Hi everyone, thanks for creating this thread and the helpful responses!
I have a similar question which is how to invest some Euros held in accounts in France. It's quite difficult to search for this because most of the Google results from the US return results relating to e.g. International ETFs, and Google results from .fr return results in French (of course).
I get the sense that most French do not invest in ETFs and other securities the way that Americans do, as their social security programs are more robust. A few have simply stated "it's not that easy to invest in France" and that returns roughly similar to US markets in the 7% range are not common. I think more likely they are just not familiar with it, and surely they can get similar returns by investing in similar securities like Vanguard. I am not familiar, however, with what the equivalent of capital gains tax would be. If its similar to income tax rates (e.g. sometimes over 50% for high earners), it would be really sucky. Seems like most people sit on some cash and save up for sporadic purchases like cars and or mortgage down payments by building up cash in savings accounts.
Anyways, per the above reference:
http://jlcollinsnh.com/2014/01/27/stocks-part-xxi-investing-with-vanguard-for-europeans/--Unless you have 500k euro to invest, you can't do so with Vanguard directly but must go through a broker.
This likely means additional fees, on top of the VT 0.14%. In addition, per the article, an Irish dividend withholding tax. There may be additional US Government dividend withhold tax. It's difficult to quantify what these fees are.
--After a brief search, looks like BNP Paribas has a brokerage service that is primarily geared toward Expats, but charges 25 euro per trade and a 1% entry fee.
--A better option, De Giro, looks like it would be a better option at 0.25 euro per trade. Mostly used Google Translate to read the site, but am not familiar with its reputation.
Does anyone have recommendations as to a low-cost brokerage thru which we could purchase Vanguard ETFs with euros from French accounts? And generally speaking, would the fees associated with transferring the Euros to US dollar accounts and then investing them be a better option, given the fees and taxes associated with investing in Vanguard from France?