Last updated: December 9, 2024
If you are ready to open your DEGIRO account, simply click on this link : DEGIRO account opening
If you use it, it allows the blog to earn a small commission and I thank you in advance!
I would also like to point out that investing involves a risk of loss (as a regular reader, you already know this, but DEGIRO requires me to note it if I want to talk about their service #regulation).
Finally, you’ll need to have these documents and information at hand:
- The IBAN of the bank account with which you want to fund your DEGIRO account (caution: 1/ you need both your accounts to be in the name of the same owner, and 2/ you cannot fund your account with Revolut or Wise, formerly TransferWise)
- Your passport or identity card (to check your identity)
- Your AHV number (to prove your tax residence)
- Have decided if you want to take a Basic account (your securities can be lent by DEGIRO) or Custody 1 (your securities are not lent - that’s what I chose)
- A Swiss telephone number to verify your account
- A cup of good coffee because some legal aspects are soporific…
Step 1: Opening your DEGIRO account
Once you click on my DEGIRO link to go to their site, you must follow the following steps:
Step 2: Enter your personal information
Step 3: Verify your identity
Step 4: Indicate your tax information
Step 5: Choice of your DEGIRO account type
Here it is important that you be careful because once you have chosen your account type, you can no longer change afterwards.
As I was discussing with some of you, I prefer to choose the “Custody” 1 account so that my securities are not lent. It involves some extra costs in addition to dividend distribution but as my strategy is to grow my shares (vs. a strategy where I would like to maximize dividends), it doesn’t cause me too many problems.
For your information, I have asked them about custodian banks of DEGIRO accounts and the two main ones are ABN Amro (Dutch bank) and Morgan Stanley (US bank).
Step 6: You’ll take some more legal blabla, won’t you?!
As usual, who says opening a trading account says a lot of legal stuff to accept.
Honestly, compared to other banks, DEGIRO has made a major effort to popularize and simplify it — especially in terms of length!
I leave it to you to read everything so that it will be your own decision in the end.
We start with the acceptance form of DEGIRO’s investment service:
And then we move on to the DEGIRO software license agreement:
Step 7: Signing contracts, digitally please!
Step 8: We did the biggest part, coffee break!
There you go, the opening of your DEGIRO account is done :) Well done, you’re on the right track to make your cash grow!
There is still one more step to activate it, but just take the time to make yourself a cup of coffee or tea.
Step 9: Fund your account
In order to activate your DEGIRO account, you must fund it with cash. Be careful because the identity of the holder of the funding account must be exactly the same as the one of the DEGIRO account you just created.
So we then go to my 100% free Swiss online banking Zak :)
To start I decided to send CHF 10 (sorry for the screenshot that shows CHF 50, I did it afterwards because I had forgotten about it and I entered the wrong amount…) :
Then, you have to wait one or two days before receiving these two emails from DEGIRO:
Step 10: W-8BEN form to avoid double taxation on your US securities
When you invest in U.S. securities, you must fill the W-8BEN form to request a reduction in the withholding tax rate applied by the U.S. tax authorities on any dividends you receive.
Once again, DEGIRO makes your life quite simple by automating everything:
Step 12: Test of adequacy on your knowledge of the financial instruments offered by DEGIRO
Step 13: Access to the dashboard of your DEGIRO investment account
Congratulations! You have completed the entire registration process. It was long but not so complex, I think.
You now have access to your account dashboard where you can also see your balance in the “Account” tab:
As a reminder, you can use my link (the blog will earn a commission but nothing will change on your side — I thank you for that!) to open your DEGIRO account.
In the next chapter, we will see how to buy your first ETF with extremely low commissions via DEGIRO.
The DEGIRO “Custody” account still exists for customers who chose it at the time.
Nowadays, DEGIRO no longer offers the Custody option to new customers in order to optimize their costs as much as possible.
This means that your assets (ETFs or other equities) can be lent out.
But that’s not so bad, because DEGIRO covers these share loans in the event of borrower default. The risk is therefore in the event that DEGIRO and the defaulter go bankrupt at the same time. I consider this risk to be minimal.
As proof, I myself use this système de prêt de titres avec Interactive Brokers (see my feedback after one year on this link).
And I use it deliberately, because IBKR offers the option of a “custody” account (i.e. no securities lending by default).
Nevertheless, I think it’s a shame that DEGIRO has stopped offering a “Custody” account. Even if I understand their strategy of wanting to optimize their fees as much as possible, knowing that they (compared with other banks) pass on most of these savings to their end customers in the form of a very competitive offer. ↩︎ ↩︎