Dealing charges for buying and selling investments

Every time you buy or sell an investment through a platform or broker, a dealing charge is added to the trade. A typical amount is approximately £10 per deal, though it varies considerably between providers¹. On top of that commission come the taxes and market costs the trade triggers: 0.5% stamp duty when you buy UK shares², a foreign exchange fee when you buy shares priced in another currency, and, inside funds, the transaction costs of the manager's own buying and selling, which sit outside the ongoing charges figure shown on factsheets³.

Dealing charges are charged per trade, not per year, so they matter most to people who trade often or in small amounts. A flat commission takes the same cash from a small trade as from a large one, so it takes a bigger share of the money invested on the smaller deal before the investment has moved at all. That is why the structure of the charge, flat or percentage, and the discounts for frequent or regular trading, often matter more than the headline figure.

This page explains what a trade costs, how flat and percentage charges are worked out, when regular investing is cheaper, and where dealing charges are dropped or waived. It sits alongside the guides to how investment platforms work and platform fees and charges, which cover the annual costs of holding investments rather than trading them.

What a trade costs: the charges added together

The price of a trade is rarely a single number. For a purchase of UK shares through an online platform, the components are the dealing commission, stamp duty and, if the shares are priced in another currency, an FX fee. The commission is set by the platform; stamp duty is a tax set by government; the FX fee is the platform's charge for converting your pounds into the currency the share trades in.

The independent guidance for investment companies puts the typical dealing commission at approximately £10 per deal, while stressing that it varies considerably¹. Around that typical figure sit the published tariffs of the major platforms: Hargreaves Lansdown charges £6.95 per online share trade if you made fewer than 20 trades in the previous month, and £3.95 if you made 20 or more⁷; Bestinvest charges £4.95 per online UK share trade⁹; AJ Bell charges £3.50 per deal for frequent traders who made 10 or more share deals in the previous month¹⁰.

Stamp duty is charged at 0.5% of the purchase amount when you buy shares in UK-based companies, including UK investment trusts, and is paid only when you buy, not when you sell². So a £100 purchase carries 50p of stamp duty¹¹. Shares in companies based outside the UK carry no UK stamp duty⁴. The full guide to stamp duty on shares covers the detail, including the difference between Stamp Duty on paper transfers and Stamp Duty Reserve Tax on electronic purchases.

The three charges that can be added to a single purchase of UK shares.

One point worth knowing for later: stockbroker fees paid when buying and selling, and stamp duty paid when buying, can be deducted when working out a capital gain for tax purposes¹³. The charges reduce what counts as profit, so they are not entirely lost money for a taxpayer outside an ISA.

Flat fees and percentage charges: how each is worked out

Dealing charges come in two shapes, and the shape matters as much as the size.

A flat fee is a fixed amount per trade regardless of the size of the trade. Hargreaves Lansdown's £6.95 online share dealing charge, falling to £3.95 for customers making 20 or more trades a month, is a flat fee⁷. Bestinvest's £4.95 per online UK share trade is another⁹. Flat fees take the same cash from every trade, so the share of the deal they consume falls as the trade grows: the same £6.95 is a much larger slice of a small purchase than of a large one.

A percentage charge is worked out as a proportion of the amount traded. Private wealth firms often work this way: Nedbank Private Wealth's tariff for execution-only investment services charges 0.50% per transaction, with a minimum of £50 and a maximum of £100, on purchases, sales and transfers of securities to third parties⁵. Quilter's platform charges £3.50 for trades valued at £10,000 or less outside a model portfolio, and 0.035% for trades valued at more than £10,000¹⁴. Percentage charges rise with the size of the trade, but a minimum can make small trades expensive, because the floor applies whatever the trade is worth.

Some firms blend the two. Quilter's structure is a flat fee up to £10,000 and a percentage above it¹⁴. Others tier their flat fee by trading frequency, as Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell do⁷. The independent view on platform charging is that the right structure depends on portfolio size: for portfolios worth around £50,000 or less, a percentage-based charge generally works out cheaper, while larger portfolios fare better with a flat fee¹⁷. That guidance is about platform custody fees, but the same arithmetic applies to dealing charges: frequent small traders are hit hardest by flat fees, occasional large traders by percentage fees with high minimums.

Percentage dealing charges: 0.50% with a £50 minimum and £100 maximum

The clearest published example of a percentage dealing tariff is Nedbank Private Wealth's, for execution-only dealing in personal accounts: 0.50% per transaction, with a minimum of £50 and a maximum of £100, applying to purchases, sales and transfers of securities to third parties⁵.

The minimum and maximum do a lot of work in a tariff like this. On smaller trades the £50 minimum is what applies, so the effective percentage rises as the trade shrinks. In the middle of the range, the charge is 0.50% of the trade. On the largest trades the £100 maximum caps the cost, so a very large trade pays the same £100 as a smaller one that has already reached the cap.

This is the structure to expect from traditional stockbrokers and private wealth firms, where dealing is often one line in a wider tariff of account charges. It contrasts with the online platforms, whose flat fees of roughly £3.50 to £6.95⁷ are cheaper for most trade sizes but carry no cap-linked service: the percentage tariff usually comes bundled with a named broker and, in wealth firms, advice or discretionary management on top. The comparison between execution-only, advisory and discretionary services explains those service levels and what each costs beyond dealing.

Fund dealing: from £3.99 per trade on a subscription plan

Dealing in traditional funds, the OEICs and unit trusts priced once a day, is charged differently from dealing in shares, and often more cheaply.

Interactive investor charges £3.99 per trade for funds on its Core plan, a subscription plan that includes one free trade per month in the tariff⁶. Freetrade's Core plan charges £3.99 to £9.99 per trade on shares and ETFs, with fund dealing commission at £3.99 per trade¹⁹. Hargreaves Lansdown's Fund and Share Account charges £1.95 per one-off online fund trade, against £6.95 for a share trade with fewer than 20 trades in the previous month²⁰. Transact, a adviser platform, charges up to £3.75 per single transaction in exchange-listed investments and up to £0.50 per regular transaction²¹.

The reason fund dealing is often cheaper, or free, is that fund trades are aggregated: orders are placed with the fund manager at the next dealing point rather than executed on an exchange, so the platform's cost per trade is lower. Independent guidance notes that fees for buying and selling traditional funds are less common on platforms than fees for trading shares, investment trusts and exchange-traded funds²².

That distinction matters when choosing what to hold. Investment trusts are listed on the stock market, so platforms treat them like shares: you will likely pay one-off fees when you buy and sell trusts, even if fund trading is free²³. Exchange-traded funds generally have cheaper ongoing charges than traditional funds, but they may incur extra trading fees from investment platforms, because they too are bought and sold like shares²⁴. The guides to investment funds, investment trusts and ETFs set out how each type works.

Regular investing charges are usually lower

Most platforms charge less for regular, scheduled purchases than for one-off trades, and some waive the dealing charge entirely for them. Transact's tariff shows the pattern in its purest form: up to £3.75 per single transaction in exchange-listed investments, against up to £0.50 per regular transaction²¹.

Regular investing, where a fixed monthly amount buys investments on a set day, suits the structure of fund dealing well: the platform can batch the orders. For someone building a portfolio gradually, the difference compounds. A one-off dealing charge takes the same cash from each small monthly purchase as from a large trade, so a large slice of every payment can go on dealing before it is invested; a low-cost regular dealing route takes a much smaller share of each payment.

The trade-off is control. Regular investing buys on the platform's schedule at the prevailing price, not at a moment you choose, and it is usually limited to funds rather than individual shares. The guide to how to set up monthly savings into an investment account covers the mechanics, and investing a lump sum vs investing monthly compares the two approaches.

FX fees on overseas shares

Buying shares priced in a currency other than pounds triggers a foreign exchange fee, charged as a percentage of the trade. Hargreaves Lansdown's overseas share dealing service charges 0.50% on trades of £10,000 to £25,000, with the percentage varying by trade size¹². Interactive investor's Premium plan charges £5.99 per trade on other international shares¹⁸.

An FX fee is charged on the currency conversion, so it applies whether you are buying or selling, unlike stamp duty. It also applies inside an ISA or pension holding overseas assets: the July 2026 removal of eToro's dealing commission and annual custody fee from its Stocks and Shares ISA left a 0.70% FX charge in place on non-GBP assets, an example of how a "free" trade can still carry a percentage cost²⁵.

For a portfolio holding US or European shares, the FX fee can end up costing more than the dealing commission, because it is charged on the whole value of every trade rather than as a flat amount. The guide to buying US and overseas shares covers what else changes, including the tax forms such as the W-8BEN for US shares.

Stamp duty on UK shares: 0.5% on buying

Stamp duty on shares is a tax on purchases, not sales. It is charged at 0.5% of the purchase amount when you buy shares in UK-based companies, including UK-based investment trusts, and is paid only when you buy². On a £100 purchase, that is 50p¹¹.

There are two regimes, and which one applies depends on how the shares change hands. Stamp Duty is paid on shares bought on a stock transfer form, the paper route used for certificated holdings; the deadline for paying it and getting the transfer documents to HMRC is no later than 30 days after they have been dated and signed²⁶. Stamp Duty Reserve Tax is the equivalent charged on the paperless purchase of shares, which is how electronic platform trades settle²⁶. Neither is to be confused with Stamp Duty Land Tax, which applies when property is bought or transferred²⁶.

Location matters on both sides. If you buy foreign shares, you do not have to pay UK Stamp Duty²⁷. If you buy shares in a UK company while you are abroad, you still have to pay it and get the transfer documents stamped²⁷. Investment companies based outside the UK escape it too: investors do not pay stamp duty when buying their shares²⁸. Aviva's share dealing service states stamp duty is usually charged at 0.5% when buying UK shares²⁹.

Stamp duty is not the only cost that survives the ISA boundary. A bed and ISA move, selling shares in a general account to buy them back inside an ISA, triggers platform dealing fees on both legs and stamp duty of 0.5% on the repurchase³².

Transaction costs sit outside the ongoing charges figure

When a fund manager buys and sells the assets inside a fund, those trades cost money, and those costs are passed to investors. But they do not appear in the ongoing charges figure (OCF) shown on fund factsheets.

The Association of Investment Companies states it plainly: the ongoing charge does not include transaction costs, which are the costs paid when a fund manager buys or sells assets³. The Key Information Document (KID) is where they surface: KID charges include transaction costs, gearing costs and performance fees where paid, none of which are included in the ongoing charge³. Aberdeen's MiFID II costs and charges disclosure for its trusts makes the same point from the provider side: the PRIIPS ongoing charges figure includes transaction costs, the buying and selling of assets within the portfolio, and other charges which are not included in the factsheet ongoing charges figure³³.

FCA rules define transaction costs as explicit costs or charges, other than one-off costs, incurred in the course of buying or selling the investments underlying a fund³⁴. The examples given are broker commissions, exchange fees and other payments to agents, intermediaries or trading venues; stamp duty and other taxes or levies; and legal expenses³⁵. The rules also set how the figure is produced: transaction costs must be calculated on an annualised basis, based on an average of those costs incurred over the previous 36 months³⁴. Where a fund has been operating for less than 36 months, the transaction costs must instead be estimated on a reasonable basis³⁵, so figures for new funds are estimates rather than averages.

The practical consequence is that two figures describe a fund's costs and they are not comparable. A fund with a low OCF can still rack up significant transaction costs if its manager trades heavily, and a fund that looks expensive on its OCF may trade rarely. The guides to fund charges and the ongoing charges figure and fund documents: KIDs, factsheets and prospectuses show where each number is published and how to read them together.

Where dealing charges are dropped or waived

Dealing charges are not universal. They are dropped or reduced in several situations worth knowing.

• Model portfolios and managed services. Quilter's charges for trades outside a model portfolio, £3.50 for trades valued at £10,000 or less and 0.035% above that¹⁴, imply that trades inside a model portfolio are charged differently, and the same tiered structure appears in its exchange-traded instruments service¹⁵.
• Frequent trader discounts. Hargreaves Lansdown drops its online share dealing charge from £6.95 to £3.95 for customers making 20 or more trades in the previous month⁷; AJ Bell drops to £3.50 per deal for those making 10 or more share deals in the previous month¹⁰; its Junior ISA applies the same £3.50 frequent dealing charge at the 10-deal threshold³⁶.
• Regular investing. As above, scheduled purchases are charged at a lower rate than one-off trades, Transact's up to £0.50 per regular transaction against up to £3.75 per single transaction being the clearest published example²¹.
• Promotional waivers. Hargreaves Lansdown waived the dealing charge for buying a venture capital trust until 31 August 2026, with a £29 charge still applying to sales³⁷. Bestinvest has offered cashback on transfers³⁸. These are time-limited and change, so check the current tariff rather than an old one.
• Free share awards through work. Under a Share Incentive Plan, you do not pay Income Tax or National Insurance contributions on the value of free or matching shares awarded to you³⁹, and where shares are subject to forfeiture there is no charge to Income Tax when they become forfeit⁴⁰. These are tax rules rather than dealing charge rules, but they mean shares acquired this way arrive without the purchase costs a platform trade would carry.

Where to check a charge and get help

Every platform publishes a tariff of charges, usually under "charges", "fees" or "costs" on its website, and the dealing charges are the first table in it. The figures on this page are drawn from those published tariffs and from independent guidance, but tariffs change, so the version on the provider's own site is the one that governs your account.

When you place a trade, the confirmation you receive, the contract note, itemises what you were charged: commission, stamp duty and any FX fee. Keeping contract notes matters at tax time, because stockbroker fees paid when buying and selling, and stamp duty paid when buying, can be deducted when working out a capital gain¹³. The guide to consolidated tax certificates, statements and other investment documents explains what to keep and for how long.

For help with charges, the order to try is: the platform's own support team, for what a charge was and why it was applied; the Financial Ombudsman Service, if you have complained to the firm and are not satisfied with its response; and free, impartial guidance from MoneyHelper on what the charges mean for your situation. For the wider picture of what platforms charge to hold investments as well as trade them, see investment platform fees and charges, and for the question of whether a zero commission is really free, is commission-free trading really free?.