9 Best Forex Brokers of 2024 (2024)

A forex broker is a company that is licensed (or considered exempt) by a national regulator to grant you — as a retail or professional client — the ability to place forex trades (buy or sell foreign currencies), by way of an online trading platform or over the phone (known in the industry as voice broking). An online broker may offer you the underlying currency, or a non-deliverable spot contract or derivative such as a contract for difference (CFD) depending on any relevant country-specific regulatory restrictions. It's important to only use brokers that are properly regulated to reduce your risk of being scammed.

Yes, to trade forex you'll need to use a forex broker. You'll need to open a forex account with an online broker and deposit enough collateral (margin) to enable you to place orders with your broker.

The forex broker's job is to execute your orders — either internally by acting as the principal to your trade (market maker execution) or by sending your orders to another market, thus acting as your agent (agency execution).

Your broker should be regulated and properly licensed in your country of residence (or in a major financial center). We’ve included a few important questions that are worth asking to help determine if your forex broker is trustworthy:

• Does the broker have adequate financial operating capital?
• How long has the broker been in operation?
• Does the online broker hold proper regulatory licenses in the countries where it operates, and is it in compliance with local laws?

The specific amount of money you’ll need for online forex trading will depend on multiple factors, such as your personal financial situation, your trading goals, and your tolerance (or appetite) for risk.

Beginner forex traders might start trading forex with as little as $100, while it’s not uncommon for professional day traders to have six or even seven-figure trading accounts. If you are a beginner, you’ll first need to determine if online forex trading is suitable for you. Check out our guide to trading forex for beginners here.

The next step will be deciding on your trading budget. This is especially important given the risks involved in trading forex from a margin account with leverage. Forex brokers typically offer a range of contract sizes so you can fine-tune the size of your forex trade – which will determine how much risk you are taking for a given profit target.

A micro account with a low margin requirement would make it possible to place forex trades and test a trading strategy with as little as $100 of risk capital. In this case, your potential risk will be limited – but so will your potential rewards. Trading forex with a small amount of risk capital can let you test a new investment methodology, or allow beginner traders who are new to forex trading to learn by trial and error without “breaking the bank.”

Regardless of your trading budget, you'll need to choose a dependable method for depositing and withdrawing funds for your forex account. PayPal has grown in popularity as a way to fund forex trading accounts, due to its extensive international presence and wide range of supported currencies. Head over to our guide to the best PayPal forex brokers to learn more about using PayPal to fund your account, and to see our list of the best forex brokers that accept PayPal.

IG took first place for our 2024 Annual Awards as the best overall forex broker, with 100 available currency pairs and the ability to trade CFDs and forex options, traders have plenty of choices. IG holds nearly a dozen regulatory licenses (and holds the distinction of being the only forex broker regulated in both Switzerland and the U.S.); simply put, IG is one of the most trusted brokers in the industry.

IC Markets is the largest forex broker by trading volume, with over $774 billion in forex trading volume in the third quarter of 2021 alone, according to data compiled by Finance Magnates. IC Markets is also well-known as an excellent option for algo trading due to its great pricing and execution. Check out our full-length review of IC Markets, and algo traders (or traders who want to learn about HFT systems) can check out our popular guide to high-frequency trading.

Here is a list of the top 10 brokers by forex and CFD trading volume according to data compiled by Finance Magnates during the third quarter of 2021 (data excludes Japan due to the abnormally high trading volumes known to come from Japanese brokers):

• Exness
• IC Markets
• IG
• Plus500 (offers forex CFDs)
• Saxo
• CMC Markets
• TMGM
• FXCM
• StoneX (FOREX.com and City Index)
• Pepperstone

CMC Market's Next Generation platform comes with a massive selection of nearly 10,000 tradeable instruments. It delivers a terrific user experience, as well as advanced tools, comprehensive market research, and an excellent mobile app. Hands down, the CMC Markets Next Generation trading platform is a market leader that will impress even the pickiest of traders. The new Dynamic Trading tool allows you to place multiple trades simultaneously, which was a nice innovation by CMC Markets this year.

What do you value most in a forex broker? Maybe you want to trade forex on the go. You might be looking for the most cost-effective forex brokers. Or maybe you are a beginner forex trader who is just getting started.

With a wide range of forex brokers comes a wide variety of features, specialties, and forex trading platforms. To help you find the best forex broker for what you’re looking for, we’ve listed our top picks for some of the most sought-after features in the forex industry.

• menu_book Great for beginners - IG’s vast selection of educational materials (it even has a mobile app dedicated to trader education, called IG Academy) makes it our top choice for beginner traders. Check out our full guide on the best forex brokers for beginners here.
• smartphone Excellent trading app - Saxo’s SaxoTraderGO mobile app boasts an impressive, intelligent design, paired with an abundance of useful information that makes it easy for traders to make clear-headed decisions, making it our top trading app. Check out our full guide to the best forex trading apps here.
• groups Social copy trading - Interested in following the trades of expert forex traders? eToro deftly merges self-directed trading and copy trading into a sleek, unified trading experience. Copy traders can read our full social copy trading guide here.
• euro Low costs - Of Tickmill’s three accounts (Classic, Pro, and VIP), it was the competitive commission-based pricing for professionals available through its VIP and PRO accounts that helped Tickmill finish 1st overall for Commissions and Fees. Take a look at our full guide dedicated to low-cost and zero spread brokers here.
• app_shortcut MetaTrader - IC Markets’ MetaTrader offering includes an impressive range of third-party research and trading tool plugins, which helped IC Markets earn our pick for the best MetaTrader broker. Read our full MetaTrader guide, and learn more about the newest version of MetaTrader with our guide to the Best MetaTrader 5 Brokers.
• currency_bitcoinCrypto trading - eToro’s large number of available crypto assets helped make it our top broker for crypto trading for our 2024 Annual Awards. Check out my guide that covers crypto trading and the best bitcoin brokers here, or read my guide to the Best Bitcoin ETF brokers.
• laptop_mac Mac Compatible Brokers - Saxo - Streamlined designs and robust trading tools make Saxo’s desktop platform, SaxoTraderPRO, a winner. Mac users should take a look at our guide to the best forex trading platforms for Mac devices.

Saxo offers the most tradeable CFDs in the industry, with a staggering 60,000+ tradeable symbols available. CFDs, or "contracts for difference," enable traders to speculate whether the price of a stock, forex pair, market index, or commodity will go up or down without taking ownership of the underlying asset. If you’d like to learn more about how CFDs work (and to see our picks for the best CFD trading platforms), check out our full-length guide to the Best CFD Brokers and Trading Platforms.

Alongside nearly 10,000 CFDs, CMC Markets offers the most tradeable currency pairs, with 158 pairs that can be quoted both ways (i.e. EUR/USD or USD/EUR), which comes to a total of 316 pairs.

As a highly-trusted and regulated global brand, Interactive Brokers (IBKR) provides everything professional traders might need, from advanced trading tools and platform features to competitive pricing across a wide variety of markets, as well as connectivity to over 130 global exchanges. In addition to competitive spreads and low commission-based pricing for forex, Interactive Brokers provides more third-party research than any other broker.

Interactive Brokers continues to innovate its forex trading platform offering with its Impact app for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, alongside the related Impact dashboard available in its Trader Workstation (TWS) desktop and WebTrader platforms.

Professional client status: In today's highly regulated forex world, traders who want to maximize their margin leverage must apply and obtain ESMA's professional client status with their broker. Traders designated as Professionals in the EU do not receive negative balance protection and other consumer safety mechanisms such as eligibility for compensation schemes in the event of a broker's insolvency.

Here is a list of three of the most important factors to keep in mind when choosing an online broker for forex trading.

1. First, make sure your broker is properly licensed and regulated. The safety of your deposit is always the top priority.
2. Next, compare the account offerings, trading platforms, tools, and investment research provided by each broker.
3. Finally, read detailed forex broker reviews to compare pricing and product offerings (e.g., number of forex pairs and CFDs available to trade) to find what is most important to your forex trading and investment needs.

It’s important to make sure that your forex broker is well-trusted and properly regulated in order to avoid forex scams. To see an intuitive, comprehensive directory of highly regarded regulatory agencies, check out our Trust Score page. Also, be sure to check out our in-depth reviews of forex brokers – we detail the regulatory status of each individual forex broker across the international forex landscape.

We’ve also put together a step-by-step guide to help you determine if your forex broker is well-regulated:

1. Find its license number: Identify the online broker’s registration number from the disclosure text at the bottom of the broker's homepage.
2. Confirm the broker’s public profile: Look up the entity name (i.e. the legal company or brand name) on the regulator's website to validate the registration number.
3. Confirm regulatory status: We track, rate, and rank forex brokers across over 20 international regulators, and you can find the official websites of the biggest, most important international regulators on our Trust Score page.
4. Global availability: Confirm that the broker can accept clients in your country of residence. If the broker lacks regulation in your home country, it’s still worth checking to see if they can legally accept clients from your country (for example, if the broker is regulated in an alternate jurisdiction that is deemed acceptable).
5. Verification: Call the phone number or contact the email address listed on the regulators’ forex broker directory if you have any doubts as to the legitimacy of a website or brand purporting to be regulated.

Forex Risk Disclaimer

There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Read more on forex trading risks.