IG: the widest market range in our Ireland comparison, from an EU-authorised entity? My 2026 review

Investment firms serving Ireland are supervised by the Central Bank of Ireland, and IG does not hold an authorisation from it. What it holds is a European one, in its own name rather than a correspondent's: IG Europe GmbH is a German investment firm based in Frankfurt am Main, licensed and supervised by BaFin, and because Ireland is an EU member state that authorisation reaches an Irish resident directly on the European passport, with the Central Bank of Ireland acting as national supervisor rather than licensing regulator. Around it sits a group regulated by the FCA in the United Kingdom, with further licences including ASIC in Australia and MAS in Singapore, and listed on the London Stock Exchange, a listing that brings audited accounts and published results. One point is worth reading before you fund: your onboarding paperwork names the entity you contract with, and that entity's rulebook governs your account. If an Irish-authorised counterparty matters more to you than anything on the fee sheet, AvaTrade is the broker in our Ireland ranking authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland in its own right. What the EU framework does give an Irish retail client is leverage capped at 1:30 under the ESMA rules, negative balance protection so a gap cannot take the account below zero, segregated client money and two-factor authentication. Trustpilot shows 3.8 out of 5 across 9,000+ reviews, with 56% five-star ratings, and the recurring complaint is support response times at peak.

IG runs two lanes and it pays to know which one you are in. On the investing side, cash stocks and ETFs trade at zero commission with a per-order minimum of $5 in Europe and $15 in the US, and the securities account applies no currency conversion at all. On the trading side the cost lives in the spread instead, from 0.6 pip on EUR/USD, 1 point on the FTSE 100 and Germany 40 and 0.05% on share derivatives. Deposits and withdrawals are free, and after two years without activity the account is closed rather than billed. Our Ireland comparison also lists 4.5% interest on uninvested balances.

Two of those numbers read differently from Ireland. The zero currency conversion is worth the most to a euro-based investor holding overseas shares and ETFs, where a broker charging 0.5% each way takes a slice of every leg: XTB, fifth in our Ireland comparison, charges 0.5% on any market priced outside your account's base currency. The per-order minimum cuts the other way: a $5 floor on a EUR 300 monthly ETF purchase is a fixed cost of well over 1% every month, so for small regular contributions XTB's 0% commission on real stocks and ETFs, with no per-order minimum below its $100,000 monthly threshold, is the direct comparison. For larger purchases held for years that minimum becomes negligible, and the absent conversion charge wins.

Then comes tax, which in Ireland splits along the same line as IG's own catalogue. Shares held directly on the securities account fall within capital gains tax at 33% above the annual personal exemption of EUR 1,270, which is per person and cannot be carried forward. Irish and other EU UCITS funds and ETFs sit outside that regime completely: exit tax at 41%, no exemption, and a deemed disposal every eight years that can create a bill while you still hold the units. So commission-free execution on 2,000+ ETFs and on 6,000 shares are not the same proposition from Dublin: the fund wrapper is taxed eight points harder, without the exemption, and on a clock you do not control. Dividends are separate again, income at your marginal rate with USC and PRSI as they apply to you. Keep IG's statements as evidence of acquisition dates. None of this is tax advice.

The catalogue comes in two halves. On the securities account you own the asset, around 6,000 stocks and more than 2,000 ETFs held physically; on the trading account sit more than 16,000 derivative markets, a wide forex book, vanilla and barrier options, roughly a hundred futures and around 33 cryptocurrencies as derivatives. AvaTrade is the only other broker in our Ireland ranking listing options at all, and none of the eight lists a futures range of this size.

Three parts of that read specifically from Ireland. The first is the European end of the offering, where a euro-based account has least friction: FTSE 100 and Germany 40 from 1 point on the derivatives side, euro-priced shares and ETFs on the securities side with no conversion charge. The second is the ETF sleeve: more than 2,000 funds carry no order commission, which is what our Ireland comparison means by no ETF fees, though the per-order minimum still applies on each purchase. Those are also the holdings that fall under the 41% exit tax regime, so they need purchase dates recorded from day one. The third is crypto, derivatives only with no wallet, while Revenue's CGT treatment of crypto held as an investment, 33% after the EUR 1,270 exemption with a swap between coins counting as a disposal, assumes you hold the coins. If owning them is the point, Bitpanda holds crypto in real custody under EU MiCA licences and sits sixth in our Ireland comparison.

For an Irish investor the case for IG is specific rather than general. Two things make the broadest offering in our Ireland comparison worth its learning curve here: the EU authorisation IG holds in its own name, through BaFin-licensed IG Europe GmbH on the European passport, and the securities account that charges no currency conversion, which together give you an internationally diversified portfolio, held physically, with no FX drag, under the EU retail rules of 1:30 leverage caps and negative balance protection. For the active trader the argument is stronger still, since the combination of options, futures and direct market access through L2 Dealer has no real equivalent among the other seven brokers here. The reservations are concrete. IG holds no Central Bank of Ireland authorisation, so you contract with an EU entity rather than an Irish-authorised firm; if that is the priority, AvaTrade holds the Irish licence and sits second. The $5 European and $15 US per-order minimums make small monthly contributions expensive, which is why XTB, at 0% commission on real stocks and ETFs with no per-order floor below its $100,000 monthly threshold, is the better first account for a portfolio built EUR 300 at a time, while Eightcap ranks first here as one of the lowest-cost brokers we track and Bitpanda is the address for crypto you actually hold. Leveraged trading carries a high risk of rapid capital loss whatever the licence behind it. Seventh of eight and rated 4.4, IG is not the account we would open first from Ireland; for an experienced investor who wants every market in one place, it is the one we would open second.