Buying bitcoin at the Sparkasse: 0.99 euros per order plus a spread

Buying bitcoin at a Sparkasse has been possible since October 19, 2026 directly in the Sparkasse app, through the crypto offering of DekaBank. Every order costs 0.99 euros, on top of which comes a mark-up on the market price that DekaBank does not state in figures. Custody and delivery are free of charge, but the coins can only be transferred to addresses of authorised crypto service providers, not to a wallet of your own. Whether your Sparkasse is already taking part is for it to decide: the roll-out is proceeding step by step.

Who benefits from going through their own bank, and when an exchange is cheaper, depends above all on the amount. The flat fee of 0.99 euros is expensive on small purchases and almost meaningless on large ones. This guide explains the process, the costs, custody and tax, and works out the amount from which the Sparkasse keeps pace with the large exchanges on fees. How the exchanges differ among themselves is shown by our comparison of providers for buying bitcoin, with prices per exchange.

Buying bitcoin at the Sparkasse: how the purchase works in the Sparkasse app

The purchase begins in the Sparkasse app, which many customers already use for their current account. There you open a crypto account online with DekaBank, the securities house of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. Registration and identity verification are free of charge according to the DekaBank price information in its September 2026 version. After that you buy and sell the crypto assets on offer yourself; the money comes from the current account.

The offering comes without advice. DekaBank writes on its offer page that it is aimed exclusively at self-directed investors. The Sparkasse therefore does not check whether a crypto investment suits your financial position, and it does not recommend a purchase.

You are not buying on an exchange but from DekaBank itself, in what is known as a request-for-quote procedure: you ask for a price, DekaBank names an offer that is binding for a short time, and within that window you can place the order. There is no minimum order; the upper limit is 250,000 euros per transaction.

Which Sparkassen already offer crypto trading

There is no nationwide launch date. “Each Sparkasse decides for itself when it starts,” said Joachim Schmalzl, member of the executive board of the German Savings Banks Association, at the launch on October 19, 2026 according to a dpa report. Thirty to 40 institutions are to be added each month, and in the first half of 2027 the association wants to have a large share of the interested Sparkassen connected. We covered the launch itself in our report on the staggered start of crypto trading.

Whether your Sparkasse is taking part is shown by the app: where crypto trading has been enabled, the option to open a crypto account appears there.

Five crypto assets to choose from: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Polygon

According to the offer page, DekaBank lists five crypto assets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Polygon (POL). That is a deliberately small selection of large assets. Anyone who wants to buy other coins, such as Dogecoin, Cardano or Litecoin, needs a crypto exchange; hundreds of assets are tradable there.

0.99 euros per order: what a bitcoin purchase at the Sparkasse costs

DekaBank's price information states a transaction fee of 0.99 euros per order for both buying and selling, regardless of the amount. Free of charge are custody, the display of holdings in the app, delivery to an external address as well as statements and quarterly and annual reports.

On top of that comes the price itself. According to DekaBank the quote is based “on a market reference price (including real-time price data) plus a DekaBank spread of its own”. How large that mark-up is does not appear in any published document; with larger amounts or sharp price swings DekaBank can adjust it. You only see the mark-up in the quote in the app, compared against the price on an exchange in the same minute. More on the fees and their conditions is in our article on the Sparkasse's crypto fees.

Because the flat fee is fixed, it works out very differently depending on the amount. The table compares only the published fees for buying bitcoin; it does not include the mark-up in the price for any provider:

The exchanges' rates come from their own fee pages: Bitvavo states 0.25 percent as the taker fee in the order book, Bitpanda 0.99 percent for bitcoin according to its cost information document in version 3.0.0 of February 2, 2026, and Coinbase 1.875 percent for a simple buy. At Bitpanda, Coinbase and the Sparkasse there is an additional mark-up inside the price; in Bitvavo's order book there is only the spread between bid and ask, which is small in a market as liquid as bitcoin against the euro.

Sparkasse or exchange: the amount from which the flat fee keeps pace

Counting fees alone, the Sparkasse matches a percentage rate above a certain amount. At 100 euros it costs exactly as much as Bitpanda, and from 52.80 euros it costs less than a simple buy at Coinbase. Against Bitvavo's taker rate it only draws level at 396 euros. Above that, the flat fee is the cheapest of the four routes on fees.

With large amounts, however, it is no longer the fee that decides but the mark-up in the price. A mark-up of just 0.5 percent costs five euros on 1,000 euros, five times the flat fee. As long as DekaBank does not quantify its spread, the total price therefore cannot be compared against an exchange in good faith. Anyone investing small amounts regularly pays a lot in percentage terms with the flat fee: a savings plan of 25 euros a month costs 11.88 euros in fees a year at the Sparkasse, against 0.75 euros as a taker at Bitvavo. Which providers run savings plans is in the savings plan comparison.

Custody at DekaBank: who owns the keys

DekaBank holds the purchased coins centrally. According to the glossary on the offer page, the private keys are held in trust in a jointly managed omnibus wallet, that is, a pooled address for many customers. In the app you see your holdings; keys of your own you do not get.

A transfer is possible and free of charge, but restricted: DekaBank delivers only to wallet addresses of certain authorised crypto service providers, and delivery to other addresses is ruled out. A hardware wallet of your own is therefore out as a destination. Anyone who wants to hold bitcoin themselves buys on an exchange and pays out from there; which devices are suitable for that is shown by the hardware wallet comparison. What pooled custody means for you we set out in our article on crypto custody at the Sparkasse.

DekaBank in the MiCA register: the licence behind the offering

On its offer page DekaBank describes itself as a notified crypto-asset service provider. In the register of the securities regulator ESMA, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale appears twice as at October 27, 2026: since December 1, 2025 for the custody and administration of crypto assets and the execution of orders, and since June 25, 2026 additionally for the exchange of crypto assets for money. The competent authority is BaFin. The register is publicly accessible through ESMA's MiCA section. Which crypto exchanges hold a licence in Germany is in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

Tax: the same rules apply to bitcoin from the Sparkasse as from an exchange

For tax purposes it makes no difference where you buy bitcoin. A gain on a sale is taxable under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act if no more than one year lies between purchase and sale and all private disposal gains of the calendar year together reach 1,000 euros; after more than a year the sale is tax-free. DekaBank places statements as well as quarterly and annual reports in the electronic mailbox free of charge, which makes it easier to evidence purchase data.

A draft bill from the German Federal Ministry of Finance dated September 30, 2026 would abolish the one-year period for purchases made from January 1, 2027. The cabinet had not adopted it as at October 27, 2026. We track the state of play in our report on the reform of the crypto holding period; your own calculation is a job for a tax calculator. None of this replaces advice from a tax adviser.

Bitcoin through the Sparkasse or on an exchange: which route suits whom

The route through the Sparkasse suits you if you want to start without a second account and in a familiar app, buy larger amounts at once and do not want to hold the coins yourself. An exchange suits you better if you invest small amounts regularly, are looking for coins other than DekaBank's five, or want to transfer your bitcoin into a wallet of your own. What a purchase of 1,000 euros costs at each exchange, fees and price mark-up included, is shown by the price comparison for buying bitcoin.

(As of October 27, 2026, DekaBank price information in its September 2026 version. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Crypto assets fluctuate strongly, and the conditions apply as the Sparkasse and DekaBank state them at the time of purchase.)