Trade Republic changed how your orders get filled — here's what's new

Trade Republic just changed the machinery behind every order you place — the part most people never think about, right up until their fees or fills change. It rolled out a new way of executing trades on 2 July, plus two new pricing options and, for the first time, a proper web platform. But the change only makes sense once you know the rule that forced it. So start there.

The rule that triggered all this

For years, a lot of Europe's app-based brokers made money in a quiet way called payment for order flow, or PFOF. Here's the plain version: when you hit "buy", your broker had to send that order somewhere to be filled. Instead of shopping around, it routed your orders to one particular trading venue — and that venue paid the broker a small kickback for sending the business its way. You didn't see it, but it was a real chunk of how a "free" or near-free broker earned its keep. (For Trade Republic, reporting put it at roughly 30% of revenue.)

The EU decided that setup creates a conflict of interest — your broker has a reason to pick the venue that pays it, not necessarily the one that's best for you — and banned it. The ban comes from an EU rule (MiFIR Article 39a); the cut-off that actually bit was 30 June 2026, when Germany's temporary exemption ran out. From that point, brokers leaning on PFOF needed a new way to make money on trades.

That's the backdrop. Everything Trade Republic announced is its answer to it.

What Trade Republic actually changed

Three things, live since 2 July:

• Best Price — the new default. Instead of routing to one favoured venue, Trade Republic says it now pulls together an aggregated order book across all the relevant liquid exchanges and fills your order at the best available price, for any order size. The cost: a flat €1 settlement fee — but note the wording, "plus third-party costs and spreads", so €1 isn't literally the whole cost of a trade.
• Direct Price — a new optional order type for people who'd rather choose. You pick the exchange yourself from 30 global venues (XETRA, Euronext, Nasdaq and others) and pay €2 per trade, whatever the size.
• Web Terminal — Trade Republic's first browser-based platform. It had been app-only; now there's a desktop-style workspace with charting, screeners, portfolio analytics and live market data, aimed at more active investors.

There's a bigger structural piece underneath, worth stating carefully. Reporting notes that Trade Republic can now handle order flow itself — effectively standing in the middle of trades — under a trading-venue licence (an MTF, or multilateral trading facility) that its subsidiary received from Germany's regulator BaFin in January 2026. Worth knowing, but with a caveat: that "market maker" framing comes from press coverage, not from Trade Republic's own 2 July announcement, so treat it as context rather than a direct company claim.

So what does it mean for you?

If you mostly buy normal stocks and ETFs, the practical version is simple: your orders now get a best-price search across venues for a flat €1, and your recurring savings plans — according to justETF, though Trade Republic's own release doesn't restate it — stay free. For that kind of investing, a €1 best-price fill is a fair deal, as long as you remember the "plus spreads and third-party costs" footnote.

If you trade more actively, the Direct Price option and the Web Terminal are the parts aimed at you — control over where an order goes, and better tools than a phone screen.

Either way, this is a structural change to a broker millions of Europeans already use, not a limited-time offer — so it's worth understanding, not rushing. Would knowing how your "free" broker actually earned its money change how you feel about the switch to explicit €1 fees? That's the question this whole episode really puts on the table. This is a product observation, not a recommendation of Trade Republic or of trading — we don't do that here — and trading always carries the risk of loss. For the exact terms, read Trade Republic's own announcement, linked below.