Best European broker in 2026 - what actually changed?
I asked this a year ago and got a lot of useful takes. Figured it's worth revisiting, because things do shift.
Trade Republic was like a smooth option with great interface, but the support reputation was rough. AML holds that took weeks to resolve, silence when you needed answers. I kept hearing that's improved now. Is it?
IBKR was, and maybe still is the reliable choice, but the interface is genuinely painful. Finding simple things like Transactions requires navigating a system that seems built for someone who's been on a trading floor since the 90s.
And then there's everything else - DEGIRO, XTB, Scalable Capital, Lightyear - all of which have changed their fee structures, features, or reliability story at least once in the past year.
So what are you actually using in 2026? What got better, what got worse, and what happened the one time something actually went wrong?