Etoro review for UK and Worldwide – Is Etoro Safe?

eToro is one of the biggest forex & CFD brokers in the UK and around the world.

It became famous thanks to its mobile trading App and unique trading platform which features a trading demo account, social trading and copy trading.

As well as forex trading, the broker eToro also offers crypto trading.

However, you may have some questions about the broker including how much is the eToro minimum deposit, the fees, how to open a demo account or is eToro safe? Read this review to find all your answers.

The broker eToro is a trustable and regulated trading platform that has attracted many traders from all over the world with its social trading features. However, what are the key features of eToro that you should know about?

Read our eToro review for the UK and the rest of the world to discover all the details about this broker.

*68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro Availability

eToro is an international broker and available to residents across Europe and the United Kingdom. It’s also available in the Middle East, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and a few other African countries.

In Asia, eToro is available in many countries except China, Japan and North Korea.

However, some Asian countries that use the broker eToro include Thailand, Singapore.

For North America, currently eToro is not available in Canada, but recently the broker has launched a special USA platform for traders in America who want to trade real crypto.

So if you’re a resident of the USA you can also use eToro.

Is eToro safe or scam?

The broker eToro is a safe, regulated broker, and they hold many regulation licences from the following authorities:

• ASIC regulation: number 491139
• CySEC regulation: number 109/10
• FCA regulation: for eToro UK number FRN 583263

Being an international broker, eToro has registered offices and subsidiaries in many countries including Cyprus, Israel, United Kingdom, Australia and the USA.

For instance, eToro (Europe) Ltd. is registered in Cyprus and eToro (UK) Ltd. has a registered office in London.

With so many regulation licences held by the company, you can be reassured that the broker is safe to use and licenced to operate.

So to answer your question: is eToro safe? The answer is YES!

It’s secure to trade with this trading platform because they are regulated. We have explained the importance of regulation on our online trading page.

Regulated brokers offer protection to users as they must follow certain rules put in place by the authorities. This means that no financial fraud or scams can take place.

eToro Key Features

Let’s see the features that make the broker eToro a popular choice for traders worldwide and in the UK. 

Here are a few that we’ll look at in more detail in this review:

• eToro Minimum Deposit: $200, but if you’re a resident of Australia or USA it’s $50
• Minimum Trade: $25
• Leverage: up to 1:30, and up to 1:400 for elective professional traders
• Copy Trading: Yes
• Social Trading: Yes
• Assets: 2000+ (CFDs, Forex, ETF’s, Cryptocurrencies, Indices, Stocks & Commodities)
• eToro App: Yes
• Demo Account: Yes

Click here to open your first eToro account.

Open a Free eToro Account

*68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro uses a self-developed platform which is very intuitive and easy to use for every type of trader. To keep the platform user-friendly, everything can be controlled via the control panel on the left-hand side.

The platform doesn’t need to be downloaded and can be accessed either through the mobile trading App or via the online WebTrader version.

For both versions the broker offers a free demo trading account plus a real trading account.

One great feature of the broker eToro is that they offer a lot of assets to trade and invest in. This is important if you’re looking to explore trading beyond forex and maybe invest in stocks or crypto.

To make it simple to find the asset you’re looking for, each asset can be found by searching in the Market/Search bar near the top of the platform page.

eToro Demo Account

The broker eToro offers its users the opportunity to start trading with a free forex trading demo account.

The account comes with $100.000 of virtual funds to play with and the minimum trade for every single position is $25.

For the UK, the account also comes with $100.000 of virtual funds and the UK minimum trade remains $25. This is because the eToro platform only operates in $, not in £.

As we’ve mentioned before on this website, starting with a demo account is a great opportunity. This is because it allows you to get used to the trading platform and feel confident in making your trades.

The ‘virtual portfolio’ doesn’t require any deposit and is free to use once you’ve signed up. You just need to register and sign up for an account.

In fact with a demo account, it’s possible to test all your strategies without any risk because you are trading virtual money. Plus thanks to the minimum trade of only $25, the number of possible tests are enough.

The eToro virtual account works exactly like a real account, so when you decide to switch from demo trading to real trading, you won’t find any difference.

To switch from the demo portfolio to the real portfolio, this can easily be done from the control panel on the platform page.

This is an opportunity that we recommend you use in order to test the platform without any trading risk.

eToro Social Trading

eToro is one of the few brokers providing a social trading platform.

However, what does social trading mean?

eToro was the first broker to launch social trading. To understand what it is, just think of it as a social network like Facebook.

Every trader has a personal profile plus the opportunity to share live their own trading thoughts, like Twitter or Facebook. Naturally, all the ideas and thoughts are trading related, and this can range from simple trading suggestions or more complex forex trading strategies.

It’s up to you if you want to follow them or not.

This has made the broker unique, because people can share their experiences and ideas on the network. It helps people discuss their trading thoughts and how to move forward.

This etoro feature can be seen even without making the first deposit.

eToro Copy Trading

More and more users decide to begin trading with eToro because of the opportunity to do copy trading. This particular trading feature is mentioned in many eToro review UK posts online.

(*Past performance is not an indication of future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 complete
years and may not suffice as basis for investment decision.)

But what is it?

To put it simply, copy trading gives users the opportunity to copy the trades of other traders with their CopyTrader tool.

On eToro, each user can choose whether to show their results publicly or not. This means that everybody in the network can see and review the results, including the percentage of positive trades and profits.

As well as that, it’s possible to copy these traders and their trades, but only after the first deposit has been made.

With a few mouse clicks, you can set up your account to automatically copy the trades of other eToro traders and monitor the results.

Many people have used this feature: beginners who don’t know how to trade can copy trades from the most expert traders. However, even if you’re an expert without a lot of time to trade, then you can copy automatically other professional traders to save on time.

To start using the eToro CopyTrader feature, from the control panel click on the button that says ‘Copy People‘. Here you can search for recommended traders and find the one that suits you the best.

eToro App

Like many online brokers, eToro has a very modern mobile trading App available to use.

The eToro App can be downloaded directly via your personal eToro account. Alternatively it can also be downloaded from the Apple or Google Play stores.

It’s available for both iOS and Android devices and smartphones.

In the App, the minimum deposit and minimum trade are exactly the same as the web version. All the features and prices are the same, which is why the deposit and withdrawal fees don’t change.

Trading with a mobile App today is very safe and can make a lot of difference. Not many people have time to spend sitting in front of a computer. Trading with a mobile device available allows you to trade from any place whenever you want- you just need an internet connection or data! 

Another bonus is that any changes made to  your account or portfolio on the App, will automatically be synced to your online account.

eToro Market Hours

On the eToro platform it’s possible to trade in various assets. These include: currency pairs, indexes, commodities, stocks and cryptocurrency.

We can divide these assets into 2 different groups:

1. cryptocurrencies
2. normal currencies, indexes, commodities, stocks, ETF’s

For the first group, the market hours are always open: 7 days a week for 24 hours.

Whereas for the second group, the eToro market hours are from Monday early morning till late Friday night at 23:59. This is because for the normal assets the market hours are related to the normal stock & shares markets. So will match the market trading hours of U.S.A. Europe, UK and Japan.

Because of this, the eToro market hours are the above mentioned time. The only time when it’s not possible to trade on the normal assets is during the weekend through till Monday morning, around 01:00 a.m.

When a CFD trade is opened, any nightly or rollover fees will be shown near the bottom of the ‘Open Trade‘ window that will pop up. Fees are always calculated on the asset type and the latest market conditions, which means that the fees can change daily.

The broker also offers leverage, but the amount varies based on your country of residence. Leverage, which can also be called ‘risk level’ is simply a loan that is given temporarily by a broker to a trader.

It allows you to open trades of a bigger size with a smaller amount of investment.

To put it simply it’s a multiplier that can affect both your trading profits and losses. It’s entirely up to you to decide if you want to use leverage or not when opening a trade and each CFD instrument has a various leverage limitations.

However, if you’re a resident of Europe, due to European legislation the highest leverage limit available is 1:30. 

How to Open an eToro Account

It’s simple and safe to open an eToro account, there are just a few easy steps to follow:

Click here to open your first eToro account.

Open a Free eToro Account

*68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

The first thing you need to do is provide your personal email address and contact info. You’ll also need to provide a password so you can log in to your account.

Once the personal info has been provided, should you wish to start trading, then funds must be transferred to your account. Each broker has a first deposit amount that states the amount of funds that need to be deposited. 

Funding your account is also a simple process and can be done either by credit card, debit card, PayPal, Skrill, WebMoney, wire/bank transfer or online banking.

Please note that the deposit method availability varies by country.

To deposit the funds to your account, click on the ‘Deposit Funds’ button on the control panel.

When the funds have been deposited, you can start trading with your account.

Note: to read more information about the minimum deposit and how to deposit funds to your trading account, please see the section called ‘eToro Deposit’ further down in this review.

Account Verification

Once the account has been deposited with the first funds, the last step is the account verification.

It’s important that each new account is verified by eToro to protect accounts against fraud and to keep the platform safe. The verification process is also required legally by regulating authorities.

To get the account verified you’ll need to provide 2 pieces of identification- a proof of identity (POI) and a proof of address (POA).

A proof of identity can be a passport or drivers licence for instance. A proof of address can be either a bank/credit card statement or an electric/water bill.

All documents can be securely uploaded straight from the platform, or via the eToro App.

When the documents have both been uploaded, the verification steps will start. It can take up to 1 week for the process to complete and an email alert will be sent when the verification process is complete.

If there are any problems with the identity documents, the eToro team will let you know by email.

Once the verification is complete, your account is safe and ready to use and you can start trading.

How to use eToro

If you are wondering how to use eToro, here you can learn how this trading platform works in this review.

The broker eToro has a web-based trading platform. It doesn’t require any installation on the laptop and it’s very easy to use. When your account set-up has been completed, with the first funds deposited, then trading can start.

The control panel on the left-hand side of the screen lets you manage your whole account. To make a trade and to see the market outlook, click on the button that says ‘Watchlist’ which is shown in the control panel.

The watchlist screen will give you an overview of the market plus market prices. Here it’s also possible to select the asset or instrument category that you want to trade.

You can choose from Currencies, Indexes, Stocks and Commodities.

Once you have found the right asset you can see that the relative bar is divided into different sections:

What sections are there?

• Market: this is the asset that you’re interested in- e.g. EUR/USD, Gold, Bitcoin
• Change: this shows the last trend of that asset. For example if the price has decreased or grown.
• Sell: the price you want to sell the asset at
• Buy: the price you want to buy the asset at
• Sentiment: this shows what the other traders’ opinions are about that market

Sell and buy an asset on eToro

To sell or buy an asset, you’ll have to open a trade. This can be done by clicking on the button that says ‘sell’ or ‘buy’ next to the asset. When you click on one of these buttons, the trading window will automatically open.

From the trading window it’s possible to set up your position. You can decide the amount of money you want to invest, the leverage and the prices of take profit and stop loss. When the amounts have been selected, click on the blue ‘Open Trade‘ button to finish the transaction.

An interesting point to note regarding the leverage is that the broker offers a flexible leverage. This means that for each position it’s possible to set up a different leverage.

It’s important to remember that the minimum trade amount is $25 or for the UK £25.

Assets Available on eToro

It’s possible to trade in more than 100 different assets between traditional currencies like EUR/USD, indexes, ETF, Stocks, and cryptocurrencies.

If a trader is looking for cryptocurrency trading, the minimum trade required is always the same: $25 

In 2017, the broker eToro has been one of the first brokers to introduce crypto trading to its platform. This has made eToro a leading broker for this type of trading.

Pending Orders

If you want to set up a pending order, you can click on the button that says ‘trade’ in the top right corner of the trading window.

From there select ‘order’. By doing this you can set up the price for when it enters the market. The minimum trade is also $25 for pending orders.

Finally by clicking on the blue ‘Open Trade’ button, the pending order will be ready.

You can monitor all the opened and pending positions in the Portfolio section of the control panel. From there you can manually close all the trades you want.

The trading guide above is valid for both real and demo accounts.

eToro Deposit

As mentioned in the ‘how to open an account’ section of this review, you need to deposit initial funds to your account so you can start trading. Funds can be deposited in the following ways (depending on your country location):

• Credit or debit card (MasterCard/Visa)
• Skrill or Neteller
• Giropay
• PayPal
• Online banking (local online banks included)
• Wire/Bank transfer

To make a deposit, make sure that you’re logged in to your account and click on the ‘deposit funds’ button. This can be found via the control panel.

You need to enter the amount you wish to deposit and select the currency you wish to use. Then finally select your deposit method, for instance credit card or PayPal.

When the first deposit is made, you may need to make other deposits in the future to keep your account topped up. Simply repeat the above steps to make another deposit.

The minimum deposit amount is $50.

If you’re a resident of Australia or the USA, it’s worth noting that the first deposit is $50. 

Note that after the first deposit is made, the deposit amount changes to $50. The $200 is just the amount required for the initial deposit.

In terms of speed, the fastest options for depositing funds are with credit card or with an electronic wallet like Skrill or Neteller. With these payment methods the funds will normally be showing in an account immediately.

Depositing by wire transfer on eToro usually takes from 2 to 4 working days before having the money accredited in an account.

The broker eToro does not charge any fees for making a deposit, but because the base currency of the platform is in $/USD, you may be charged a small conversion fee if depositing in another currency. 

eToro Base Currencies

The eToro platform only operates in $ / USD.

But don’t worry, if your local currency is not dollars, you don’t need to convert your funds to USD.

As we have seen on our eToro review, the company accepts a wide range of currencies that can be automatically converted by the broker.

For example, if you’re an eToro UK based trader, your local currency will be GBP. The broker will automatically convert your money from GBP to USD in order to start trading.

EToro Withdrawal

It is easy to make a withdrawal with the broker as explained in our review. You can withdraw your money anytime you want. Funds can be withdrawn using the same payment method that was used to make the deposit.

The minimum amount you can withdraw is $30, and for eToro UK the minimum withdrawal amount is also $30.

To proceed with the request go to the control panel and click on the button that says ‘Withdraw Funds‘, a withdraw funds window will pop-up.

Here you can select the amount of money you want to withdraw. Once the selection is made click on the blue ‘submit‘ button.

Withdrawal requests take up to 1 working day to be reviewed and processed. Depending on your payment method the funds will be received between 1 – 2 business days.

However, for credit card or wire transfer it can take from 3 to 5 working days before having the funds accredited.

For it to be processed, there are certain conditions that must be met for the eToro review:

• The minimum amount to withdraw is $30, the same amount applies for eToro UK
• There must be funds in the account available to withdraw
• Your account must be verified, if it isn’t then get it verified and upload the identification documents

eToro Withdrawal Fees

Withdrawals are subject to fees of $5. This is charged each time a withdrawal is requested. The broker has recently reduced the withdrawal fees from $25. As mentioned before on our eToro review, a withdrawal will be processed only after the company has accepted your documents.

The fee will be shown in the ‘cashier‘ section when you’ve entered the desired amount. 

eToro Contact Details

In case you need help or answers to some questions about the broker, the minimum deposit or the App, you can easily contact their customer service via live chat or the ticket centre.

You can find the live chat mode easily in your personal profile, which will guide you towards customer support. There is also the eToro help centre where you can find answers to the most common questions asked.

If you need further help it’s possible to create a ticket which will be sent to the support team.  

With the ticket you’ll usually receive a reply within 24 hours, but the most effective way to contact the broker is by the live chat service which is available 24/5.

On this page, you can find all the important information and contact details for UK and the rest of the world:  https://www.etoro.com/customer-service/

Customer support is offered in many languages:

• English
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Russian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Thai
• Chinese
• Swedish
• Norwegian

So if you need some help with your trading account, minimum deposit or withdrawal fees do not hesitate to contact their support service. It’s important to mention that contacting the support doesn’t cost money.

Conclusion eToro UK review

To sum up the eToro review UK, hopefully you now have the answer to ‘is eToro safe?’, and you can now feel secure to open an account with this regulated and trustworthy broker.

Thanks to its vast offer of products such as the social trading, copy trading and CopyTrader tool, the broker  is ideal for anyone looking to learn from others and share trading knowledge.

Now that you know about the eToro minimum deposit, minimum trade, fees and account, you can see if eToro fits your investing needs.

We were definitely impressed with the virtual account features, and the fact that it came with such a large amount of virtual funds. At $100,000 it’s one of the highest virtual fund amounts we have seen in the market.

Although eToro may be lacking a downloadable desktop platform format, the design of both the App and the online platform is simple and impressive, so the 2 formats are probably more than enough for any trader.

The fact that the eToro App gives you the opportunity to trade on the go and from any place is a big bonus- especially for anyone where time is limited.

Overall we were impressed with eToro and it stands out as being a market leader for social trading.

Here is an overview on how to choose the best forex broker for beginners and safe broker and their reviews, minimum deposits, trading account and App.

Here you can learn more about the App. 

Here our comparison between eToro and Trading 212

Here you can read our comparison between eToro vs IQ Option

Here you can read our comparison between eToro vs Plus500

eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs.

Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 complete years and may not suffice as basis for investment decision.

Copy trading is a portfolio management service, provided by eToro (Europe) Ltd., which is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cryptoasset investing is unregulated in some EU countries and the UK. No consumer protection. Your capital is at risk.

eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro.