Which stocks and shares ISA has the lowest fees in 2026? The answer depends almost entirely on your portfolio size — and whether you need a SIPP (pension) alongside your ISA. This page shows the verified annual platform cost for 11 UK investment platforms at four different portfolio sizes.
We verify every fee directly from the platform's charges page before publishing. Where we show a specific fee, we show the source URL and the date we checked it.
Annual platform fee comparison — passive ETF investor
Assumes: buy-and-hold, ETFs only, no trades after initial purchase. Platform fee only — does not include fund management charges (OCF/TER) or trading commission.
| Platform | £5,000 | £20,000 | £50,000 | £100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| InvestEngine ✓ | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Freetrade Basic ✓ | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Trading 212 ✓ | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Lightyear ✓ | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| XTB ✓ | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Dodl by AJ Bell ~ | £7.50 | £30.00 | £75.00 | £150.00 |
| AJ Bell ✓ | £12.50 | £42.00 ★ | £42.00 ★ | £42.00 ★ |
| Vanguard UK ✓ | £48.00 † | £48.00 † | £75.00 | £150.00 |
| Hargreaves Lansdown ✓ | £17.50 | £70.00 | £150.00 ★ | £150.00 ★ |
| interactive investor (Core) ✓ | £71.88 | £71.88 | £71.88 | £179.88 ‡ |
| Fidelity ✓ | £17.50 ¶ | £70.00 | £90.00 ★ | £90.00 ★ |
| Legend: ✓ = fee verified directly from platform website 28 Jun 2026 | ~ = fee NEEDS_VERIFICATION, check before relying | ★ = annual cap applies (AJ Bell: £42/yr; HL: £150/yr per account; Fidelity: £90/yr for ETFs/shares in ISA) | † = Vanguard charges flat £48/yr for portfolios under £32,000 (£4/month) | ‡ = ii auto-upgrades to Plus plan (£14.99/month) when portfolio exceeds £100,000 | ¶ = Fidelity £17.50 assumes regular savings plan active; without RSP, cost is £90/year at all portfolio sizes | All figures: annual platform fee only. Fund/ETF management charges (OCF) apply in addition on all platforms. | ||||
The zero-fee platforms — what's the difference?
Five platforms now charge no annual platform fee for ISA accounts. They differ on what you can invest in and whether they offer a SIPP.
InvestEngine
- ETFs only — no individual stocks
- ISA & SIPP available
- Auto-rebalancing available
- No individual shares
- No fractional shares on DIY
Freetrade Basic
- Stocks + ETFs + fractional shares
- ISA & SIPP on Basic plan
- 8,200+ securities
- 0.99% FX fee (non-GBP)
Trading 212
- Stocks + ETFs + fractional shares
- ISA available
- Widest investment universe (zero-fee)
- No SIPP
- 0.15% FX fee
Lightyear
- Stocks + ETFs
- ISA & Cash ISA available
- No SIPP
- 0.1% FX fee
XTB
- Stocks + ETFs (0% commission up to €100k/month)
- ISA & Cash ISA available
- 4% AER on uninvested cash (standard)
- No SIPP
- 0.5% FX fee
Which is cheapest — for your situation?
Cheapest: InvestEngine, Freetrade Basic, Trading 212, Lightyear, or XTB — all £0/year platform fee.
The choice between them comes down to what you want to invest in. If you want ETFs only and the simplest possible experience: InvestEngine. If you want individual stocks too: Trading 212 or Freetrade. If you make a lot of international trades: Lightyear has the lowest FX fee (0.1%) of the zero-fee group.
The fee difference between InvestEngine (£0) and Vanguard (£48–£150/year) is real and grows over time. On a £100,000 portfolio held for 20 years, £150/year in saved platform fees compounds to approximately £5,800 in extra returns (assuming 5% annual growth).
Cheapest: InvestEngine or Freetrade Basic — both offer ISA + SIPP at £0 platform fee.
Note: interactive investor's new Core plan (£5.99/month, from February 2026) now includes ISA + SIPP + Trading Account in one flat fee. For investors with both ISA and SIPP on ii, the £71.88/year covers both accounts — cheaper than paying separate fees on other platforms. At £100,000+ (II upgrades to Plus at £14.99/month), InvestEngine remains cheaper.
Cheapest paid platform: AJ Bell — capped at £42/year for shares/ETFs in ISA. (Zero-fee platforms InvestEngine, Trading 212, Freetrade, Lightyear, XTB all cost £0.)
At £50,000, the ranking for paid platforms is: AJ Bell (£42) → interactive investor Core (£71.88) → Vanguard (£75) → Fidelity (£90) → Hargreaves Lansdown (£150 per account cap). At £100,000, ii auto-upgrades to Plus (£179.88), so the ranking shifts: AJ Bell (£42) → Fidelity (£90) → Vanguard (£150) / HL (£150) → interactive investor Plus (£179.88).
Fidelity's £90/year ETF cap makes it significantly more competitive at large portfolio sizes than its headline 0.35% rate suggests. At £100,000, Fidelity (£90) is cheaper than interactive investor Plus (£179.88), Vanguard (£150), and HL (£150) — beaten only by AJ Bell's £42 among percentage-fee platforms.
For purely passive ETF investors with no need for individual stocks or research tools, InvestEngine remains cheapest at any portfolio size.
interactive investor — new pricing from February 2026
Interactive Investor replaced all previous plans on 1 February 2026. The old plans (Investor Essentials at £4.99/month, Investor at £11.99/month, Super Investor at £19.99/month) are discontinued. The new plans also changed what's included at the entry level — notably, the new Core plan includes a SIPP, which the old Investor Essentials plan did not.
| Plan | Monthly fee | Annual cost | Portfolio limit | SIPP included? | Trade cost (UK/US) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | £5.99 | £71.88 | Up to £100,000 | Yes ✓ | £3.99 |
| Plus | £14.99 | £179.88 | No limit | Yes ✓ | £3.99 |
| Premium | £39.99 | £479.88 | No limit | Yes ✓ | £2.99 |
| Source: ii.co.uk/our-charges — verified 28 June 2026. Accounts auto-upgrade to Plus plan when portfolio exceeds £100,000. | |||||
How we verify this data
Every fee on this page was checked directly from the platform's published charges page. We record the source URL and the date of verification. Our approach:
- We fetch fee data from the platform's own charges page — not from third-party aggregators
- We update the database whenever a fee changes by 0.10% or more, or by £2/month or more
- We mark data as VERIFIED (checked from live source) or NEEDS_VERIFICATION (not yet independently confirmed)
- We aim to re-verify all fees quarterly
InvestEngine (VERIFIED): investengine.com/charges — 0% platform fee, 0% ETF trades confirmed
Freetrade (VERIFIED): freetrade.io/charges — £0/month Basic confirmed, ISA + SIPP on Basic
Trading 212 (VERIFIED): trading212.com — 0% platform, 0.15% FX confirmed
Lightyear (VERIFIED): lightyear.com — 0% platform, 0% ETF trades, 0.1% FX
XTB (VERIFIED): xtb.com/en/account-and-fees — 0% platform, FCA FRN 522157 confirmed
Vanguard UK (VERIFIED): vanguard.co.uk/charges — £4/month under £32k, 0.15% above confirmed
Hargreaves Lansdown (VERIFIED): hl.co.uk/charges — 0.35% (cap £150/yr) confirmed. Note: other sites show 0.45% — this is incorrect as of Jun 2026.
interactive investor (VERIFIED): ii.co.uk/our-charges — Core £5.99/month confirmed, effective 1 Feb 2026
AJ Bell (VERIFIED): ajbell.co.uk/isa/stocks-shares-isa/charges — 0.25% shares/ETFs, capped at £3.50/month (£42/year) confirmed 28 Jun 2026
Dodl by AJ Bell (NEEDS_VERIFICATION): dodl.co.uk — 0.15% fee subject to independent re-verification
Fidelity (VERIFIED): fidelity.co.uk/services/charges-fees/ — 0.35% ETFs/shares in ISA capped at £7.50/month (£90/year) confirmed 28 Jun 2026. Note: without a regular savings plan and under £25k, Fidelity charges £7.50/month flat.