How to choose a forex broker: a checklist

The seven checks at a glance

All seven checks use public websites: the broker’s own pages and two or three regulator pages. A broker that fails check 1 or 2 does not need checks 3 to 7.

Check 1: which regulator supervises the company for your country

A forex brand is a group of companies under different regulators, and the one that opens your account depends on your country of residence. IC Markets shows why it matters: its ASIC company publishes retail leverage of 1:30, its Seychelles company 1:5000. It has no UK company in our data.

Pepperstone publishes that 73.6% of retail accounts lose money at its UK company and 80% at its Bahamas one. Find the company name and licence number in the footer of the site and in the client agreement before you register, not after the first deposit.

Check 2: is my broker regulated? Look it up on the register

Search the company on the regulator’s own register: the FCA Firm Checker or Financial Services Register in the UK, ASIC’s professional registers search in Australia, the CySEC entities list in Cyprus. The FCA asks you to check that the firm reference number and contact details you were given match the Firm Checker; Moneysmart adds that a website listed on the ASIC register should match the one you are using.

We match the companies in our data against the same registers: 128 of 152 regulated companies checked up to 20 Oct 2026. 7 brands have every company matched: CMC Markets, IC Markets, IG, Interactive Brokers, OANDA, Saxo and ThinkMarkets. For example: CMC Markets UK plc, FCA 173730, checked on the FCA register on 20 Oct 2026.

Check 3: clone firms and warning lists

A clone firm copies a real firm’s name, firm reference number and address, then gives its own phone number, website or e-mail. The FCA lists the variations: a copied website with a changed phone number, a link to the genuine site with different contact details, look-alike or Gmail and Outlook addresses. A claim that the register’s contact details are out of date is a warning sign; the FCA says it updates the register on average every 24 hours.

Search the name on the FCA Warning List and on Moneysmart’s investor alert list. Neither list is complete: Moneysmart states that a name missing from its list does not mean you can trust it.

Check 4: what protects your money

Retail clients of FCA firms get negative balance protection under PS19/18, so losses stop at the money in the account; in Australia, ASIC’s product intervention measures limit retail CFD losses to the funds in the trading account. If a firm fails, the FSCS can pay up to £85,000 per eligible person, per firm, and the Cyprus Investor Compensation Fund pays the lower of 90% of the covered claim and €20,000.

Neither scheme pays for trading losses: the FSCS states it cannot accept claims for poor investment performance. An offshore company may offer neither protection, which is the cost of its higher leverage.

Check 5: compare spread, commission and swap together

13 brokers in our data list a raw-spread account, which quotes a lower spread and charges a commission per lot. Pepperstone, first on this guide’s list, publishes EUR/USD from 1.0 pips on its standard account and from 0.0 pips on its raw account, plus GBP 2.25 per lot per side. Compare the total for one lot round trip, then add the overnight swap if you hold positions past the daily rollover.

Spreads labelled “from” are the tightest the broker quotes, not what you pay at every hour. Moneysmart lists spreads, commissions and financing costs as the fees that add up with frequent trading.

Check 6: test the platform on a demo

In our data 15 brokers offer MetaTrader 4, 13 MetaTrader 5 and 14 connect to TradingView; 20 of 20 publish a demo account. On the demo, place and modify a stop-loss, read the margin level and check the spread at the hour you plan to trade. A demo does not show slippage on a fast market or how you react to a real loss.

Check 7: how you deposit and withdraw

Payment methods range from 3 to 9 among the brokers on this guide’s list. eToro, Exness and FxPro publish no single minimum deposit; it depends on country or payment method. Our data does not record withdrawal fees or processing times, so read them in the broker’s fee schedule before the first deposit.

The FCA describes a common forex scam pattern: small early returns, a push to invest more, then a suspended account. Treat any request to pay a fee or tax before a withdrawal as fraud.