Investing is, at heart, an investing tab inside a banking app you probably already open several times a week. That single fact explains most of its appeal. The product is built for people who want to start, not for people who want to optimise the last basis point of cost.

• Convenience. If your salary and spending already live in Revolut, investing from the same app is frictionless — and that frictionlessness is genuinely valuable for getting people to start. There is no separate account to open, no IBAN to fund, no wait for a transfer to clear.
• ETFs and stocks are available, though the range of UCITS ETFs has historically been narrower than a dedicated broker like IBKR or Trade Republic. For a core all-world strategy that may be fine; for anything specialised it can be limiting.
• Tiered plans, and here are the actual quotas. Commission-free stock and ETP orders per rolling month, resetting on your billing cycle: Standard 1, Plus 3, Premium 5, Metal 10, Ultra 10 (Revolut investment services terms). Two details that catch people: unused free trades do not carry over, and an order counts against the quota when it is submitted, executed or not. A paid tier you already hold for travel perks effectively subsidises your investing; a tier bought solely to invest changes the maths.

For getting started and small amounts, the convenience is real. The discipline of buying an ETF from the same screen where you check your balance should not be underrated — habit is the part of investing most people fail at. See how to choose a broker for the framework I use to weigh convenience against cost.

The catches for serious ETF investors

Convenience has a price, and for larger portfolios that price compounds. Three issues matter most once you move beyond occasional, small purchases.

• Fees beyond the free allowance: the greater of 0.25% of the order or €1.00. That is the published EEA commission for Standard, Plus, Premium and Metal; Ultra and Trading Pro pay 0.12%, and the €1.00 country minimum does not apply to recurring ETP purchase orders (Revolut help centre, trading fees). On a €500 buy that is €1.25. For regular DCA investing the arithmetic is therefore knowable rather than mysterious, and it is done further down this page. Check whether the cost beats a dedicated broker using the EU broker fee comparator, which lets you model your actual contribution pattern rather than guessing.
• ETF range. A narrower UCITS selection may mean your preferred core fund (e.g. a specific accumulating all-world) isn’t available. If your strategy depends on a particular accumulating UCITS for tax efficiency, the absence of that exact ticker is a genuine constraint, not a nuisance.
• Tax reporting. Dedicated brokers increasingly produce statements built for long-term portfolios — clear cost-basis records, dividend summaries and, in some markets, pre-filled tax data. As an app-first product, Revolut’s reporting has historically been lighter, which matters more the larger and more complex your holdings become.
• It’s not a specialist investing platform. Dedicated brokers offer more fund choice, better tax reporting, and features built for long-term portfolios — see why Trade Republic stands out as a low-cost specialist alternative, or the app-first Lightyear review for a closer comparison.

Revolut Investing vs a dedicated broker

The table below is illustrative — it sketches the trade-off rather than quoting exact fees, which vary by plan, market and the day you read this. The pattern, however, is stable: Revolut wins on convenience and the first few trades; a dedicated broker wins as the portfolio and contribution frequency grow.

Illustrative only — confirm Revolut’s current allowances and fees in-app, and model your own contribution pattern in the comparator before drawing conclusions.

A worked example: the cost of DCA at scale

Numbers make the trade-off concrete. This example is illustrative — plug your real figures into the fee comparator — but it shows the shape of the problem.

Suppose you invest €500 a month into a single all-world ETF, and your plan’s free allowance covers the first trade or two each month before a charge kicks in. An earlier version of this paragraph asked you to “imagine the effective drag … works out to roughly 1%” and arrived at about €60 a year. It is four times the real number, and it did not need imagining. Revolut’s published commission is the greater of 0.25% or €1.00, so a €500 buy beyond the allowance costs €1.25. On a Standard plan, eleven of your twelve monthly buys are chargeable: 11 × €1.25 = €13.75 a year on €6,000 of contributions, or 0.23%. On Metal or Ultra, with ten free trades a month, a single monthly purchase never leaves the allowance and costs nothing. And a recurring ETP purchase order is exempt from the €1.00 country minimum, so the fee-free route is the investment-plan one.

€13.75 a year is not the reason to leave Revolut, and this page should not have implied it was. The reasons are the ones further down: fund range, and reporting.

Now place the same €500 monthly into a dedicated broker offering free or near-free recurring purchases on core ETFs. The recurring buy costs little or nothing, the fund range is wider, and the year-end statement is built for your tax return. The convenience gap is real on day one — but it narrows every month as the habit becomes automatic, while the cost and reporting gap widens as the balance grows. That asymmetry is the whole argument.

How I’d use Revolut Investing

Here’s the honest version of what I’d do in a reader’s shoes. If I were just starting and already had money sitting in Revolut, I would absolutely use the investing tab to make my first purchases — that day, not after a week of broker research. Getting invested beats waiting for the perfect setup. I’d buy a broad, low-cost ETF in small amounts and let the habit form for a few months.

Then, once the balance reached a level where fees and fund range actually moved the needle — and the monthly buy felt automatic — I’d open a dedicated low-cost broker and route new contributions there. I’d treat Revolut as the on-ramp, not the destination. When you reach that point, Trade Republic is the kind of low-cost specialist I’d point a friend to as a graduation step. The European broker hub lays out the full field if you’d rather compare several before committing.

Pros and cons

Pros: genuinely frictionless if you already use Revolut; no separate account or funding step; free-trade allowances make small, occasional buys cheap; an excellent on-ramp for building the investing habit; everything lives alongside the money you already manage.

Cons: fees beyond the free allowance erode the value of frequent DCA; the UCITS ETF range is narrower, so your exact core fund may be missing; tax reporting is lighter than a specialist broker’s; the value is tightly coupled to which subscription tier you hold; it isn’t designed as a long-term portfolio platform.

Who it suits — and who should look elsewhere

Good for: beginners already in the Revolut ecosystem who want a frictionless way to start with small, occasional purchases, and who value getting invested today over squeezing out the lowest possible cost.

Less ideal for: serious long-term DCA ETF investors building a large portfolio — a dedicated low-cost broker usually wins on fund range, cost at scale, and tax reporting.

A reasonable approach: start in Revolut to build the habit, then graduate to a dedicated broker as your portfolio grows. There is no shame in using the easy tool to begin and the better tool to continue.

Key takeaways

• Revolut Investing’s biggest strength is convenience — investing from an app you already use removes the friction that stops most people from starting.
• Free-trade allowances vary by subscription tier; beyond them, per-trade or percentage fees apply and add up for frequent DCA.
• The UCITS ETF range is narrower than a dedicated broker’s, so your preferred accumulating core fund may not be listed — verify in-app.
• Tax reporting is lighter than a specialist broker’s, which matters more as your portfolio grows in size and complexity.
• The sensible path: start in Revolut to build the habit, then graduate to a dedicated low-cost broker once cost, fund range and reporting start to matter.

FAQ

Q: Can I buy VWCE on Revolut?
A: Revolut’s EEA offering is 2,000+ stocks and 230+ ETFs, which is a fraction of what a dedicated broker carries — Trade Republic lists more than 2,000 ETFs and Scalable Capital 2,700. Whether one specific accumulating all-world fund is on that list changes with the shelf, so check the ticker in the app before you commit a decade of contributions to it. If your strategy depends on a particular accumulating UCITS for tax reasons, treat its absence as a real constraint rather than an inconvenience: this is the strongest argument against Revolut as a long-term home, and it is a better one than the fees.

Q: What does Revolut charge to buy an ETF?
A: Nothing inside your plan’s monthly allowance (1 trade on Standard, 3 on Plus, 5 on Premium, 10 on Metal and Ultra). Beyond it, the greater of 0.25% of the order or €1.00, or 0.12% on Ultra and Trading Pro — so €1.25 on a €500 buy. Recurring ETP purchase orders are exempt from the €1.00 minimum. There is no custody fee and no FX fee inside the investment account.

Q: Does Revolut charge a custody fee on investments?
A: Not any more. Revolut Securities Europe UAB used to charge 0.12% a year (12 basis points) on the market value of client assets, billed monthly, and removed it on 13 February 2024 (Revolut’s own announcement). That charge was the strongest structural argument against holding ETFs at Revolut for the long term, and it is gone — which is worth knowing if you last read a review written before 2024.

Q: Is Revolut Investing good for ETFs?
A: It’s good for convenience and getting started — especially if your money already lives in Revolut. For a serious long-term ETF portfolio, a dedicated low-cost broker usually wins on fund range, cost at scale, and tax reporting.

Q: How much does Revolut Investing cost?
A: Free trades per rolling month by plan — Standard 1, Plus 3, Premium 5, Metal 10, Ultra 10 — then the greater of 0.25% of the order or €1.00 (0.12% on Ultra and Trading Pro). A €500 purchase beyond the allowance costs €1.25. There is no custody fee since 13 February 2024, and no currency-conversion fee inside the investment account. A monthly €500 buy therefore costs about €13.75 a year on Standard and nothing at all on Metal or Ultra.

Q: Does Revolut offer enough ETFs?
A: The UCITS range has historically been narrower than dedicated brokers, so your preferred core fund may not be available. Verify the current selection in-app before you commit a long-term strategy to it.

Q: Should I use Revolut or a dedicated broker?
A: For small, occasional purchases and habit-building, Revolut’s convenience is real. For large, regular, long-term investing, a dedicated broker (IBKR, Trade Republic) usually offers better value and features.

Q: Is my money safe with Revolut Investing?
A: Investment services in the EEA are provided by Revolut Securities Europe UAB (registration code 305799582, Vilnius), authorised by the Bank of Lithuania as a brokerage firm — a different entity from the bank that holds your current account. Money and instruments in the investment account are protected up to €22,000 under the Lithuanian liabilities-to-investors insurance scheme (Revolut investment services terms, IID). Note that this is the securities ceiling, and that it does not cover market losses; the €100,000 deposit guarantee people think of applies to bank deposits, not to a portfolio.

Q: Can I move my ETFs from Revolut to another broker?
A: Yes, and the terms are published rather than uncertain: outgoing in-specie transfers to a third-party platform cost USD 35 per position transferred. The genuine exception is fractional shares, which cannot be transferred and must be sold, with whatever tax consequence that carries in your country (Revolut investment services terms). If you have been buying in fixed euro amounts you will hold fractions of most positions, so plan for a partial sale rather than a clean move.

Q: Does the subscription tier really change the value?
A: Yes — free-trade allowances and features scale with your plan, so the same investing behaviour can cost very different amounts depending on whether you’re on Standard or a paid tier. If you already hold a paid tier for other perks, the investing value improves.

Q: How do I compare Revolut’s cost to a dedicated broker?
A: Model your real contribution pattern — amount, frequency and number of trades — in the EU broker fee comparator. Headline rates can mislead; what matters is the total cost of your actual behaviour over years.

Q: Is Revolut a good first investing app?
A: For many people, yes — the lack of friction gets them invested, which is the hardest step. Just treat it as an on-ramp and plan to reassess once your balance grows.

The bottom line

For 2026: Revolut Investing is genuinely useful for beginners already inside the Revolut ecosystem who want a frictionless way to start with small, occasional ETF purchases — the convenience gets people investing, which matters. But for a serious long-term DCA portfolio, a dedicated low-cost broker usually wins on UCITS range, cost at scale, and tax reporting. A sensible path: start in Revolut to build the habit, then graduate to a dedicated broker as your portfolio grows. Check the current fees and ETF range in-app, and run the numbers with the broker fee comparison tool. The European broker hub covers the dedicated alternatives, and the Lightyear review covers another app-first option.

If you are weighing it up, read how Lightyear compares.

Sources

• Revolut investment services terms (EEA) — the entity (Revolut Securities Europe UAB, Bank of Lithuania), the 1/3/5/10 free-trade quotas, the 0.25% / 0.12% commission and €1.00 minimum, the €22,000 protection, and the USD 35 outgoing transfer fee. Read 26 August 2026
• Revolut help centre, trading fees — the same commission and quotas in plain language
• Revolut, custody fees removed — dated 13 February 2024; the fee it replaced was 0.12% a year
• Revolut standard fees — where the currency-exchange cost actually sits: the current account, not the investment account
• Indėlių ir investicijų draudimas — the Lithuanian scheme behind the €22,000 investor protection

Revolut’s terms change — verify in-app before acting. Educational content, not financial advice.

For context: Is Revolut Safe for Investing? How Your ETFs Are Actually Held and Protected (20.

Kestutis Balciunas
European UCITS/ETF investor with 11+ years building a global dividend and index portfolio, and founder of Financial Expert Class. I write every guide here from first-hand experience investing across EU brokers and tax regimes — not theory. More about me →