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Reviews By Richard Berry - Updated
Whether you’re a seasoned FX trader or just starting out, choosing the best forex trading broker is key to success in the fast-moving currency markets. This guide compares the best forex brokers in the UK to help you find trusted and regulated platforms for trading.
| Name | Logo | Forex Pairs | Min Deposit | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | CTA | Feature | Expand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Forex Pairs 182 | Min Deposit £100 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 71% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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City Index: Best Forex Trading Platform Trader Tools Account: City Index Forex Trading Description: City Index won “best forex broker” in our 2022 awards as they offer a huge amount of forex pairs (182), with tight pricing and a wide range of different account types, including spread betting and CFDs. Is City Index a good forex broker? Yes, for forex traders who want a bit of added value rather than just a click-and-trade account, they also offer free Forex trading signals. City Index also provides some insightful analysis of your previous forex trading with their Performance Analytics. On the FX trading platform, currency pairs are listed by major pairs and also separated by base currency so you can easily see EUR, USD and GBP FX crosses. You can trade forex options as a CFD or spread bet. As well as trading FX, you can also invest in the currency markets through a range of ProShares and Invesco ETFs. One really nice feature of the platform is that when you trade forex you can set your price tolerance, so if you want to place a limit order rather than market or fill or kill, you will still get filled within a few pips (depending on how many you set) of your limit rather than missing out entirely. Trading Central is also integrated into the platform, which will show you which currency pairs have the most “market buzz” and see a constantly updated stream of technical analysis highlighting potential forex trades with pivot points, an indication of whether to go long or short, alternative scenarios and key support and resistance levels. What does the City Index Forex trading platform look like?
Pros
Cons
Overall4.7 | |
 | Forex Pairs 80 | Min Deposit £100 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 78% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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FOREX.com Forex Trading Platform Review: 24 Hour Test Drive Is FOREX.com good for forex trading? I took FOREX.com out for a 24-hour test drive, trade with real money and try some of their key features on the streets of the City of London. Here’s what happened… “For FX sake”, I thought to myself when I decided to write a review about a forex broker that offers access to the forex market for forex traders because on the surface, that’s what forex trading platforms do, so I didn’t really think I’d have much to say. I’m not normally a fan of forex trading becuase, a. I’ve never had much success at it and b. I find the nuances of intra-day technical analysis too complicated. I’m a sort of old-fashioned trader, I like to look at the market and think it’s either overvalued or undervalued and in my mind anyway, that is easier to do when looking at a company’s share price, an index or even a commodity. But for some reason, with forex trading, I’ve never really got the hang of it. Having said that I have dealt currency for about 20 years now, but more as a broker rather than as a trader. And I know that the currency markets are not only hard to understand, they come with all sorts of complexities. For instance, I used to do some prime brokerage for institutions that would hedge their currency exposure when buying aeroplanes. So we would do deals like buying 50m EURSEK, then roll it forward for delivery in 2 months’ time. A massive headache when trying to market it up. Or dealing in GBPEUR, or was it EURGBP? I remember once, marking up (or down) a forward the wrong way. It would have been a €20k error, but fortunately, the dealer didn’t know what they were doing, so we styled it out. At one point, forex trading for me was a big income generator, but also the type of business I hated most. It was so bad at one point that the broker next to me refused to pick up the phone if he knew it was a big FX trade coming through. He’d get all red and sweaty and pretend to be busy filling another customer. I was, in fact, so frustrated with how opaque pricing was in currency trading, that I decided to start up my own currency brokerage specialising in high-value currency transfers £250k upwards) and undercutting everyone. It was called Berry FX, you can still see the demo on Youtube. Basically, personal service with the best rates anywhere ever. But alas, I am a better marketer than a salesman, so I now just let other currency brokers compete for clients by trying to offer the best exchange rates. But you don’t really care about that. You want to know what I think of Forex.com. 24 Hour Test: I thought I’d try something a little different with this review and have a bit of fun with it. So I took forex.com out for a 24-hour test drive around the City of London, putting some real trades on whilst going about my business to see if I could make any money. I started out at the Bank of England with £10k on account at 11:30. Lunch was a few minutes walk from the tube station, so I took the opportunity to put some trades on using Forex.com’s trading Signals. I’ve used these for years; back in 2018, they were known as GetGo; it was a stand-alone forex trading app. When I reviewed it back in 2018, I said back that it was the future of forex trading signals but are they still? There are a couple of things that make these signals better than the rest. They tell you the success rate The signal is linked to an order ticket When I was walking down King William Street to L’Antipasto to meet my contacts at Forex.com for lunch, I put a few traders on. First, I looked at the trades that had a historic success rate of over 50% and followed them. Then I looked at trading signals that had a success rate of less than 50% and traded against them. It’s a pretty simple strategy that generally works (not always, though). Used the classic stop/limit risk/reward ratio to of aiming for twice the potential loss as a potential win. Again, simple forex trading strategies. The market is not hard to call, but if you get a trade right, it often pays to let it run for longer, but if it’s wrong, close it sooner. Trading Central: Then after lunch, on the way to my next meeting, I took a few moments on London Bridge, in the glorious sunshine with Tower Bridge in the background, to take a look at some of the other signals on forex.com, Trading Central. Now, Trading Central has been providing technical analysis to brokers for decades and provides a constant stream of manually and automatically updated trading ideas throughout the day to give traders an indication of where the markets may go. It’s not as fluid as their trading signals, as you have to put the trades in manually, but still gives you a bit of stimulus. This is great for someone like me because I generally have an idea of what I want to do from eyeballing a chart (I did, after all, run a technical analysis division for five years), but it’s nice to get confirmation of your thoughts one way or another. Execution: When you are actually trading there are some great other features on the app like: Swipe to trade: a bit like Tinder (so I hear – I’ve been married for 12 years). Chart on tickets: with a quick tap, you can bring up a chart when on the order ticket (to double-check) Working orders on charts: when looking at a chart, you can see your working orders and positions Position potential: as well as seeing what margin is required when placing a trade you can also see and set your stops and limits as a potential monetary amount instead of pips. Post-Trade Analytics: Once you’ve done a bit of trading, you can review your trading history and see where you do well and where you can improve. This is a great feature as it can break down how well you trade by time of day, markets or volatility. You can also set up “Play Maker” if you have a trading strategy and want to stick to it. Obviously, you can’t get that sort of data in a 24-hour test drive, so I’ll have to revisit that another time. Demo Account: Forex.com have a pretty good demo account, in fact, it’s hard to tell the difference between the demo and live trading platform. You get the same functionality and as trades are OTC, the same prices. However, when I opened a demo account to test them, I already had a real account. So after I got my demo account login details, I clicked through to the “webtrader” portal (and this is quite funny or alarming, depending on how you look at it), my live account details were auto-filled in by Google Chrome. Now, had I not been checking my email, to ensure that they had sent me through my credentials (as Interactive Brokers didn’t for some reason when I tested their demo account), I may not have noticed that I was logging into a live account. It could have been disastrous if I’d started ttrading away thinking it was paper money. Even more so as you get £10k in demo funds and I’d deposited £10k in my live account when I took forex.com on a 24-hour trading signal test drive around The City. It reminded me of when a trader thought that he was trading on a demo account and put $1bn worth of orders through and then sued his broker because they voided his €10m profits. But, that’s unlikely, to happen to me because even on demo accounts I don’t get thank lucky. And almost certainly won’t happen to you because why would you open a demo account after already having a live one unless you were reviewing it? TradingView & MetaQuotes I had a good play about with TradingView, as it’s now the go-to destination for traders. TradingView is a sort of social network for traders where you can view charts (they are excellent) and post trading ideas (a pinch of salt). As TradingView has grown, they have also become an execution venue too, so you can link your Forex.com trading account and deal straight from the charts. This shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for most traders as the charts on the Forex.com app and web-based platform are provided by TradingView (who incidentally are one of the largest financial-based websites in the world now). You can also trade on MT4, if you are into that sort of thing… Am I a Forexpert? I did make money on day one, mainly thanks to putting on a GBPUSD trade that covered most of the losses from some of the other trades. When I used their trading ignals five years ago, I also made money. Day two wasn’t so good, on my way to an investor show, I gave back a few pennies but still ended up on top. But I have to admit my traders were calculated guesses rather than heavily researched positions. I don’t like holding positions overnight, as day trading reduces not only your margin requirements but also increases the amount of sleep you get because you don’t wake up with cold sweats in the middle of the night worrying about Asian interest rates. Overall would I recommend forex.com? Well, yes, if you are going to trade Forex and don’t know where to start, it’s a massive brand with global reach and owned by a listed brokerage with an institutional pedigree. As far as box-ticking is concerned, they tick the lot. Or should I say pip the lots… Pros
Cons
Overall4.8 | |
 | Forex Pairs 100 | Min Deposit £1 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 75.3% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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Pepperstone: Good For Automated Forex Trading Strategies Account: Pepperstone Forex Trading Description: Pepperstone has four forex trading platforms, MT4/MT5, cTrader and TradingView and is generally one of the cheapest brokers for forex trading. Forex trading is cheap with Pepperstone because they focus on FX as a core market rather than offering lots of stocks and less popular assets. Summary Yes, Pepperstone are able to offer some of the tightest forex spreads and commissions for major FX pairs. You can also trade minor and exotic FX crosses as a spread bet or trade CFD. Although no currency futures or options. Liquidity, pricing, and execution time on Pepperstone’s platform are good, given its access to multiple Tier 1 banks. Pepperstone’s USP, when compared to other forex brokers, is their MT4 offering for traders who want to automate their forex trading strategies. Pepperstone has done partnerships with FX Blue which measures currency strength and also has a free (for clients) package of MT4 indicators which can be used to set up and simulate, then go live with trading algorithms based on technical indicators and price action. Pepperstone’s Forex Trading Platform For forex traders, who want manual execution, the cTrader forex trading platform offers good functionality where you can trade directly from the charts, as well as drag and drop stops and limits. You can also trade forex via TradingView and if you are in the UK, Pepperstone is one of the view firms that lets you trade on TradingView as spread bets.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.5 | |
 | Forex Pairs 64 | Min Deposit £100 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 80% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
| Plus500 lets you trade global markets platform on a simple to use platform Provider: Plus500 Verdict: Plus500 is one of the largest online trading platforms and operates in more than 50 countries worldwide. Founded in 2008, it has more than 26 million customers today. Plus500 is headquartered in Israel, however, it’s listed in the UK on the London Stock Exchange (it’s a member of the FTSE 250 index). Here in Britain, its platform is operated by Plus500UK Ltd, which has offices in London. In the UK, you can only trade CFDs with Plus500. CFDs are financial instruments that allow you to profit from the price movements of a security without owning the underlying security itself. 80% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Is Plus500 a good broker? Yes, Plus500’s trading platform has evolved nicely over the years from a simple interface to an intuitive execution venue for CFDs on the major markets and stocks. Pricing: It’s dynamic so moves with the market for minimum spreads Overall, Plus500 is a good online trading platform for traders who do not want to do anything more complicated than buy and sell CFDs. The broker does provide sentiment indicators and are quite transparent with costs and fees. In summary:
Pros
Cons
Overall4.6 | |
 | Forex Pairs 100 | Min Deposit £2.000 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 60% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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Interactive Brokers: Best Forex Trading Platform For Currency Futures Account: Interactive Brokers Forex Trading Description: Interactive Brokers is by far the most advanced forex broker we feature if you need it to be. Interactive Brokers is one of the best forex trading platforms for advanced and experienced traders but is also simple enough to be used by beginners who want to stick with one brokerage as they progress. Is Interactive Brokers good for forex trading? Yes, IBKR has two different forex trading platforms, IBKR Trader Workstation for advanced traders, which comes with some very complete order routing tools for larger orders. The Interactive Brokers web portal platform is much more suited to more casual forex traders and lets you go long or short currency pairs based on position size rather than lots by placing limit, and market entry orders and you can set your stop and limited exit orders based on P&L rather than price. It’s also worth noting that if you want to trade margin products with Interactive Brokers you need at least $2,000 in your account.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.6 | |
 | Forex Pairs 60 | Min Deposit £1 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 64% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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Spreadex: UK's Best Forex Broker For Customer Service Account: Spreadex Forex Trading Description: Spreadex focuses on tax-efficient forex spread betting but has recently added the ability for traders outside of the UK to use their platform by trading Forex CFDs. The platform has recently had a facelift and provides a very clear overview of the major markets, with clear order tickets, with key fx pairs trading info prominently displayed. Is Spreadex good for forex trading? Yes, we rate Spreadex as particularly good for forex spread betting, which is a form of trading where you do not have to pay capital gains tax on your profits. Spreadex focuses on tax-efficient forex spread betting but has recently added the ability for traders outside of the UK to use their platform by trading Forex CFDs. The platform has recently had a facelift and provides a very clear overview of the major markets, with clear order tickets, with key fx pairs trading info prominently displayed. One of the key benefits of Spreadex’s forex trading platform, is customer service. They have experienced dealers, that you can quickly get through on the phone, or via the platform’s chat functionality, plus voice brokerage. The ability to trade forex over the phone is something that few brokers offer nowadays, so it’s good to know that you still can, if you need to. Forex Trading Platform The desktop version of the forex trading platform is tabular which saves automatically on exit so you can spread it over multiply screens in one browser, window or detach modules to run separately. Spreadex, have built the trading platform in house, and they have some very good charting functionality where it is quick and easy to overlay technical indicators, that other forex brokers do not offer like VWAP. Usability It’s a good platform to get started on as you can trade forex from as little as £0.5 a point. One advantage of spread betting on forex is that your P&L will be in £, so you do not have to worry about FX fees on your resulting profit and loss. Spreadex also offers guaranteed stop losses, for added risk management and trailing stops, which move along with your profitable positions. For forex traders, that look at futures levels, you can also work limits with a time limit, so you don’t need to worry about leaving GTC orders open indefinitely. Pros
Cons
Overall4.4 | |
 | Forex Pairs 51 | Min Deposit £250 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 71% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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IG: Excellent All-Round Forex Trading Platform For Most FX Traders Account: IG Forex Trading Description: Due to its size, IG offers some of the best liquidity for forex trading, meaning that smaller clients get tight pricing and high-volume forex traders won’t find it hard to execute larger orders. IG’s forex trading offering is one of the best around with a wide-ranging and competitive margin FX service across several dealing platforms which will comfortably meet most retail traders’ needs. Is IG a good forex broker? Yes, you can trade forex as either a spread bet or CFD in the UK, and on the IG platform forex pairs are grouped by, major, minor, exotic and emerging crosses, which are rankable by the popularity of an FX pair. Forex Signals You can also hunt out upcoming trading signals, which are directly linked to a trading ticket (with corresponding stops and limits) for quick execution. These stops can be guaranteed stops (which will always be filled at your price no matter is the market gaps below) or trailing stops that move based on how profitable your position is). Forex Options You can trade forex options on a daily, weekly or quarterly basis for major pairs from £1 per point, if you want to take limited-risk forex positions. One of the lesser used but most helpful features through is the ability to trade forex when others can’t over the weekend. IG provides a weekend market for EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDJPY on Saturday and Sunday. Pricing is obviously wider, it does help provide some more control over your positions. IG Forex Trading Platform To trade an individual forex pair, the platform “workspace” gives a good overview with quick access to news, analysis, and integrated trading signals (from Autochartists and PIA). The market data page also gives some good indicators of IG client sentiment, how much a forex pair has been traded within the last hour and month, what excepted price ranges are and what volatility has been like.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.6 | |
 | Forex Pairs 338 | Min Deposit £1 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 70% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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CMC Markets: Best Overall UK Forex Broker For Active Traders Account: CMC Markets Forex Trading Description: CMC Markets is suitable for forex traders who want tight pricing with robust technology, but also the options to trade peripheral markets should opportunities occur. CMC Markets won three awards in 2020 for its FX product, including our own Good Money Guide Best Forex Broker award in 2023, and it remains one of the best services out there. Is CMC Markets a good CFD broker? Yes, based on our broker matrix CMC Markets offers the most currency pairs of all the forex brokers we compare. 338 at last count. This is made up of both cash markets, but also CFDs and spread bets based on future prices (not DMA futures, but OTC derivatives based on the cost of carry). The Fx platform lets you rank all 388 fx pairs based on change and market so you can see what is most volatile and what are the cheapest and most expensive crosses to trade. They are also split into developed markets, which will traditionally have more liquidity and emerging markets, where prices may be more volatile. Prime Forex Services However, as well as being a client-facing forex broker, CMC Markets also provide liquidity to a wide range of smaller brokers. This means that there should always be good FX liquidity capable of filling large and high-frequency orders from even the most active traders. And of course, you can see what other traders on the CMC platform think of specific forex markets with the “market pulse” tools. The client sentiment indicator shows how many clients are long or short an FX market, and the Chart forum gives analyst views from a technical perspective. Forex Trading Platform: There are a few things that are unique to CMC’s forex trading platform, which are quite handy, for example, the web version is modular so you can set it to update all windows (news, pricing, sentiment, charts etc.) when you click on a new pair, or you can keep them separate. Which can give you either a good market overview, or let you focus on an individual asset. They also have 12 “Forex Indices” which are baskets of currency pairs that track the same base currency. So instead of speculating on the USD versus a specific currency, you can speculate on how the USD will perform against a broad range of economies, like a sector position in stock trading. There are a couple of FX ETFs to trade that track GBP, EUR and USD, but there are no OTC options markets, nor can you trade on exchange futures with DMA.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.6 | |
 | Forex Pairs 57 | Min Deposit £1 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 75% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
| XTB's trading platform lets you trade as well as invest in global markets Account: XTB Trading Platform Description: XTB’s Xstation5 trading platform is highly customisable and it was clear from when I tested the platform that it is going to appeal to traders needing a little bit more than point-and-click trading. Is XTB a good trading platform? Yes, XTB’s trading platform offers access to the usual markets and pricing is fairly standard, but what sets it apart from other brokers is some of the trading platform’s unique functionality. Most brokers offer it now but XTB was actually one of the first brokers to offer post-trade analysis, where the trading platform will show you where you are profitable and where you lose money. One nice feature is the ability to close all of your positions in one go. A time saver if you are a day trader and want to be flat at the end of the day, or if you want out of the market in a hurry. XTB produce their own market news, which is constantly updated throughout the day, which you can filter by asset class. If you combine this with the heatmap feature, stock scanner, sentiment indicators and automatically updated “hot” watchlist that shows where the order flow is going you can hunt out trading ideas Overall, XTB is a very good trading platform that offers a lot more than just vanilla trading, suitable for new traders or more experienced investors wanting to create and hedge their own markets.
Pros
Cons
Overall4.1 | |
 | Forex Pairs 84 | Min Deposit £1 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 65% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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Saxo: Excellent On-Exchange & DMA Forex Trading Platform Account: Saxo Forex Trading Platform Description: Saxo is an excellent forex broker suitable for experienced traders who want a robust forex trading platform with an institutional pedigree. The ability to trade on exchange forex futures or on-exchange FX options gives Saxo the edge over most forex brokers who just offer CFDs or spot FX. Is Saxo a good forex broker? Yes, Saxo is excellent for forex trading, especially for sophisticated traders. I would say that if you are a small FX trader or just getting started you are better off with a broker like City Index or forex.com where you also get trading signals and post-trade analysis (which can “maybe” help improve your profitability). But, if you are an advanced forex trader and want DMA access to currency futures contracts or want to trade forex options (either DMA or OTC) Saxo is one of the best forex brokers around. The only downside is that compared to discount brokers like Interactive Brokers, Saxo can be a little more expensive. You can use our trading costs calculators to compare Forex trading fees. Saxo offers traders a choice of their own proprietary forex trading platform SaxoTraderGo, as well as MT4, although SaxoTraderGo, is in my view by far the better platform. You can view major forex pairs and rank them by performance, change of various timescales, volume on the bid/offer, market spreads. Forex Trading Ideas If you need trading ideas, in the standard FX watchlist you can also see emerging, bullist and bearish forex trading signals. Once you click on a signal (which is displayed based on the time scale, 1D, 4h, 30 mins etc.) an order ticket is created that gives the expected direction, the technical pattern name and type as well as the success probability, the quality of the signal and the option to add a stop loss or take profit limit. You can also filter Forex pairs, by percentage returns sub-categorising major, minor and exotic markets. Research Saxo Markets forex trading research tab on the platform also provides insights from their analysts, about which markets are in focus and what economic indicators may have an upcoming affect on prices. They have also have good educational articles, videos and podcasts for those that want to learn more about forex trading risk management. Forex Trading Platform Despite being an institutional grade forex trading platform, I actually fine it one of the easiest to use, with the ability to drag and drop a forex pair between charting, options chains, research and your positions tab.
Overall4.6 | |
 | Forex Pairs 41 | Min Deposit $50 | GMG Rating | Customer Reviews | Visit Platform 61% of retail investor accounts lose money | Account Types:
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Forex on eToro is expensive but can be less risky than other platforms because of their leverage controls. Account: eToro Forex Trading Description: There are two aspects to eToro’s forex trading offering that makes it stand out. Social trading where you can copy other forex traders trades and the ability to set your own leverage. As forex trading is notoriously difficult, and I would say that the majority of eToro’s client are early-stage traders, the ability to reduce the amount of leverage is a very useful. Is eToro a good forex broker? You can trade forex on eToro, but to be honest it is quite expensive and more of an investment/stock trading platform. If you are solely a forex trader there are more specialist FOREX trading platforms available. Forex Leverage Control When you reduce your leverage it means you reduce your risk, by putting up more margin when trading forex. So, for example, when you open a forex dealing ticket, your leverage is set at 30x, but you can reduce this to 1x. Meaning that if you want to speculate on $1,000 of GBPUSD, on 30x leverage, you would only have to put up $41 in initial margin, meaning you are potentially risking $959 that you don’t have. But, if you set your leverage to 1X yo have to put up the whole, $1,000 which reduces the temptation to take on excessive risk, with money you do not have.
Forex Copy Trading The other feature that is unique to eToro is the ability to follow other forex traders through copy trading. However, it should be noted, though that if you are planning to trade forex by copying what other traders do it can be as hard as choosing your own trades. Just because a trader has done well in the past or if you think their trading ideas look good it does not mean they will be profitable in the future. Social trading is really only good for idea generation, which means you ultimately have to decide if you agree or disagree with another traders outlook. Pros
Cons
Overall4 |
❓Methodolody: Here’s how we selected the UK’s best forex brokers:
- Hands-on analysis: Our review team tests each forex broker using real money for a genuine trading experience
- Stand-out features: We compare what sets each platform apart to highlight their unique strengths
- Customer feedback: Over 30,000 votes from the Good Money Guide annual awards help shape our ratings
- Exclusive interviews: We speak directly with forex broker CEOs and senior management to get their insights
- Our process: Find out more about how we choose and rank providers on our How We Rate page
From the best forex broker UK options to British forex brokers and English forex brokers, we’ve shortlisted providers that meet the highest standards for safety, usability, and features. Whether you’re looking for the best FX broker, a broker for UK forex options, or simply want to find good forex brokers in the UK with competitive pricing, our rankings cover it all.
Compare the best forex trading brokers, explore currency trading brokers, and discover the best forex platform for your needs. Our experts also examine FX forex broker services and UK forex trading brokers to help you make informed decisions. With insights into the best currency trading platforms, forex market brokers, and more, this guide gives you everything you need to start trading with confidence in 2025.
How To Decide Which Forex Broker Is Best For Your Trading
The main things to consider when choosing a forex broker are:
- Usability: If you’re new to forex trading, look for a broker with a simple, easy-to-use platform. Professional platforms can feel overwhelming when you’re just starting out
- Added value, research & analysis: Consider the cost of trading and how competitive the spreads are. Good value keeps more of your profits in your pocket
- Professional services: Experienced traders need advanced tools like professional order types, better leverage options, and competitive pricing
- Market Access: The more forex pairs a broker offers, the greater your opportunities to trade across global currencies
- Account types: Check if the broker supports spread betting, spot forex, CFD trading, and DMA, giving you flexibility in how you tradem
- Leverage & Margin: Leverage lets you maximise your exposure but increases risk significantly. It’s a powerful tool, but it makes forex trading inherently high-risk.
In the below section, we cover all of these points in detail and also show you our picks for the best UK forex brokers and trading platforms for each category.
What Is The Best Forex Broker For Beginners?
City Index is one of the best forex brokers for beginners as it has a wealth of educational videos, analysis and trading signals. It also offers forex CFDs and spread betting.
Established brokers like IG Group are also great for new traders, especially those starting with smaller deposits. Alternatives like CMC Markets and Spreadex are equally beginner-friendly, with intuitive platforms that make forex trading simple and accessible.
The table below shows which forex brokers offer beginner-friendly features, including educational tools, leverage control, trading signals, and lower-risk currency investment options.
| Beginner Features: | Trading Signals | Educational Webinars | Client Sentiment | Leverage Control | Low-Risk Products | Investment Account |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Index | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Interactive Brokers | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Plus500 | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| CMC Markets | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Pepperstone | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Spreadex | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Saxo | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| IG | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| XTB | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
| eToro | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Trading with smaller deposits is popular among new traders who are reluctant or unable to commit a large amount of capital to FX trading. Over time, they may increase their trading deposit as they become more familiar with the way FX trading works and more confident in their ability to make a return on their forex trading capital.
- Further reading: If you are new to forex see our how to trade forex guide
If you’re a complete beginner, please also note that trading forex on leverage is not suitable for you. For a limited risk way to speculate on currencies you might want to consider purchasing an ETF that tracks a currency pair.
What Is The Best Forex Trading Platform For Professional Traders?
Saxo Markets was voted the winner in the Best Professional Trading Account category in our 2023 awards, and also won Best DMA Broker for those that like to trade on exchange FX futures.
Compare which forex brokers offer features that appeal to advanced and professional clients like DMA access, voice dealing, API access and prime brokerage:
| Advanced Features: | Voice Brokerage | Corporate Accounts | Level-2 & DMA | Algo/API Trading | Prime Brokerage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Index | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Interactive Brokers | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Plus500 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| CMC Markets | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Pepperstone | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Spreadex | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Saxo | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| IG | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| XTB | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
For high-net-worth individuals who are likely to have deposits over the £85,000 FSCS limit, it’s important to look for a provider with a decent balance sheet and a good track record. For example, IG Group has a market cap of £2.79 billion and has been in business for more than 40 years. Fineco is a fully-fledged and listed Italian bank with a market cap of €9.0 billion. Whilst privately held Saxo Bank Group had a total balance sheet equity of DKK 7.082 billion in 2019 and is 50% owned by Chinese conglomerate Geely Holdings.
Professional traders need to meet strict criteria around experience, knowledge of volumes traded and financial wherewithal. If you do qualify as a professional trader, you will enjoy higher rates of leverage and access to a wider range of products than retail traders. Professional traders are the most profitable group for FX brokers and they tend to offer those clients additional perks as well.
Which Forex Broker Has The Best Market Access?
CMC Markets offers the most currency pairs with 338 currency crosses to trade.
You can see in our broker matrix below how many currency pairs each forex platform provides access to and what other markets you can trade, if you want to seek out opportunities beyond FX.
| Market Access: | Total Markets | Forex Pairs | Commodities | Indices | UK Stocks | US Stocks | ETFs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Index | 12000 | 84 | 25 | 21 | 3500 | 1000 | n/a |
| IG | 17000 | 51 | 38 | 34 | 3925 | 6352 | 2000 |
| CMC Markets | 11000 | 338 | 124 | 82 | 745 | 4968 | 1084 |
| Pepperstone | 1200 | 62 | 32 | 28 | 192 | 880 | 107 |
| Saxo | 9000 | 182 | 19 | 29 | 5000 | 2000 | 675 |
| Interactive Brokers | 5233 | 100 | 20 | 13 | 500 | 3500 | 1100 |
| Spreadex | 10000 | 54 | 20 | 17 | 1575 | 2110 | 160 |
| XTB | 2,100 | 57 | 22 | 25 | 230 | 1080 | 138 |
There are as many potential FX trading combinations as there are currencies in the world, however, not every single currency is tradable or liquid. In developing markets in particular, exchange controls are often in operation, which limits the availability of that currency.
On the face of it, that shouldn’t affect the cash-settled, non-deliverable contracts traded in rolling spot FX and spread betting. However, in practice, it does, because these contracts are priced based on the underlying deliverable markets.
Alongside the FX majors, we have what are referred to as crosses. Crosses are FX rates that don’t include either the US dollar or the euro. So, for example, GBPCHF, the British pound versus the Swiss franc, is a pair that’s composed of two currency majors, but not the dollar or the European single currency.
In the table below, we have set out some examples of tradable pairs and crosses but there are many more combinations available. However, margin FX brokers do not make prices in all FX pairs and crosses largely due to liquidity constraints and the cost of dealing, or the width spreads in the less liquid offerings.
The most you should expect to see on offer are between 50 or 60 combinations, although many brokers may have a more restrictive list than this. It is also worth noting that leverage ratios can be tighter in less liquid FX rates as well.
Whilst it is important to note that having a wide range of forex pairs to trade is helpful if you scanning the entire market for price patterns (for example with City Index’s SMART Signals), the more exotic (or less common) a currency pair the harder it will be to trade. Exotic currency pairs are generally harder to trade because there is less liquidity, meaning fewer buyers and sells, which results in wider prices (bid/offers) which means the market has to move more before you can lock in a profit on a trade. There is also less news flow than on vanilla (more common) currency pairs, which is one of the major factors that move currency prices.
Which Forex Broker Has The Most Types Of Accounts?
Forex brokers like Saxo Markets and Interactive Brokers offer DMA currency trading through currency futures.
For spot FX there is no central market – foreign exchange prices are determined through various liquidity providers.
Platforms like Currenex offer a form of DMA, whereby the platform aggregates orders from multiple brokers showing liquidity depth, although this is still an OTC market.
You can work orders inside the price, but it’s not as functional as an established exchange.
Also, when trading Spot FX, your positions are rolled T+1, rather than settling at a set date in the future.
Things to consider when trading FX DMA:
- With DMA FX trading there will be a commission added to the trades
- With CFD FX brokers and spread betting commission is generally built into the price making it easier to calculate P&L
- It may not be worth trading DMA FX if you only have a small account
- DMA brokers tend to only offer accounts with competitive pricing to large private and institutional accounts
This comparison table of FX trading platform account types shows which brokers offer spot, CFDs, DMA and futures and options forex trading:
| Account Types: | CFD Trading | Spread Betting | DMA | Pro Accounts | Investments | Futures & Options |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Index | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Interactive Brokers | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| CMC Markets | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Pepperstone | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Spreadex | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Saxo | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| IG | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| XTB | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
Which Forex Broker Has The Best Leverage & Margin Rates?
All retail forex brokers regulated by the FCA offer the same margin of 3.33%.
Being able to trade forex on margin means that you can leverage your risk capital (money) to get more exposure to the market.
Here is an example of the margin used on a forex trade from IG, one of the largest forex brokers in the UK. It shows how much margin would be required based on a typical trade:
The main advantage of margin trading is you only need to put down a small deposit to open forex positions.
For retail traders the FCA has stated that you need to put down a minimum of 3.33% of the value of a trade. So with brokers like City Index or IG, if you want to trade £100,000 you only need to put down £3,330 as margin (this is called initial margin).
You will of course need to put down more if the trade more if the market moves against you to cover your losses (this is called variation margin).
The obvious disadvantage is that it is possible to lose money quickly and losses are multiplied significantly. If you are putting down a margin of 3.33% it means you are trading with 30 times leverage. So, if you have a position using £1,000 in margin on a £30,000 position and the market moves against you by 1% that means that you lose £300, which is nearly 30% of your initial margin (deposit).
It is possible to lower your margin rates with a forex trading platform like eToro who let you set your own leverage if you want to reduce your exposure. It is also quite common for brokers like City Index to let you trade via an amount rather than on a per-pip basis. It is possible to get higher leverage if you are trading through a professional trading account, but that is only for sophisticated and very experienced high-net-worth traders.
⚠️ What you need to know about FCA regulation
All forex brokers that operate in the UK must be regulated by the FCA. The FCA is the Financial Conduct Authority and is responsible for ensuring that UK forex trading platforms are properly capitalised, treat customers fairly and have sufficient compliance systems.
We only feature forex brokers that are regulated by the FCA, where your funds are protected by the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme).
What Is The Best Forex Broker For Currency Options Trading?
Saxo Markets is the best broker for trading forex options as they offer them as CFDs or on exchange contracts and have an intuitive and robust currency options chain on their SaxoTraderGo platform.
Interactive Brokers is also an excellent choice for on exchange forex options.
They are slightly cheaper but don’t have the personal service or voice brokerage that Saxo Markets provides.
Forex options are exchange-traded and listed currency options on the CME, which offers 24 different contracts. Options are a form of derivative that confers the right but not the obligation on a buyer of the contract, to be able to buy or sell a predetermined amount of the underlying instrument that the options contract is over.
Sellers or writers of options contracts are obligated, however, and must buy or sell the specified amount of the underlying instrument if they are called upon to do so during the lifetime of the contract.
Options trading allows a trader to speculate on a potential outcome over a fixed time with a small stake. Options contracts are traded in series, for example, on a monthly rotation, and options are offered over a range of levels above and below the current price, which are known as strike prices.
Options come in two different flavours:
- Call options (which confer the right to buy)
- Put options (which confer the right to sell)
So if we have a rotation or series of 12 monthly contracts with 20 strike prices in each month, and both puts and calls available, we have 12*20*2 potential trade combinations. That’s 480 opportunities, and that is just what’s available for one instrument. That compares very favourably with the binary choice of buying or selling in a standard FX trade.
Options have a finite life and to some extent, the valuation or price of an option over its lifetime is predictable in advance. That’s largely because the time value of options decays at a known rate and with a particular profile. The time value component of an option erodes more quickly the closer we get to the expiry date, and once the time value of the option has been eroded, the option contact only has an intrinsic value if it is in the money.
That is, the strike price of the option is advantageous compared to the current price of the instrument that the option is over. Such that you can buy the underlying more cheaply than the current offer price, via the option, in the case of a call. Or sell the underlying at a higher price than the current bid in the case of a put option. The more in the money an option is, then the higher its value.
Option prices are driven by other factors, including interest rates, volatility, or the propensity for rapid price change in the underlying instruments, and they are sensitive to changes in key ratios used in pricing models. Those sensitivities are known as the Greeks, as they are named after letters in the Greek alphabet.
As well as exchange-traded options or CFDs over the same, there are OTC options on FX and among those are exotic options. Options are considered complex products and exotic options even more so, and as such, these are not products for inexperienced traders. Only those with a clear understanding of the pricing mechanisms and risk-reward profiles of options should consider trading them.
Which Forex Broker Is Best For Spread Betting?
CMC Markets offers some of the tightest spreads on the most forex pairs for those who want to spread bet on currencies.
As an alternative to trading CFDs on forex, individuals and UK taxpayers can spread bet on foreign exchange.
Spread betting, as the name suggests, are wagers on the performance of an instrument or market rather than a trade, and though the methodology and pricing of these two types of transactions can look very similar, the tax treatment of any profits made in them is very different.
Profits made from trading are subject to UK capital gains tax, whilst under current legislation, profits generated through spread betting are tax-free. By the same token, losses made in trading can be offset against capital gains made elsewhere, whilst spread betting losses cannot.
- For more information forex trading tax, read our Q&A: Do you have to pay tax on forex trading?
The tax treatment is the principal difference between the two forms of speculation. However, some spread bets may be priced in a similar way to futures contracts; that is with the cost of carry or financing included in the quote at the outset, rather than being charged daily, as is the case in forex trade.
Spread bets are also likely to have a fixed expiry, whether that’s daily, weekly or quarterly. While FX trades, which are effectively CFD trades, have no fixed expiry unless you are trading a currency future or option, rather than the rolling spot contract.
The mechanics of spread betting on FX are very similar to those of trading FX. Of course, you will need to open a spread betting account to spread bet, rather than a trading account. You will also want to familiarise yourself with the bets that spread betting providers offer and the contract lifetimes, and the way that they are priced that could be very different for say a rolling daily bet, a weekly bet or indeed a monthly or quarterly bet.
One obvious thing to try to do is to match the contract you are going to be betting on with your time horizons, and style of speculation daily bets won’t be much use to you if you have a two- or three-week-time horizon. Equally, a quarterly contract may not be your best choice if you are an intraday bettor.
Forex Broker FAQs
Yes, if a forex broker is regulated by the FCA, it can be considered a safe place to trade currency as all forex trading platforms in the UK must be regulated by the FCA.
However, there is no guarentee that your capital will be safe if you make bad trading decisions and you can lose money quickly trading forex.
Forex trading is a highly regulated industry, for the benefit of traders and brokers. The UK regulator, the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) ensures that forex brokers are adequately capitalised (have enough money) to provide forex trading services, that they treat their customers fairly and adhere to strict standards of compliance and anti-money laundering.
Never trade with a broker that is not FCA regulated. You will see many adverts for offshore brokers offering forex trading online, as it is possible for offshore brokers to offer forex trading to UK residents. Being regulated in Cyprus also means that a broker can show that they are regulated in the UK and show up on the FCA register. So if you check the FCA website to make sure a broker is legit, they will show up. But, if they are not fully authorised and regulated by the FCA then client funds are not protected under the FSCS. The FSCS basically protects a certain amount of clients funds should a broker go into administration, see their website for more information here. If your broker is only based offshore you’ll have little hope of getting any money back.
On the Good Money Guide, we only feature forex trading platforms that are regulated by the FCA.
IG, City Index, Saxo Markets and Pepperstone allow scalping on forex markets.
Scalping the forex markets is a very popular form of trading as it involves trading in and out of positions very quicky trading to make short-term profits on very small price movements.
Scalping is a well-established FX trading strategy. However, these days, it’s becoming increasingly automated and time-sensitive. So, whilst retail traders can pursue a scalping strategy, they will probably want to find a decent and reliable trading bot or expert advisor to help them with both spotting opportunities and trade execution.
To be effective, scalpers need to have low network latency and maximum platform uptime, and they may wish to consider using a VPS service, which creates a virtual trading platform on a server that is co-located in the same data centre with the broker’s own servers. That service will usually come at a cost, or with minimum volume requirements attached.
Some forex platforms ban scalpers because they find it difficult to hedge smaller positions and some traders take advantage
The most effective way to scale the forex markets is by using an ECN or STP broker, however, you will want to ensure that you know exactly what your cost per trade is because one of the most important facets of scalping is being able to cut or scratch non-performing trades for the lowest possible costs, and of course to make profits on those trades that you don’t cut. But to book a net profit, your trading P&L will need to exceed your trading costs.
The most popular currency pairs for forex trading are the G10 forex crosses as they are the most liquid with the most news flow. Of those the top three traded forex pairs are, EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDJPY. For more information read our guide to the top ten forex pairs for trading
There is no such thing as a free lunch they say, and that rings true in trading. Brokers have costs and they need to meet those costs somehow, whether that is through the spread and/or commissions or trading against their clients via B-book. Where brokerage services are offered free, for example, in trading US equities, the broker is paid by a market maker or high-frequency trader for their client’s order flow. The adage that if something looks too good to be true then it probably is, remains good advice.
Forex Trading Guides
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