Trade Republic's card pays you in shares, not cash

Trade Republic is a German investment app that gives you a Visa debit card, and the card’s headline benefit is 1% back on your spending. The difference from every other card in Ireland is where that 1% goes: not into your balance, but into a savings plan, buying whatever share, ETF or crypto you picked. Trade Republic calls it Saveback.

That single design choice decides who should hold this card. If you already invest monthly, it pays you for spending you were doing anyway. If you want cashback you can spend, this is the wrong card, because the money arrives as an investment that can fall in value.

What it costs

• €0 a month. No subscription fee on the card or the account.
• The card itself: virtual card free, Classic card €5 once, Mirror card (mirror-glass finish) €50 once. Trade Republic charges the one-off fee again when you renew or replace a physical card.
• ATM withdrawals: free worldwide from €100, €1 below €100. No monthly allowance and no cap on the number. The machine’s own operator can still add a fee, which Trade Republic does not control.
• Non-euro spending: no Trade Republic fee. You get the Visa exchange rate with nothing added. Their own advice, which is worth following on any card, is to always choose to pay in the local currency when a terminal offers you euro.
• The Irish 12c ATM stamp duty applies, capped at €5 a year, because Revenue’s rules catch foreign-issued cards held by people living in the State. Trade Republic does not say whether it collects it.

On fees abroad that puts it level with N26 and Monzo at 0%, and ahead of both on cash, where N26 gives two free euro withdrawals a month and Monzo €300 per 30 days.

The catch: you cannot pay bills from it

This is not a current account, and the distinction is not a technicality. Trade Republic’s Irish customer agreement says the IBAN attached to your account exists so you can pay money in, and that it is expressly not an IBAN you can initiate payment transactions from. So there are no direct debits, no standing orders and no bill payments out of it. Money you pay in has to come from an account in your own name.

Practically, that means the card sits alongside a bank account rather than replacing one. Your ESB bill, mortgage and gym direct debit stay where they are. Compare that with Revolut or bunq, which give Irish IBANs that work as normal payment accounts.

How Saveback actually works

The mechanics matter more than the 1%:

• 1% of eligible card spending, on up to €1,500 a month. The claim is capped at €15 a month.
• You must invest at least €50 a month in savings plans to keep earning it, and set that up in the month you activate. Miss it and you lose the Saveback for that month.
• Paid on the 2nd of the following month, into the investment you chose.
• Plenty of spending does not count: ATM and manual cash withdrawals, transfers and peer-to-peer payments, staged wallets, anything with a financial institution, quasi-cash, wire transfers and money orders, buying securities or crypto, and gambling.
• Paying from a crypto balance earns 2% instead of 1%, but Trade Republic treats that as selling the crypto, which has tax consequences and can crystallise a loss.

So the realistic ceiling is €15 a month, or €180 a year, in exchange for committing €600 a year to investments. If you were going to invest that anyway, it is free money. If you would not, you are being paid to take investment risk.

Interest on the cash

Trade Republic advertises 3.04% AER on cash balances up to €50,000 for new customers, activated in the app, accrued daily and paid monthly, with terms and conditions attached and no lock-up. It does not publish a rate for existing customers, and says rates can change, so treat the headline as an opening offer rather than a standing rate.

Tax is your job here. Trade Republic states that no tax is withheld for international customers, so Irish holders have to declare the interest to Revenue themselves. DIRT is not deducted at source the way an Irish bank deducts it.

Is your money protected

Trade Republic Bank GmbH is a German bank supervised by BaFin. Customer cash is not held on its own balance sheet: it sits in omnibus trust accounts at partner banks, currently Citibank Europe plc, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Continental Europe, J.P. Morgan SE, Natixis CIB and SEB AB, and is covered by the deposit guarantee scheme of whichever partner bank holds it, up to €100,000 per customer. That is not the Irish scheme, and which country’s scheme covers you depends on where your money was placed.

Investments are different again. Shares and ETFs in your custody account are your property rather than a deposit, so no guarantee scheme applies to them, and their value can fall.

Who it suits

• You already invest a fixed amount every month, so the €50 condition costs you nothing and the Saveback is genuinely additional.
• You travel and want no FX fee plus unrestricted ATM access above €100.
• You are happy holding it as a second card behind a bank or Revolut account.

It is a poor fit if you want cashback in cash, if you need one account that pays your bills, or if you would not otherwise invest.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Trade Republic card available in Ireland?

Yes. Irish residents can open an account and order the card: virtual free, Classic €5 once, Mirror €50 once, with no monthly fee. To open one you need to be 18 or over, permanently resident in Ireland and tax liable here, with a European mobile number, a SEPA bank account and an iOS or Android phone.

Is the Trade Republic card a credit card?

No. It is a Visa debit card, and it spends the cash balance in your Trade Republic account, or a crypto balance if you have activated that. Trade Republic does not offer a credit card, an overdraft or a tolerated overdraft in Ireland.

What does Trade Republic charge for using the card abroad?

Nothing of its own on card payments. You get the Visa exchange rate with no conversion fee added, which is the same position as N26. Cash is charged separately: €1 for a withdrawal under €100, free from €100, anywhere in the world.

Can I get my salary paid into Trade Republic?

No. The IBAN you are given is for paying money in from an account in your own name, and Trade Republic’s Irish customer agreement rules out using it to initiate payments, which is what a salary mandate and a direct debit both need.

Is the 1% Saveback real cashback?

Not in the usual sense. It is 1% of eligible spending, up to €1,500 a month and capped at €15, paid as an investment into a savings plan rather than as cash, and only while you invest at least €50 a month yourself. The value of what it buys can go down.

What IBAN does Trade Republic give Irish customers?

One tied to the internal clearing account Trade Republic runs for you, and it takes deposits only. Trade Republic does not publish the country code on its Irish pages, so we are not going to guess at it, but the country matters less than the restriction: it is not a payment account, whatever it starts with. For an app account with an Irish IBAN that behaves like a normal one, that is Revolut, bunq or Monzo.