Trading 212 tips that every investor needs to know
Financial Interest was founded by Damien Talks Money (384,000 YouTube subscribers) to teach the personal finance lessons he wished he'd been taught at school.
Last updated 25th February 2026
10 min read
Trading 212 is one of the most popular platforms for everyday investors – and for good reason. But like any clever bit of kit, it’s full of tools and features that often go unnoticed.
Whether you’re just getting started or already deep into your portfolio-tinkering era, these 22 tips will help you get more out of Trading 212, and maybe spot a few tricks you didn’t know it had.
Financial Interest provides guidance, not advice. If you’re unsure about anything, speak with a qualified adviser. When investing, your capital is always at risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Getting started
If you've signed up to Trading 212 within the last 10 days and haven't used a promotion already, you can get free fractional shares worth up to £100 using our link or by entering the promo code 'FIN'.
They'll be credited to your account within three working days, as long as you've deposited at least £1* into one of Trading 212's investment accounts. Full details here.
*Capital at risk when investing, terms apply. We may earn a commission.
2. Use the demo account
This is maybe our favourite feature of all.
Once you're logged in and signed up, you'll be able to access Trading 212's demo account – basically a practice account that lets you do everything you would do with real money. Just head to the menu bar, and at the bottom you'll see the option to "Switch to practice".
Once you're switched, you get a virtual balance of £50,000 to practice trading and investing.
It's a really great way to get comfortable with investing before you put your own funds on the line. Or, just roleplay being the Wolf of Wall Street.
3. Customise your homepage
On the mobile app, from the homepage you can click on the pencil icon to set a watchlist, and choose whether you want to see top winners, losers, new stocks and funds, and plenty more options.
If you're on desktop, you can do this by clicking the little arrow under the home icon to switch to advanced view.
4. Create custom watch lists
Use the plus icon at the top of your homepage to create watch lists for stocks or funds you're interested in.
This makes it really easy to monitor the ongoing performance of potential investments.
5. Explore the "learn" feature
Trading 212 has some great guides on all sorts of subjects for beginners, pros, and everyone in between. They're also written in a user-friendly way, so you won't need a finance degree to take advantage of them.
Just click the menu section on the bottom left, and click "learn".
Maximising your investments
6. Earn interest on uninvested cash
Separate to Trading 212's cash ISA, you can also earn interest on money you've added to your Invest or Stocks ISA account that you're not sure what to do with yet. This doesn't happen automatically though, so you'll have to opt in to activate it.
Head to the menu, click "interest on cash", and follow the instructions.
The interest rate is 4.05% at the time of writing – not bad for cash that would be doing little else.
This does come with a catch, though. Your money will be invested in Qualifying Money Market Funds, which aren't covered by FSCS protection.
7. Build custom investment pies
The pie feature definitely makes investing that bit more interesting.
You can think of them as customisable investment containers, each allowing you to hold up to 50 different stocks and ETFs.
When you invest new money, it gets automatically distributed according to your chosen percentages. Plus, you get to admire the colourful slices.
Just click on the pie icon, and head to "quick start with a pie". Then, you can either make your own, choose one picked by professionals, or see other users' pies and copy theirs.
If you're not sure what's right for you, we've gone into lots more detail in this guide.
8. Use auto-invest for regular investing
Once you've created your pie, you can set it to auto-invest your spare cash on a specific date each month. Great for a hands-off approach, while making sure you stay consistent.
Of course, for this to work without being charged for your deposits, you'll also need to set up a standing order from your bank that arrives prior to the date of your auto-investment.
We’re legally required to say: pies and autoinvest is an execution-only service, following your own investment decisions. You probably don’t know what that means – trust us, we get it. To simplify, it means Trading 212 is not responsible for the performance of your pies/investment portfolio.
9. Import and export investments in pies
Another cool feature is the ability to import your existing investments into a pie.
That said, it can take first-timers some clicking around to figure out how to do this.
Once you've created your pie, all you need to do is click the three dots on the top right. Then, you'll be given the option to either import an investment and set the allocation you want, or to export them back into your main account.
10. Check your portfolio balance score
Trading 212 will tell you if it thinks your pie is "balanced" or not. This reflects how closely your current pie's holdings are to its target allocations.
Let's say you decided you wanted 80% of your money to go into a global index fund, 10% into an S&P 500 fund, and 10% into gold. If the American market surged in price, you would have a bigger than 10% allocation towards the S&P 500.
If you want your pie to rebalance, all you need to do is click the "rebalance" option.
Once you do that, overweight shares will automatically be sold, and underweight shares will automatically be bought.
However, this can sometimes be needlessly complicated as it will trigger trades you might not want to deal with (especially if you're investing outside of an ISA).
Instead, you could just add more cash to your pie and let the platform use that new money to nudge everything back toward your target allocations.
Understanding your investments
11. Explore investment details
Scroll down in the instrument details of a stock or fund to see a concise summary of your investment, including overall returns and price comparisons.
12. Break down your gains and losses
Under your returns figures, find a detailed breakdown of gains, losses, and FX fee impacts.
This is particularly useful for beginners, and for seeing how shifts in currency have affected the profit on your investment – if you've bought shares in a foreign currency.
13. Get to grips with the stats
If you're thinking of investing in a company or fund, you're going to want to do your homework. Luckily, Trading 212 has plenty of tools to help you do just that.
Once you've clicked on to an instrument, under the "stats" section, you'll see details like dividend yield, price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, and market cap.
You can also explore the "financials" feature to see an asset's income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow.
14. Check price volatility
Under an instrument's details, you'll also notice some details about how the price has moved – both today and throughout the past year, which can be a useful way to gauge momentum and volatility. You can figure out whether a stock or fund is trading near its recent highs, lows, or somewhere in between.
Advanced features
15. Use different account types
You can take advantage of the different account types offered by Trading 212 by clicking your account balance in the top corner of your screen. You can move funds between accounts by using the "Manage funds" option in the menu.
Before you get carried away, though, make sure you know the difference. Only saving or trading in an ISA will make sure you're not liable for tax on capital gains and dividends up to your tax-free allowance, whereas trading in Trading 212's "Invest" account means your investments sit outside that protective tax wrapper.
Be even more cautious when it comes to CFD trading. Those aren’t investments in the traditional sense – you’re speculating on price movements using borrowed money. That means your gains (and losses) can be magnified, and you’ll still owe tax on any profits, with no ISA-style protection to soften the blow. In fact, 78% of retail investors lose money when trading CFD's through the 212 platform.
16. Take advantage of flexible ISAs
Trading 212's ISAs are flexible, allowing withdrawals and replacements within the same financial year without affecting your annual limit.
In contrast, with many brokers, withdrawals or transfers will not replenish your annual limit – effectively reducing what you can contribute.
17. Set price alerts
You can easily create alerts for price increases or drops on stocks and funds, using default options or custom values.
If you scroll down when viewing your investment, you'll see an automatic alert set to notify you when the price swings by 10%. You can change this by clicking on the alert and adjusting the percentage price move you'd like to be notified for, as well as the time period during which the alert should trigger.
This can be useful if you like to "buy the dip", or if you have a target price in mind before buying or selling.
18. Use advanced charting tools
Access TradingView charts by tapping the expand icon on the bottom right of a chart for detailed technical analysis.
This might be too complex for some, but if you've a head for figures, it's a good way to get stuck in – it's rare for detailed charts like this to be available within a broker's mobile app.
Staying informed
You can always find Trading 212's social features under the "people" icon.
Then you're able to tailor the platform's social media feature to your interests.
Join communities and follow specific individuals, companies or topics for relevant updates.
20. Use economic calendar
You'll find this feature in the menu bar.
You can use it to keep track of potentially (albeit sometimes quite niche) market-impacting events.
21. Use advanced filters for asset discovery
Trading 212 makes it easy to narrow down the exact type of investment you're looking for with their range of filters – and filters within filters. This makes it a lot easier if you're looking to invest in bonds, for example, but you know you're only interested in government bonds.
Additional features
22. Access 24/7 live chat support
Find the live chat option under "Contact us" in the menu for round-the-clock assistance with account-related issues.
Just be aware that live chat doesn't always get everything right. If you don't get a good answer to your question or you don't think what you've been told is quite right, you can always submit a request for help.
23. Get a Trading 212 debit card
Trading 212 also offer the option of a physical debit card (£4.95 one-time fee) or the free virtual debit card option, which can be added to Apple Pay or your Google Wallet. This is available to use with an Invest account, taking money from your pool of uninvested cash.
The Trading 212 card offers up to £15 cashback every month, no FX fees, and works with 13 major currencies.
Card distributed by Trading 212, issued and provided by Paynetics (UK). Available with an Invest account.
You can apply for the card inside the Trading 212 "Invest" account.
Bottom line
Trading 212 has come a long way from being just another investing app. Used well, it can handle everything from your first £10 to a full-blown portfolio. From getting interest on your uninvested cash to making your own custom pies, these tips should help you get a little more out of it along the way.
Financial Interest provides guidance, not advice. If you’re unsure about anything, speak with a qualified adviser. When investing, your capital is always at risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
