Lightyear

Lightyear Broker Overview

Lightyear is a European investment app, not a forex or CFD broker. It is operated for clients in the European Economic Area by Lightyear Europe AS, an Estonian public limited company registered in Tallinn, and for United Kingdom clients by Lightyear U.K. Ltd in London. The business was founded in October 2020 by Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, both early employees of Wise, and it now gives customers access to more than 6,000 stocks, ETFs, exchange traded commodities, money market funds, Baltic bonds and a short list of crypto-assets through its own web and mobile platform. Everything is bought and sold with the customer's own cash. There is no margin, no leverage and no short selling.

Lightyear Regulation and License

Lightyear publishes two regulated entities and three activity licence numbers on its own site. Lightyear Europe AS is authorised as an investment firm by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, Finantsinspektsioon, under activity licence 4.1-1/31, effective from 3 March 2022 and passported across the European Union, and it publishes a second Estonian number, 4.1-1/147, for crypto-asset services under the EU MiCA framework. Lightyear U.K. Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 987226, and the company links directly to its own FCA register entry. Neither the securities permission in Estonia nor the one in the United Kingdom extends to leveraged foreign exchange or contracts for difference, which matches what Lightyear actually sells.

Is Lightyear Regulated?

Yes. Lightyear operates through two authorised firms rather than an offshore shell, and both are named openly in the footer of every page with their licence numbers and company numbers beside them. WIKILIX confirmed both operating companies in the official corporate registries of their jurisdictions but did not open the FCA or EFSA registers for this profile, so the licence numbers above are reported as the company itself publishes them. A reader who wants the regulatory position first hand can follow the FCA register link Lightyear provides.

Lightyear Europe AS

Lightyear Europe AS is entered in the Estonian e-Business Register under registry code 16235024, incorporated on 21 May 2021, with share capital of 3,500,000 EUR and a registered office at Volta tn 1, Tallinn 10412. The register records 47 employees in the second quarter of 2026, no tax debt, annual reports filed for every completed financial year, and Lightyear Financial Ltd of London, Companies House number 12925823, as its sole shareholder. Lightyear Financial Ltd was incorporated on 3 October 2020, which matches the founding date the company states publicly, and Lightyear U.K. Ltd, Companies House number 14367910, was incorporated on 21 September 2022. All three companies are active and share the same two disclosed offices in Tallinn and London.

Lightyear License 4.1-1/31

Activity licence 4.1-1/31 is held by Lightyear Europe AS and is the permission under which European clients are served. It is an investment firm licence covering the reception, transmission and execution of orders in securities and other financial instruments. Under it, client assets are covered by the Estonian Investor Protection Sectoral Fund up to 20,000 EUR. Lightyear states that this cover applies to every account regardless of the holder's country of residence, and that a personal account and a business account are covered separately. The scope does not include leveraged currency trading, and Lightyear's terms say plainly that it is not a currency trading platform.

Is Lightyear Safe?

Lightyear carries the structural protections a regulated European investment firm is required to carry, and the specific ceilings matter more than the general reassurance. Customer money and instruments are held separately from company funds, with uninvested cash placed with regulated credit institutions and AAA-rated BlackRock and J.P. Morgan money market funds, and invested assets held with authorised custodians. US securities sit with the company's partner broker Alpaca and are protected up to 500,000 USD by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Two limits deserve attention before funding an account. The Estonian 20,000 EUR ceiling is far below the amount many portfolios reach, and crypto-assets are excluded from the Estonian fund and from every other EU compensation scheme, a point Lightyear states on its own crypto page. Regulation and segregation protect against firm failure and misuse, not against investment losses.

Lightyear Account Types

Lightyear publishes three account types and no tiering by deposit size. The Personal account is a multi-currency investment account holding euros, pounds and dollars, with access to the full instrument range, Savings and Plans. The Business account serves companies, is used by more than 8,000 of them according to Lightyear, and carries no minimum or maximum deposit criteria. In Estonia the Investeerimiskonto adds the local tax wrapper, deferring income tax until withdrawals exceed the amounts paid in, and Hungary has an equivalent TBSZ account. Pricing is the same across all of them, so there is no premium tier to buy into.

Lightyear Spreads, Commissions and Fees

Lightyear charges a per-order commission rather than a dealing spread, and there is no account fee or custody fee. US shares cost 0.10 percent per order with a 0.10 USD minimum and a 1 USD cap, UK shares cost 1 GBP per order, and EUR-denominated stocks, bonds, ETNs and ETCs cost 1 EUR per order. Other European stocks cost 0.10 percent with local minimums of 200 HUF, 1.5 CHF, 10 DKK, 10 SEK, 10 NOK and 5 PLN. Baltic stocks are free for the first three orders each month and 1 EUR thereafter. ETFs carry no execution or custody fee at all, although fund manager charges still apply. Crypto-assets cost 0.45 percent per order. Currency conversion costs 0.35 percent at the live interbank rate, money market funds carry an annual Lightyear fee of 0.10 percent in EUR and GBP and 0.15 percent in USD, and a business LEI registration costs 48 EUR plus VAT for a year. Local financial transaction taxes and stamp duties are passed through where they apply, including 0.5 percent UK stamp duty and 1 percent Irish stamp duty on buys.

Lightyear Leverage

None is offered. Lightyear is a cash-only platform, short selling is prohibited by its terms, and no margin or leveraged product appears anywhere in its documentation. A customer can never lose more than the money they put in.

Lightyear Trading Platforms

Lightyear runs its own platform rather than licensing a third-party one, so MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 and cTrader are not available. The same account is reached through a web app and through native iOS and Android apps. Market, limit, stop and scheduled repeat orders are supported, fractional shares are available on much of the range, and the app adds Plans for automated recurring investing, Ready-made Plans built around BlackRock and Vanguard funds, and AI-generated market summaries. Orders in US instruments are transmitted to Alpaca, orders in EU and UK instruments are executed by Lightyear itself or alongside Lightyear U.K. Ltd, and crypto orders go to Kraken.

Lightyear Deposits and Withdrawals

Funding is by bank transfer or debit card, and only from an account or card in the customer's own name. Bank transfers are free in both directions: SEPA instant arrives within minutes and a regular SEPA transfer within two business days, UK Faster Payments arrive within minutes, and US ACH takes one to two business days. Debit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits are instant but cost 0.6 percent, and money cannot be returned to a card, so a bank transfer is needed before a first withdrawal. USD wires cost a fixed 6.11 USD to receive. Lightyear states that most withdrawals are paid out within two business days and charges nothing for a local withdrawal in any currency, though intermediary banks may charge on international SWIFT payments.

Lightyear Support

Support is by email and by the contact form in the app and Help Centre, at support@lightyear.com, with complaints handled separately at complaints@lightyear.com. Lightyear does not publish a telephone number or opening hours, and states that its team generally replies within one business day. Its complaints policy commits to acknowledging a complaint within 24 hours or the next business day and issuing a final response by the end of 15 days, with escalation to the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority or to Finantsinspektsioon.

Lightyear Pros and Cons

• Two authorised operating companies, both named openly with their licence and company numbers, and both confirmed as active in their own national registries.
• Genuinely low, legible costs: free ETF dealing, a 1 USD cap on US share orders, no account or custody fee, and 0.35 percent currency conversion at the interbank rate.
• Client assets segregated and held with authorised custodians, with 20,000 EUR of Estonian investor protection and 500,000 USD of SIPC cover on US securities.
• The 20,000 EUR European ceiling is modest for a larger portfolio, and crypto-assets fall outside it entirely.
• No leverage, no short selling and no forex or CFD access, which rules the platform out for anyone looking for those products.
• No telephone support and no published support hours, so every issue goes through email or the in-app form.

Lightyear Review and Assessment

Lightyear is a low-cost European investment platform with a clearly disclosed corporate structure and two named financial regulators behind it, and the profile is unusually consistent: the entities the site claims are the entities the registries show, at the addresses the site gives. Anyone arriving here expecting a forex or CFD broker is in the wrong place, because Lightyear sells cash equities, funds and crypto and says so explicitly in its own terms. The most important thing to weigh before funding an account is the size of the protection that sits behind it. The Estonian investor compensation ceiling of 20,000 EUR and the exclusion of crypto-assets from it are both stated by Lightyear itself, and both are worth reading before a large balance is built up.