Freedom24 is an online investment broker that gives clients access to international shares, ETFs, bonds, options, futures and other securities. The service is operated in Europe by Freedom Finance Europe Ltd, a Cyprus investment firm regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission under licence 275/15. It belongs to Freedom Holding Corp, whose shares trade on Nasdaq.
That makes Freedom24 different from a UK broker offering a General Investment Account alongside an ISA. There is no UK Stocks & Shares ISA wrapper, and the account can hold investments, income and cash balances in several currencies. For a UK tax resident, the result is a foreign brokerage account whose taxable activity must be translated into HMRC's rules and into pounds sterling.
There is also an important regulatory distinction. Freedom Finance Europe's former UK temporary permission was cancelled and the firm entered supervised run-off. Existing UK customers may continue to be serviced within the limits of that regime, but it is not a route for taking on new UK clients. This guide is therefore intended for people who already hold a Freedom24 account and are now UK tax resident, including legacy UK customers and people who opened the account while resident in an eligible country.
The following sections explain which Freedom24 transactions need reporting, how the main investments are taxed, which report to download and how to import it into Finbooks to calculate tax-ready figures and generate a pre-filled Self Assessment.
Do you need to report Freedom24 to HMRC?
You may need to report Freedom24 when you sell or otherwise dispose of an investment, receive dividends or interest, or want to claim an allowable loss while UK tax resident.
Selling shares, ETFs, bonds or other securities can create a capital gain or loss. Dividends, bond coupons and interest are income rather than capital gains, so they have separate allowances and reporting routes. The fact that Freedom24 is based outside the UK does not remove the UK liability: UK residents are generally taxed on worldwide income and gains, subject to their circumstances and any applicable residence rules.
Buying an investment and continuing to hold it does not normally create a reportable disposal by itself. Reporting usually becomes relevant when ownership ends or changes, income is credited or a loss needs to be preserved for use against gains.
For 2025/26, the Capital Gains Tax annual exempt amount for individuals is £3,000. Even when the resulting gain is below that amount, the SA108 capital gains pages may still be required if you are already within Self Assessment and your total disposal proceeds for the year exceeded £50,000.
Freedom24 does not provide a UK Stocks & Shares ISA. Unlike gains and income arising inside an ISA, taxable activity in a Freedom24 account cannot be left out of Self Assessment merely because the investments remain on the platform.
Can UK residents open or keep a Freedom24 account?
Freedom Finance Europe previously operated in the UK under the post-Brexit Temporary Permissions Regime. Its temporary permission was later cancelled and the company entered the supervised run-off regime.
Supervised run-off allows an EEA firm to service pre-existing UK contracts while it conducts an orderly exit. The FCA states that firms in this regime must not deal with new UK clients and have not received full UK authorisation from the FCA or PRA.
This does not mean that every UK taxpayer with a Freedom24 account must close it immediately. A person may hold a legacy account that the firm is permitted to service, or may have opened the account in another eligible country before later becoming UK tax resident. The contractual position depends on the customer and the account, so existing holders should check the current status shown in their account documents and on the FCA Register.
Tax residence and account eligibility are separate questions. If you are UK tax resident and still hold a Freedom24 account, the UK tax rules can apply even though the broker is regulated in Cyprus and the account was opened abroad.
How is Freedom24 regulated and are investments protected?
Freedom24's European brokerage service is operated by Freedom Finance Europe Ltd and regulated by CySEC under Cyprus Investment Firm licence 275/15. It is not a UK-authorised broker offering new accounts under a standard FCA permission.
Freedom24 states that client assets and money are kept separate from the firm's own assets. Eligible clients may also have access to the Cyprus Investor Compensation Fund if the firm fails and cannot return covered assets or money. The maximum compensation is €20,000 per eligible client in total, subject to the fund's conditions and exclusions.
This is different from the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme and should not be described as £85,000 of FSCS investment protection. Existing UK customers should check the entity named in their agreement and the protections that apply to their particular account.
Investor compensation does not cover market losses. It also does not make an account tax-free: protection concerns a firm's inability to return eligible assets, while UK tax treatment depends on residence, the investment and the transaction.
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How are Freedom24 investments taxed in the UK?
Freedom24 can place several types of return in the same account, but they do not all belong in the same part of a UK tax return.
Shares and ETFs
Selling shares or ETFs can produce a capital gain or an allowable loss. Reportable disposals and gains normally go on the SA108 capital gains summary.
For shares of the same class, HMRC does not simply pair each sale with the purchase selected in the Freedom24 interface. Disposals are matched first with acquisitions made on the same day, then with acquisitions made during the following 30 days. Any remaining quantity is matched with the average cost in the Section 104 pool.
The pool covers the same holding across all taxable accounts owned by the same person. A Freedom24 sale can therefore depend on a purchase made through Interactive Brokers, Trading 212, eToro or another platform. Calculating each broker in isolation can produce the wrong gain.
Dividends and foreign withholding tax
Dividends are income, even when they are automatically reinvested or left as cash in the brokerage account. UK dividends normally go in the dividends section of SA100, while foreign dividends normally belong on the SA106 foreign pages.
Freedom24 may show the cash amount after foreign withholding tax. A UK return generally starts with the gross dividend before withholding, with any available Foreign Tax Credit Relief considered separately. Tax withheld overseas is not automatically refunded in full and cannot simply be deducted from an unrelated capital gain.
For 2025/26, the dividend allowance is £500. Dividends above the available allowance are taxed at 8.75% within the basic-rate band, 33.75% within the higher-rate band and 39.35% within the additional-rate band.
Bonds, coupons and cash interest
Bond coupons and interest credited on cash are generally savings income rather than capital gains. Foreign interest usually needs to be included on SA106, while some UK interest can be reported through the relevant section of SA100.
The Personal Savings Allowance for 2025/26 is normally £1,000 for basic-rate taxpayers, £500 for higher-rate taxpayers and nil for additional-rate taxpayers. The allowance does not change the character of the income: interest still needs to be identified separately before deciding whether any tax is due.
Selling a bond may create a capital gain or loss, but some securities have special treatment. Accrued income rules, deeply discounted securities and the exact legal terms of a bond can alter the result, so the cash movement alone does not always determine the UK classification.
Options, futures and structured products
Options, futures and structured products need contract-specific analysis. A transaction may be taxed under Capital Gains Tax, but exercise, expiry, cash settlement and the nature of the instrument can change both the timing and the calculation.
For many individuals investing on their own account, derivative gains and losses are capital. Activity that genuinely amounts to a financial trade may instead fall within Income Tax, but frequency or leverage alone does not decide the question. The purpose, organisation, financing and overall pattern of activity all matter.
Offshore ETFs and reporting fund status
An overseas ETF's UK reporting fund status can materially change the tax result outside an ISA. Gains on a non-reporting offshore fund may be taxed as income rather than as capital gains. A reporting fund can also create excess reportable income even when no cash distribution appears in the Freedom24 account.
Check the exact fund and share class against HMRC's reporting funds list. Availability through an EU-regulated broker does not confirm UK reporting fund status.
Why is Freedom24's profit different from your taxable gain?
Freedom24 reports portfolio performance in the account's trading currencies. HMRC requires taxable amounts to be calculated in pounds for the dates on which the relevant transactions occurred.
The purchase cost and sale proceeds of a foreign investment must therefore be converted separately into sterling. Converting only the final dollar or euro profit at the sale-date exchange rate can produce the wrong answer. Exchange-rate movements may create a sterling gain even when the investment barely changed in its local currency, or reduce a gain that appears larger on the platform.
The broker's displayed profit also cannot account for shares of the same class held elsewhere. HMRC's same-day, 30-day and Section 104 rules apply across brokers, whereas Freedom24 only sees the activity recorded in its own account.
Income must then be separated from capital. Dividends, bond coupons and cash interest cannot be netted into share gains, and capital losses do not reduce dividend or savings income. Foreign withholding tax, dealing fees and derivative cash flows also need to be assigned to the correct transaction and tax category.
Foreign currency held independently in the account can require a separate review. Currency other than sterling is generally an asset for Capital Gains Tax purposes, although exemptions may apply to qualifying foreign currency bank accounts and the treatment depends on how the balance is held and used.
For 2025/26, gains above the available £3,000 annual exempt amount are normally taxed at 18% to the extent they fall within the unused basic-rate band and 24% above it.
What Freedom24 file do you need for Finbooks?
Finbooks needs the Freedom24 Broker Report in XLSX format. Generate it for the complete available account history so it includes the transactions and cash movements needed to reconstruct purchases, disposals, dividends, interest, fees and currency activity.
The first import should not be limited to 6 April 2025 through 5 April 2026. A share sold during 2025/26 may have been bought years earlier, and that acquisition still contributes to its Section 104 pool. Starting with the full history also helps preserve transfers and corporate actions that affect the cost basis.
You do not need to assemble separate screenshots or manually copy the Trades tab into a spreadsheet. The XLSX Broker Report is the central import file. If the platform cannot produce the entire account history in one report, create consecutive reports with no gaps and upload them together.
How to import Freedom24 into Finbooks
Log in to Freedom24 on the web platform.
Open Member Area, then select Brokerage Reports.
Choose Broker Report.
Set the reporting period from the first activity in the account through to today.
Select XLS and create the report.
Download the completed file, then upload it to Finbooks by creating a Freedom24 connection or updating an existing one.
On mobile, the report area is under **Menu → Reports and documents → Brokerage Reports**. Freedom24's mobile interface may offer fewer report types, so use the standard Broker Report rather than relying on the visible trading-history summary.
Finbooks reads the imported history, converts relevant foreign-currency amounts into pounds, keeps income separate from capital gains and applies the UK share-matching rules before preparing figures for a pre-filled Self Assessment.
When is Freedom24 tax due for 2025/26?
The 2025/26 tax year ran from 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026. The online Self Assessment return and any outstanding tax are normally due by 31 January 2027.
If you need to file for the first time, you generally need to tell HMRC by 5 October 2026. A paper return is normally due by 31 October 2026. Payments on account may also apply to some Income Tax liabilities, with instalments due on 31 January and 31 July.
Generate the Freedom24 report early enough to check older purchase costs, foreign withholding tax and matching transactions held with other brokers. A missing acquisition or dividend cannot always be resolved from the year-end portfolio value.
Freedom24 and HMRC compliance checks
Freedom24 is a foreign broker, but a foreign account is not outside HMRC's reach. The UK participates in international exchange arrangements for financial-account information, and HMRC can also request records when checking a return.
The Broker Report is evidence of what happened in the Freedom24 account; it is not a completed UK tax calculation. Common errors include reporting the platform's net profit, converting a final euro or dollar result only once, omitting foreign dividends and ignoring matching purchases made through another broker.
Keep the original XLSX reports, evidence of transfers and the calculation supporting the return. The final gain or income total should be traceable back to dated transactions, sterling values and the correct Self Assessment category.
Report Freedom24 with Finbooks
Freedom24 makes global markets accessible through one account, but that convenience creates a tax record containing several currencies, asset types and kinds of return. The number shown as portfolio profit does not separate taxable disposals from dividends, interest or open positions, and it cannot apply UK pooling across the rest of your portfolio.
Finbooks turns the Freedom24 XLSX report into a consistent UK tax record. It converts transactions into pounds, applies HMRC's matching rules and keeps capital gains separate from foreign dividends and interest before preparing the figures for Self Assessment.
That becomes especially useful when Freedom24 is only one of several platforms. Bringing every broker into the same calculation allows a sale in one account to be matched with the correct purchases elsewhere, instead of treating each statement as a separate tax position.
You can review the imported history, resolve any missing data and move from a foreign brokerage report to a pre-filled Self Assessment without rebuilding every trade, dividend and exchange-rate conversion by hand.
Try Finbooks free for 7 days and turn your Freedom24 history into Self Assessment-ready figures.
