Crypto exchange fees in Ireland, worked out in euro

Buying €1,000 of crypto in Ireland can cost anywhere from under €1 to around €47 in fees, depending almost entirely on how you pay. A free SEPA bank transfer followed by an order-book trade at roughly 0.1% to 0.25% sits at the bottom. A card deposit stacked on a one-click buy sits at the top. The figures below come from company pages we read on 5 October 2026, each labelled with its source and its weaknesses, because fee pages change and some of ours are archived copies.

If you want the licensing side first, start with our exchange comparison. This page deals only with money: what is charged, where it hides, and what it adds up to in euro.

Spread, fee, maker and taker: four different costs

People compare "fees" as if it were one number. It is at least four.

A fee is a line item: 1%, 0.25%, €3. It appears on the order preview or in your history. A spread is the gap between the buy price and the sell price, and it is baked into the quote, so no line shows it. Kraken's fee page says plainly that its quick buy and sell product carries the 1% fee plus a spread that varies with volatility, asset and size. Bitstamp's Basic Trading route lists a fixed 1.8% spread for crypto plus a further 0% to 0.5% volatility spread. Coinbase publishes no flat percentage on its help page; the amount is shown at order preview and the spread is included in the price.

A maker fee applies when your limit order sits in the order book and someone else matches it. A taker fee applies when you take an order already there, which is what a market order does. Makers pay less. Bitstamp's base tier is listed at 0.30% maker and 0.40% taker; OKX's at 0.08% and 0.10%; Bitvavo's, from an archived page, at 0.15% and 0.25%.

Then there is the funding cost: whatever it costs to get euro onto the exchange in the first place. On card routes this often dwarfs the trading fee. Finally, there are withdrawal and network fees when you take crypto out.

The lesson is to compare what lands in your account. Put in €1,000, see how much bitcoin you end up with, and compare that, not the label.

Card, SEPA or Apple Pay

Almost everywhere the pattern is the same. Paying by bank transfer is free or nearly free. Paying by card is where the percentages arrive, because the exchange passes on card-processing costs and adds margin.

SEPA deposits are listed as free at Kraken, Coinbase, Bitpanda, Bitstamp, OKX and Crypto.com, and as 0% at Bitvavo (archived page). Bybit EU says it charges no exchange deposit fee for SEPA, though payment-service fees can apply. The catch is time. Coinbase lists one to three business days for SEPA. Bitstamp says its faster SEPA deposits are only for a handful of countries, not including Ireland. Kraken lists SEPA and a near real-time variant, which is worth checking against your own bank. Our guide to paying by bank transfer covers the Irish side of that, and the card guide covers what your own card issuer might add on top. Bitstamp itself warns that your card issuer may charge additional fees.

Apple Pay and Google Pay are card payments in a nicer wrapper. Bybit EU lists them at 1.8% plus €0.24, against 1.1% for an EU-issued Visa or Mastercard. Crypto.com lists 3.99% for Apple Pay, the same as cards. Bitvavo's archived page shows Apple Pay at 0%, which is unusual and exactly the kind of figure to re-check live. Kraken's Apple Pay and Google Pay support is in its app only, with the percentage not stated on the page we read.

The fee grid, with sources

Euro worked examples

These examples use the listed figures above and show fees only. Spread is excluded because it is not published as a fixed number, so real cost will be higher. Amounts are rounded. "Order-book" means a limit or market order at the base fee tier; larger monthly volume lowers some of these rates.

A few honest notes on those numbers. Kraken's card figure adds the deposit fee (3.75% plus €0.25) to a 1% buy fee on what is left, which is why it lands above Bitstamp's flat 4%. Crypto.com's card figure is the deposit rate alone; its page also lists a 0.8% trading fee on buy, sell and exchange, and we could not confirm whether the two stack on a single purchase, so the worst case is higher. Revolut's rate is the first-tier figure and falls with 30-day volume and plan. Bybit EU lists a maximum per card transaction of $10,000, so a €10,000 card payment may need splitting, and Bitvavo's archived page shows a €10,000 cap on card and Apple Pay payments.

Look at the shape rather than any single cent. Between the cheapest and dearest route, a €1,000 purchase differs by roughly €46. On €10,000 that gap passes €460. That is the cost of choosing a route out of habit.

Taking crypto out: withdrawal and network fees

Moving crypto to a wallet involves a network fee paid to the blockchain, and sometimes an exchange processing fee. We did not find a fixed euro figure we could stand behind for any platform, because network fees move with congestion. What the sources do say: Bitstamp lists crypto deposits as free and withdrawals as a variable network fee plus processing; Bitvavo (archived) lists crypto deposits as free and withdrawal fees as varying by asset; Trade Republic says it adds no fee of its own to external wallet transfers, only the network cost.

Euro withdrawals have their own prices. Bitstamp lists a SEPA withdrawal at €3.00. Crypto.com lists €1.00, with a minimum of €80 per withdrawal as listed. Coinbase lists SEPA as free in both directions. Bitpanda publishes its per-coin costs, and its support pages say it charges no fee on SEPA deposits or withdrawals.

One cost people meet only once: sending to the wrong network. Bitvavo's archived fee page lists a €50 administration fee for recovering deposits made on the wrong network. Send a small test amount first, then the rest. See wallets for Irish users for the self-custody side.

CEX.IO: listed fees, with a status note

CEX.IO's global fee page lists a free SEPA deposit, a €2.99 SEPA withdrawal, spot trading from 0.25%, and card or Apple/Google Pay deposits from 0.49% to 4.99% plus a service charge. It also lists a PayPal route at 3.99% plus $5. These are not EEA-specific figures, and they do not describe a service you can currently use from Ireland: CEX.IO says it is not onboarding new EU/EEA users, existing EEA accounts are withdrawal-only, and its Spanish entity's MiCA application is under review with the CNMV. It is not on the ESMA register. The status is set out on its EEA legal page, and our CEX.IO review for Irish readers keeps the current position.

Cutting what you pay, within the rules

None of this needs cleverness. Pay by SEPA where you can. Use a limit order if you are not in a hurry, since makers pay less than takers. Read the final quote, including the amount of crypto you will receive, before pressing confirm. Avoid buying and selling the same day, because a round trip pays the spread and fees twice. And ask whether the exchange you like has a lower-fee mode: Kraken's Pro order book, Bitpanda's Fusion tier at 0.25% from the €0 volume band, or Bybit EU's volume tiers.

Selling carries its own costs too, covered in how to sell crypto in Ireland.

Fees and your tax records

Fees matter twice. First, they reduce what you get. Second, they belong in your records. Revenue's manual says to keep records for six years and gains are worked out per asset, disposal by disposal. Capital Gains Tax on crypto disposals is 33%, with the first €1,270 of gains each year exempt. Budget 2027 is on 6 October 2026, so re-check the rates afterwards. Our crypto tax pillar page explains the rest. We cannot tell you how a given fee should be treated in your own return; a tax adviser can.

Common mistakes

Comparing a maker fee on one exchange with a taker fee on another. Reading "0% fee" as "free", when the spread carries the cost. Using a card for a large purchase because the exchange's app offered it first. Forgetting that a €10 minimum order makes tiny test buys cost proportionally more. Assuming that a figure from last year's review is still right. And ignoring the exchange's own fee page in favour of a comparison site, including this one: we link every source above so you can check us.

Fees are not the whole decision. Authorisation, withdrawal rules and support matter as much, and our exchange comparison puts them next to each other. This is information, not advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy.