Best stock brokers & investing apps in Italy

• 11 stock brokers & investing apps with a verified licence serve residents of Italy: 1 holds a local licence (Banca d'Italia) and 10 serve under an EU passport.
• Top pick by Coinish Score: Interactive Brokers (71/100, Editor Rating 4.1/5).
• $0 commission on US stocks: XTB, Trading 212 and NAGA.
• No minimum deposit: Trade Republic and Fineco.

Ranked by Coinish Score: half the Editor Rating for the entity that serves residents of Italy, half Market Signal. Brokers without enough verified data for a rating are placed by Market Signal and labelled; brokers with neither are listed last. How we rate

Of the 11 stock brokers & investing apps on this list, 5 serve Italy from a CySEC licence in Cyprus (eToro, Trading 212, NAGA and 2 more), 2 serve Italy from a BaFin licence in Germany (Trade Republic and DEGIRO), 1 serves Italy from a CBI licence in Ireland (Interactive Brokers) and 1 serves Italy from a KNF licence in Poland (XTB); 2 more are licensed by Finantsinspektsioon and Banca d'Italia.

Currency conversion, which you pay on every US share bought from a non-dollar account, costs from 0.25% (DEGIRO) to 0.5% (XTB). Trade Republic charges €1 per order for stocks and ETFs and DEGIRO charges €2 per order for US stocks.

• Search the company name on the Banca d'Italia register (bancaditalia.it); for a firm licensed elsewhere, on its home regulator's register too (CySEC, BaFin and CBI for most of this list).
• Check which company your contract is with. Interactive Brokers, for example, onboards residents of Italy through Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited (CBI licence C423427), and the name on the account-opening documents should match the list.

Yes, with a licensed provider. Brokers need MiFID II authorisation from an EEA regulator; firms authorised elsewhere in the EEA may serve residents under the European passport.

Source: bafin.de

By Coinish Score, Interactive Brokers (71/100, Editor Rating 4.1/5), through Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited (CBI licence C423427). eToro (71) and XTB (69) follow. The score rates the company that would serve you in Italy, so the same brand can rank differently in another country.

Trade Republic and Fineco can act as your sostituto d'imposta under the regime amministrato, calculating and paying the tax on your gains for you.

With a broker that isn't an Italian withholding agent, you're in the regime dichiarativo. You report the gains in your own Redditi return, list the account in quadro RW and pay IVAFE on the holdings yourself.

Either way, holding the portfolio costs 0.2% of its value a year. An Italian intermediary charges it as stamp duty (imposta di bollo) on the statements it sends you. At a foreign broker you pay the same rate as IVAFE, which you calculate and pay yourself.

Sources: help.finecobank.com, assets.traderepublic.com, agenziaentrate.gov.it (1), agenziaentrate.gov.it (2), agenziaentrate.gov.it (3)

Yes. A firm authorised under MiFID II in one EEA country can serve residents of the others once its home regulator has notified them. 10 of the 11 on this list reach Italy that way, most from Cyprus (5), Germany (2) and Ireland (1).

The home regulator supervises the firm and its compensation scheme applies, while Banca d'Italia can still set conduct rules for clients in Italy.

Source: bafin.de

If a broker fails, the compensation scheme of the regulator that licenses it applies, not one chosen by where you live. For this list: Investor Compensation Fund (Cyprus): 90% of covered claims, up to €20,000 for clients of CySEC-licensed investment firms (5 on this list); Entschädigungseinrichtung der Wertpapierhandelsunternehmen (EdW): 90% of the claim, up to €20,000 per investor for clients of BaFin-licensed investment firms (2 on this list); Investor Compensation Company (ICCL): 90% of the loss, up to €20,000 per investor for clients of CBI-licensed investment firms (1 on this list); KDPW investor compensation scheme (Poland): 100% up to €3,000 and 90% above that, at most €20,100 per investor for clients of KNF-licensed investment firms (1 on this list). Compensation covers missing client money and assets after a firm's failure, never trading losses.

Sources: cysec.gov.cy, e-d-w.de, investorcompensation.ie, kdpw.pl

Trading gains count as financial income, taxed at a flat 26%. The rate went up from 20% in 2014. Interest on Italian government bonds (and bonds treated like them) keeps a reduced 12.5% rate. An account with a broker abroad also carries IVAFE, at 0.2% a year of the value of the financial products in it, and has to be reported in quadro RW of the Redditi return.

Coinish isn't a tax adviser: check your own situation with the tax authority or an accountant.

Sources: agenziaentrate.gov.it (1), agenziaentrate.gov.it (2), agenziaentrate.gov.it (3), agenziaentrate.gov.it (4)