All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Capital is at risk.
Easy, low-cost account with the UK's biggest investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown
UK’s largest investment manager with huge range of investments
Invest in funds, global shares, bonds, ETFs and more
Detailed online resources and Bristol-based helpdesk available
Open an account in minutes with your debit card and NI number
Hargreaves Lansdown is a leading “investment supermarket” for private investors. It is trusted with £82 billion worth of investment by 983,000 clients. Hargreaves Lansdown has been listed as one of our best trading apps of 2020.
The Fund & Share Account is a low cost, flexible investment account that allows you to deal, manage and hold a wide range of investments. It is aimed at those comfortable making their own investment decisions, without financial advice. There’s also a self invested personal pension (SIPP), junior SIPP and several different ISAs available.
Read on to find out more about Hargreaves Lansdown, and whether it might be the right investment solution for you.
How does Hargreaves Lansdown work?
To start investing with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll need to open an account. The right account for you will depend on your goals. You might be saving for the future, for a pension pot or for your child. Hargreaves Lansdown can help you narrow things down and find the right account, allowing you to compare accounts and tick things which apply to you. To open an account with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll need:
Your National Insurance number
Your debit card details
Your bank details to set up monthly payments
What products does Hargreaves Lansdown offer?
Hargreaves Lansdown offers 7 products:
Stocks and shares ISA
Junior ISA
Lifetime ISA
Self-invested personal pension
Junior SIPP
Share dealing account
Active savings
What can you invest in with Hargreaves Lansdown?
Popular with many investors, funds offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio. From as little as £100, start investing today.
Choose from over 2,500 unit trusts and OEICs from leading fund managers including Invesco Perpetual, Artemis and Jupiter
Market beating savings and discounts
No charge for buying and selling funds
Free analysis and updates from the HL research team
HL’s Shares services are low cost and comprehensive. UK, US, Canada and European shares are all covered.
Free limit orders and stop losses
Tips and reports emailed for free
No charge for buying and selling funds
No inactivity charge or annual management cost
Investment trusts are similar to funds as they offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio.
Choose from over 400 investment trusts and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
Free limit orders and stop losses
With an ETF, you can track a range of stock market indices and commodities effectively and cheaply. ETFs are traded like shares as they are listed investments.
Free limit orders and stop losses
Choose from over 1,300 exchange traded products
No annual management cost
HL also offer a bond dealing service, giving you access to a wide range of gilts and corporate bonds.
Choose from over 700 gilts and corporate bonds
No annual management cost
View data for hundreds of bonds, gilts and PIBS
It is possible to open your account with cash, and pick your investments later.
Hargreaves Lansdown individual savings accounts
As with all ISAs, you get an annual allowance. This is the amount of money you can invest in the tax-year, of which all of your profits are tax-free. Once you’ve used up your ISA allowance for the year, you can continue investing with a general investment account. Different types of ISA have different allowances, which we detail below.
Stocks and shares ISA
Your annual allowance for a stocks and shares ISA is £20,000 in both the 2019/2020 tax year and the 2020/2021 tax year.
With Hargreaves Lansdown’s stocks and shares ISA you can choose to either create a DIY portfolio or use a ready-made portfolio based on your goals and attitude to risk.
Benefits of a DIY portfolio include:
You decide which shares to buy and sell
Hargreaves Lansdown’s research helps you make decisions
Start with £100 or £25 per month
Benefits of ready-made portfolios include:
Have a portfolio based on your risk appetite
Hargreaves Lansdown will buy and sell investments for you.
Start with £1,000.
Lifetime ISA (LISA)
Lifetime ISAs are for investing for your first home or for your retirement. You can choose between a stocks and share LISA or a cash ISA.
Your annual allowance for a LISA is £4,000 in each tax year. The government will add an additional 25%. This allowance is included in the £20,000 stocks and shares ISA allowance, so if you invest £4,000 in a LISA, you only have £16,000 remaining for the year.
Junior ISA (JISA)
The allowance for the 2019/2020 tax year is £4,368. It goes up to £9,000 for the 2020/2021 tax year. This means that you can save up to this much in your child’s junior ISA without paying any tax on the earnings. The junior ISA is for children under 18 years old. It’s managed by a legal parent or guardian, until the child turns 18, when it is automatically transferred to them. Benefits of the JISA include:
Invest up to the annual allowance without paying tax on earnings
Friends and family can pay money in
Start with £100 or £25 per month.
Hargreaves Lansdown pensions, annuities and drawdown options
Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)
Self invested personal pensions are suitable for people who want to make their own investment decisions – this means it’s in your hands – there’s no hand holding. If you don’t know what to invest in, or if an investment is right for you, HL does have advisors that can help you, although this is at an additional charge.
You’ll get the same tax relief with a SIPP as you do with other pensions. You can add up to £40,000 to your pension (if you’re a UK resident under 75).
Junior SIPP
For the ultra-orgnanised parent or guardian, you have the option to open your child a junior SIPP. This works pretty much like the Junior ISA and the SIPP combined – there’s a £3,600 allowance per child per tax year, of which the government will pay 20% tax relief. The “child” (they won’t be a child by the time) can only access the money when they turn 55 (57 from 2028).
If you’re looking for a way to invest in your child’s long term future, this could be suitable. If you’d prefer them to have access to the funds when they’re eighteen, consider the Junior ISA instead.
Retirement options
For those who are about to retire, HL offers:
Annuity (a guaranteed income for life, in return for a pot of pension savings)
Drawdown (where you “draw down” funds from your invested pension pot to give you an income)
An integral part of the UK’s pension system, an annuity is a type of retirement income product that you can purchase with some (or all) of your pension pot. It pays you a regular income for the rest of your life, or an agreed period.
Access to annuity quotations from the whole of the market.
‘Best Rate Promise’
No charge for buying and selling funds
Free analysis and updates from the HL research team
Take a variable income from your pension pot, whilst keeping some of it invested.
Good if you want to access your pension and keep invested
Allows you to take out tax-free cash at the start
Allows the option for taking unlimited taxable withdrawals
Share dealing: Fund and Share account
Hargreaves Lansdown’s fund and share account lets you buy and sell shares, investment trusts, exchange traded funds and bonds. You build your portfolio yourself. Benefits to a Fund and Share account includes:
Easily manage investments online, through the HL app or by phone
Free to hold shares
Discover investment opportunities with a wide range of tools
Cash savings
Hargreaves Lansdown offers a service called “Active Savings” which gives you returns on cash savings. Instead of having to shop around for savings accounts and move your savings yourself, Hargreaves Lansdown allows you to swap to a new savings account with a better rate without all the hassle. This is a nice service, and allows you to make the most out of the offers on the market.
Does Hargreaves Lansdown have an app?
Yes. And it’s pretty good, too! It uses Face ID and fingerprint technology to keep it secure. Some things you can do with the Hargreaves Lansdown app include:
See live share prices
Trade on the go
Keep an eye on specific investments.
Manage your investments
View your history
Top up
The Hargreaves Lansdown app is available on iOS and Android.
For our Top Picks, we’ve evaluated share trading platforms against a range of metrics to select platforms for specific needs. Keep in mind that our top picks may not always be the best for you, and you’re encouraged to compare for yourself to find one that works for you. Read our full methodology here to find out more.
Hargreaves Lansdown fees and charges
If you hold funds in your ISA
Value of funds
Charge (per year)
On the first £250,000
0.45%
On the value between £250,000 and £1m
0.25%
On the value between £1m and £2m
0.1%
On the value over £2m
No charge
If you hold shares in your ISA For all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £45 per year.
If you hold funds in your SIPP
Value of funds
Charge (per year)
On the first £250,000
0.45%
On the value between £250,000 and £1m
0.25%
On the value between £1m and £2m
0.1%
On the value over £2m
No charge
If you hold shares in your SIPP For all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £200 per year.
(including UK or overseas, ETFs, gilts, corporate bonds, VCTs and investment trusts)
Number of deals
Charge
0-9 deals
£11.95 per deal
10-19 deals
£8.95 per deal
20 or more deals
£5.95 per deal
There is no charge for fund dealing (including Unit Trusts and OEICs)
Description
Charge
UK Stamp Duty
0.5% on purchases of UK shares (rounded up to the nearest £5 for residual shares)
Panel on Takeover and Mergers
£1 on UK share deals over £10,000
Irish Stamp Duty
1% on purchases of Irish shares
French Financial Transactions Tax
0.3% on purchases of some French shares
Italian Financial Transactions Tax
0.1% on purchases of some Italian shares
Telephone share dealing
1% of the trade value, minimum charge £20, maximum charge £50.
Direct Debit into investments for FTSE 250 shares and selected investment trusts and ETFs
£1.50 per stock per month
Cash withdrawals
No charge
Account closure
No charge
Automated sales to cover charges (selling fund units or shares to cover fees)
£1.50 per deal for shares. No charge for funds.
Quarterly statement and valuation (paperless)
No charge
Quarterly statement and valuation (paper)
£20 + VAT per year
Transfer out (as cash or stock)
No charge
How safe is my investment with Hargreaves Lansdown?
When it comes to security, Hargreaves Lansdown is trusted by thousands of customers and is considered to be a secure FTSE 100 company that has been managing investments for 35 years.
Your investments are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which means that you’ll be able to claim up to £85,000 if Hargreaves Lansdown were to go bust .
How do I decide which account is for me?
You need to work out what it is you want from your investment. Are you looking to put a bit of money away each month? Do you want returns on your investment?
You need to work out what you need before comparing the different offers available. Once you’ve done that, useful guidelines to compare include:
Where you can invest
Fees (if there are any)
Access to ISAs
Potential Returns
Pros and cons
Pros
Plenty of investment options
Great educational tools to help beginners find their way around
Charging caps if you hold shares
Cons
No demo account available.
Fees can be quite high for ETFs.
Our verdict
Hargreaves Lansdown has everything you could ask for in an investment platform. it was built with both experienced investors and beginners in mind, with plenty of educational tools and some options for those who want a bit of hand-holding along the way.
There isn’t a demo account available, though. You’d need to use a different platform if you want to try out share trading with virtual funds.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Capital is at risk.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. You just need to let Hargreaves Lansdown know, and it’ll take care of it for you.
You can choose to either have your dividends paid into a nominated bank account, you can have it reinvested.
Yes. There’s a whole guide on ethical investing on its website, too!
All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Capital is at risk.
Charlie Barton is a publisher at Finder. He specialises in banking and investments products, including banking apps, current accounts, share-dealing platforms and stocks and shares ISAs. Charlie has a first-class degree from the London School of Economics, and in his spare time enjoys long walks on the beach.
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