DEGIRO After-Hours Trading: Pros, Cons, and Alternatives

Imagine you just got a notification on your phone: “Federal Reserve cuts rates by 50 basis points – largest move since 2020”. You think to yourself, “Let me reevaluate my portfolio and maybe adjust exposure before things move further”. Then you realise the market is not yet open. Is there a way to trade outside regular hours?

Yes – extended hours trading allows you to react promptly to macroeconomic events (central bank decisions, inflation prints, employment data), unexpected geopolitical news, or volatility around scheduled earnings reports. For active investors, the ability to act before regular market hours can make a meaningful difference, particularly when news breaks outside trading windows.

This article addresses three questions: Does DEGIRO offer pre-market and after-hours trading? If so, is it the right platform for it? And what are the best alternatives? Let’s get into it.

What is pre-market and after-hours trading?

Pre-market trading takes place before the regular market session opens, while after-hours trading happens once the regular session closes. Together, they’re often referred to as “extended hours trading”.

What are the advantages of extended-hours trading? Stock exchanges are typically open during working hours, so one practical advantage is the ability to trade outside what, for most people, is a busy workday. Additionally, major market-moving news – such as quarterly earnings reports, central bank announcements, employment statistics, and inflation prints – is often released outside regular trading hours. For example, US corporate earnings are typically released either before market open (BMO) or after market close (AMC), and the Federal Reserve usually announces its policy decisions at 14:00 ET (after most European markets have closed). Extended hours trading allows investors to react before the next regular session begins.

Does DEGIRO offer pre-market and after-hours trading?

Yes – DEGIRO offers extended hours access to more than 10,000 securities from 07:00 to 21:00 CET, including European, UK, and US-listed stocks. This is done via the Tradegate Exchange (symbol: TDG), a fully regulated German exchange that is 60% owned by Deutsche Börse AG – one of Europe’s largest exchange operators.

An important caveat: positions opened on Tradegate must also be closed on Tradegate. If you own Apple shares purchased on NASDAQ, for example, you cannot sell them via Tradegate after hours – DEGIRO’s extended hours feature applies only to instruments bought and held on Tradegate itself.

Example: Apple’s full-year financial results are released and blow expectations, but the market is closed. You can simply search for the Apple stock on DEGIRO with the TDG symbol and get in the action straight away:

Note: Keep in mind that, as it’s the case with all exchanges, if you buy a stock in Tradegate, that is also where you’ll sell it once you choose to do it, so if you own Apple shares bought in NASDAQ, you won’t be able to sell them after-hours using this DEGIRO feature since the after-hours trading only occurs in the Tradegate Exchange.

The cons of DEGIRO extended hours trading

The main drawbacks of DEGIRO’s extended hours offering:

• €3.90 flat fee per Tradegate transaction: significantly more expensive than the €/$2 (€1 commission + €1 handling fee) that DEGIRO charges for US stocks during regular market hours;
• Lower liquidity: trading volumes outside regular hours are typically a fraction of regular-session volumes, which can lead to wider bid-ask spreads and worse execution;
• Higher volatility: news-driven price moves in thin markets can be exaggerated, increasing the risk of slippage on market orders;
• Tradegate-only execution: positions cannot be carried between Tradegate and home exchanges (NASDAQ, NYSE, LSE).

If you want to avoid the €3.90 extra fee or simply want to consider other options, here are some broker alternatives that don’t charge additional costs for extended hours trading:

The Cons of DEGIRO Extended Hours Trading

If you want to save the €3.90 extra fee or just want to consider other alternatives, below we present some broker alternatives that require no additional costs for extended hours trading:

Wrapping up

Pre-market and after-hours trading can give you an edge when reacting to breaking news or playing increased volatility – but the two have something important in common: they require experience in the markets and time spent analysing them. Before exploring extended hours strategies, it’s crucial to decide how much time you’re willing to devote to active trading and how big your risk appetite is.

If your approach is passive and long-term, you’re most likely investing in broad-market ETFs or blue-chip companies. In that case, dollar-cost averaging during regular market hours will typically yield better execution prices (thanks to higher liquidity and tighter spreads) and lower psychological stress – extended hours trading is unlikely to add meaningful value to a buy-and-hold strategy.

For active traders who want to react to overnight news, Interactive Brokers and Trading 212 (for CFD traders) remain the most cost-effective alternatives to DEGIRO’s Tradegate route, particularly given the €3.90 per-trade premium on DEGIRO.