Only on moneyland.ch: Compare Swiss stock brokers now. Quickly and easily open a free demo account with the best broker directly online. Compare Swiss stock brokers now
The data is updated regularly. Last updated: June 21, 2024.
Three simple steps: How to use the Swiss online trading comparison.
Learn moreSelect profile
Select an applicable trading profile and your country of residence. You can also create a custom profile based on your exact trading needs.
Compare brokers
Compare all relevant Swiss stock brokers (trading platforms) using the free and unbiased comparison. The comparison automatically finds the brokerage account with the lowest brokerage fees, custodial fees and account fees for your profile.
Open a demo account
In the third step, you can open a free demo account for the platform of your choice completely online.
Swiss Online Trading FAQs
The unbiased online trading comparison on moneyland.ch makes finding the right brokerage account easy. You can compare the costs and features of all relevant Swiss online trading platforms based on your specific trading needs. There is no one Swiss broker which offers the best conditions for all trading styles. However, you can find the best stock broker for the kind of trading you do.
The online trading comparison on moneyland.ch is the most comprehensive stock broker comparison in Switzerland.
Complex algorithms calculate the costs of each trading platform individually. Calculations account for these costs:
You can find the detailed breakdown of costs based on your trading profile on the results page. You can also filter online trading platforms based on multiple criteria including access to different stock exchanges and tradable asset classes.
In Switzerland – as opposed to many other countries – stock brokers are generally fully licensed Swiss banks. Some of these banks are universal banks which provide other banking services, while some of them only offer stock brokerage services.
The online trading comparison on moneyland.ch only includes online trading platforms from fully-licensed Swiss banks.
Price differences are surprisingly big. The most expensive trading platforms are many times more expensive than the most affordable trading platforms.
There are many different fees and charges which can affect the total costs of trading. The most important cost factors include: custodial fees; brokerage fees; government duties; stock exchange fees; account fees; and currency exchange costs.
You can find detailed information in the guide to online trading costs.
Brokerage fees are the fees charged by a broker to perform a trade on your behalf. You pay these every time you buy or sell shares in stocks, mutual funds or ETFs. You also pay these when you buy or sell bonds and other types of securities. Brokerage fees for buying (or otherwise opening an investment position) and selling (or otherwise closing a position) the same investment position are identical. Brokerage fees are typically the fee which has the biggest impact on trading costs.
The size of brokerage fees varies between trading platforms. In some cases, you pay a flat fee per trade, but in most cases brokerage fees are charged as a percentage of transactions. The higher the value of the securities being transacted, the higher the brokerage fee is. Depending on the broker you use, the size of the trade and the kind of security being traded, brokerage fees can be far in excess of 1000 francs.
The moneyland.ch online trading comparison automatically shows you how much you will pay in brokerage fees based on your trading profile.
Custodial fees (or safekeeping fees) are the next most important cost factor. You are typically charged custodial fees just for holding securities, whether or not you make any trades. Custodial fees are charged for the physical safe storage of paper security certificates as well as the administration of securities (such as collecting and passing on dividends). Today, most securities exist in book form only and custodial fees are charged for administration.
The online trading comparison on moneyland.ch automatically calculates custodial fees based on your anticipate securities holdings and includes the results in the total costs shown.
You can find more information in the guide to custodial fees in Switzerland.
Stock exchange fees are fees charged by stock exchanges. Some Swiss brokers do not pass stock exchange fees on to traders. Other brokers charge you stock exchange fees in addition to brokerage fees. However, stock exchange fees are typically very low compared to brokerage fees, so their impact on total costs is marginal.
You can find more information about exchange fees in this guide.
Online trading platforms which do not charge brokerage fees are not currently offered in Switzerland. Some brokers waive certain fees as part of temporary special promotions. For example, brokers may run special introductory offers which waive brokerage fees for new customers for the first few months, or waive custodial fees for the first year.
You can open free demo accounts which let you simulate trading using fictional money, but real trading costs money.
You can find more information about free online trading platforms here.
Some Swiss trading platforms offer free demo accounts which let you simulate trading using real market data. These demo accounts are beneficial because they let you test online trading platforms before opening a real brokerage account. You can easily test the user interface and functionality of trading platforms, and discover which securities and other investment vehicles are available without having to commit any real money.
There is no single stock broker which has the lowest costs for all types of traders. For example, one trader may be particularly affordable for ETF investments, while another may offer more favorable forex trading conditions. There are huge cost differences between brokers. Using a broker that is not a good match for the kind of trading you do can easily generate hundreds or even thousands of francs of unnecessary expenses.
A stamp duty is levied on every securities transaction which you make using a Swiss stock broker. The broker charges this tax automatically when you make the trade. The stamp duty for trades in Swiss securities is equal 0.075% of the value of the trade. The stamp duty for trades of foreign securities is twice as high, at 0.15%.
Custodial fees are subject to value added tax (VAT), which you are charged in addition to the fee.
Dividends earned on securities investments count towards your taxable income in Switzerland. Capital gains do not count as taxable income unless you are classified as a professional investor by your cantonal tax authority.
You can find more information in the guide to taxes on trading in Switzerland.
Foreign online brokers are often cheaper than Swiss banks – at least for certain kinds of trading. But it is important to choose brokers carefully. There are many illegitimate online trading platforms on the Internet, as well as legitimate brokers which offer very poor asset protection. Particular care is recommended with regards to choosing CFD trading platforms, forex trading platforms and cryptocurrency trading platforms. The legal jurisdiction which governs a broker is also very important. Regulations for stock brokers with regards to cash reserves, depositor protection and legal ownership of securities are much laxer in many legal jurisdictions than they are in Switzerland.
For these reasons, we only recommend using foreign online brokers if you are an experienced trader. If you only trade occasionally or primarily buy and hold securities, using the most affordable Swiss brokers is not hugely more expensive than using the most affordable foreign brokers available to residents of Switzerland.
The online trading comparison on moneyland.ch lets you compare brokers based on the costs of trading in these asset classes:
Many Swiss brokers offer additional asset classes and derivatives. You can use the practical filters in the online trading comparison to limit results to brokers which offer the trading services you need. These may include the following:
Swiss online trading platforms vary in terms of the functions they provide. You can filter platforms based on the services they provide in the online trading comparison.
Functions which may be included in trading platforms:
For the most accurate results, use the individual profile option to create a custom trading profile based on your exact needs. If you do not have the time for that, you can use one of the predefined default trading profiles. These are the predefined trading profiles which you can choose from:
You can find detailed breakdowns of each trading profile here.
Many traders make expensive mistakes when buying shares in stocks or funds. One of the most common mistakes is buying and selling shares to frequently. Another common mistake is choosing the wrong broker for the kind of trading you do, and subsequently spend more than necessary on fees. You can find the more information in the guide to common trading mistakes to watch out for.
Successful investors typically invest in a broadly-diversified portfolio and tend to buy and hold assets rather than trading frequently. They also use the broker which charges the lowest fees for their investments. You can find useful tips in the moneyland.ch guide to investing in stocks in Switzerland.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have become very popular since they were first launched. They are an affordable passive investment vehicle which let you diversify your risk across a broad portfolio with little capital required. The moneyland.ch online trading comparison automatically calculates and shows you the exact cost of buying and holding ETFs with each individual broker.
Many Swiss brokers charge identical brokerage fees for shares in ETFs and shares in company stocks. However, some brokers have introduced exceptionally-low flat brokerage fees for Swiss ETFs. You can find more information in the guide to investing in ETFs in Switzerland.
Which broker you use determines which stock exchanges you can trade on. If there are specific stock exchanges which you want to access, then you should use a broker which trades on those exchanges. You should also review the fees and charges for trading on different stock exchanges because some brokers charge higher fees for trades on some exchanges. You can easily filter Swiss brokers based on which stock exchanges they let you access by using the stock exchanges filters in the moneyland.ch online trading comparison.
The kinds of trading orders you can place vary between Swiss online trading platforms. Order-types which are offered by at least one Swiss trading platform include: market-order; limit-order; stop-order; stop-limit-order; trailing-stop-order; trailing-stop-limit-order; one-cancels-other-order; if-done-order; and more.
You can easily find trading platforms which offer the trading order types that you need by using the order types filters in the online trading comparison.
You can learn more in the guide to trading orders in Switzerland.
Some Swiss brokers let you open an account as a non-resident. Many brokers (but not all) charge additional non-resident fees if you live outside Switzerland. When you select your country of residence in the online trading comparison, results are automatically limited to brokerage accounts for which you are eligible.
Many Swiss brokers offer phone-based trading as a service. But most brokers charge you higher brokerage fees for orders placed on the telephone instead of via the online trading platform. When this is the case, you can save a lot of money by placing trade orders using the online trading platform instead of over the telephone.
A growing number of Swiss stock brokers now offer web-based trading platforms which are mobile-friendly. Additionally, many brokers now offer mobile trading apps for Android or iOS (iPhone, iPad). You can filter comparison results based on mobile trading services offered.
You can change stock brokers at any time. You can also hold accounts at more than one broker. However, if you want to transfer securities from one broker to another, the process can be very expensive. If you have a lot of securities titles in your existing custody account, it can in some cases make sense to sell the securities held by your old broker and simultaneously buy identical securities using your new broker.
Useful information: Some brokers will cover the securities transfer fees charged by your former broker when you migrate to them as a new customer.
You can find more information in the guide to securities transfer fees.
These stock brokers are included in the online trading comparison:
cash - banking by bank zweiplus, BKB-EasyTrading (BKB), Saxo Bank, Swissquote, Cornèrtrader, TradeDirect.
Additionally, online trading platforms from universal retail banks are also included in the comparison:
Aargauische Kantonalbank (AKB), Bank Cler, Berner Kantonalbank (BEKB), Credit Suisse (Direct Net), Credit Suisse Invest Compact, Migros Bank, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, St. Galler Kantonalbank (SGKB), UBS, VZ Depotbank, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB)
