As an investor living in France, you may be wondering what are the best stock brokers in France to manage your local and international stocks. What is the criteria to select one?
We will share in this blog our own experience and analysis with key information to help you choosing the best for you.
Table of Contents
How to select a stock broker app in France?
Fees
They could be painful in the long term (even if they seen low) and have a significant impact in your performance. Specially if you expect to trade frequently. Hence, it is important to look at it.
There are fees related to opening / closure of the account, min. trades per month, forex exchanges, trade commission (depending on the stock market, product type), etc.
There are brokers with no fees (or very low) like Degiro, Revolut. The counterpart is that they will either selling your data, or making trade with your own stocks. This introduce an additional small risk, but a risk to consider.
Investment options
Being able to invest through a PEA ‘Plan d’Epargne Actions’ is an important advantage to optimize your taxes. So you may want to check if the broker proposes this investment wrapper.
Some apps are limited to USA market (like Revolut), or product types (cryptos, commodities, etc). Interactive brokers and Degiro propose a large selection of options.
User experience
Specially if you are not an expert, you may want to select an app with a simple user interface.
Things like a simplified navigation, market news, companies information, automatic investment (ex.: you can plan to buy an specific stock regularly every 1st of the month), to follow other successful traders, and more.
Degiro, Trade republic and Revolut are good examples of this.
Customer Service
Just in case you need to contact them for an issue, or problem, you may want to secure this point that could be painful if not managed well.
Similar to low cost airlines, low cost brokers are cutting cost to the maximum. Therefore, their customer support may not be the best. They rely a lot on self service and digital content.
Reliability
You do not want your broker being broken 😉 So it is important to check if the broker is supported by a classic bank (regulated), its location (avoid Bahamas, Chipre, etc).
In France, you can check by yourself if an investment company has been certified by local authorities by clicking on this link (check the certification number from broker website). Finally, check who’s holding your stocks.
Tax return support
When declaring your taxes, having the IFU (Imprimé fiscale unique) available could be very useful. France-based brokers (like Boursobank) will normally provide this document early in the year.
If you do not have this document, you will need to calculate your ‘gains and lost’ and dividends manually.
What are the best stock broker apps in France?
We have selected the best brokers as per our analysis, considering the above criteria. Here are some of the best stock broker apps for investors living in France as per our opinion:
Broker comparative table
Broker 
Boursorama
Criteria Trade Republic Degiro Interactive brokers Revolut Boursobank
Fees (trading & general) Great Good Good Ok Ok
Investment options Great Ok Great Good Limited
User Experience Great Great Ok Great Good
Customer Service Good Great Ok Good Ok
Reliability Good Good Good Good Good
Tax IFU template Great Ok Ok Ok Great
General comments Super low fees, large availability of ETF’s, crypto, stocks. Super friendly interface with cool feature of automatic investment and fractional shares. Available cash earns interest. PEA available Super low fees. Not possible fractional shares and automatic investment. No IFU just annual report. Cool user interface. Low fees for regular trading. Complex User interface. No IFU, just report. The best platform for international trading. PEA available Growing offer for USA and Europe markets. Super friendly user interface (mainly mobile app). Hybrid model: Neobank + broker. Debit card, cash back, budget management, credits. PEA available. No crypto. No automatic investment. IFU provided. Backed by large french classic bank (Societe Generale)
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Some other good brokers: Scalable Capital, Bourse Direct, Trading 212, Fortuneo, Trading 212.
Final words
We hope that now you have a good idea on the criteria to select the right broker. Consider trying out a few different apps to see which one works best for you.
Another important point to consider will be about investment in multiple brokers accounts. We consider wise not to invest all our capital in a single platform. Read our blog How to buy stocks online to learn more about this subject.
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Bon chance!
Disclaimer
Please remember that we are not financial advisors. We are just sharing our best understanding based in our own experience. This blog is for educational purposes only. Do not make investment decisions solely based on what you read in this blog. What works for us, may not for you. Do your own research and look for professional service if required. Read our full disclaimer in the ‘about’ page.
Very nice and very helpful !!