Independent broker ratings

Every rating here is backed by evidence you can check.

We score forex brokers against one published formula: regulation, fund safety, costs, transparency, complaints and platform. Then we show our working, and log it every time a verdict changes.

57 Brokers rated

38 Scam

10 High Risk

2 Neutral

7 Trusted

Latest reviews

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XTB Review 2026: Fined PLN 20 Million Over How It Sold CFDs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) · FCA 522157; KNF-supervised in Poland; Belize company 153,939 with FSC Belize registration 6442514 · cfd, commodities, crypto, etfs, forex, indices, stocks Neutral 6.8 /10 20 Sep 2026 Interactive Brokers Review 2026: Your UK Account Is Carried in America ASIC, Central Bank of Ireland, CFTC / NFA, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), MAS, SEC · FCA 208159; Central Bank of Ireland C423427 (MiFID firm and MiCAR crypto-asset service provider); SEC 8-47257 and FINRA CRD 36418; MAS CMS100917; ASIC AFSL 453554 · cfd, commodities, crypto, etfs, forex, indices, stocks Trusted 8.1 /10 20 Sep 2026 Saxo Review 2026: A Systemically Important Bank That Left Australia Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), MAS · FCA 551422; Finanstilsynet-supervised Danish bank, designated SIFI 25 June 2026; FINMA-supervised Swiss bank on the esisuisse list; MAS Capital Markets Services licence · cfd, commodities, etfs, forex, indices, stocks Trusted 8.1 /10 20 Sep 2026 CMC Markets Review 2026: No Offshore Entity, One Licence Being Cancelled ASIC, BaFin, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), MAS · FCA 173730 (CMC Markets UK plc), 948126 (CMC Markets Investments), 170627 (CMC Spreadbet, applied to cancel 5 Feb 2026); BaFin, EdW member 139; AFSL 238054 and 246381; MAS Capital Markets Services licence; CIRO Investment Dealer · cfd, commodities, etfs, forex, indices, stocks Trusted 8.2 /10 19 Sep 2026 IG Review 2026: Twelve Companies, One Bank Licence, No Fines Found ASIC, BaFin, CFTC / NFA, DFSA, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), FSA Japan, FSCA, MAS · FCA 195355 (IG Markets) and 114059 (IG Index); BaFin 148759; FINMA bank and securities dealer; MAS CMS licence; AFSL 515106; FSCA FSP 41393 plus ODP approved; NFA 0509630 (tastyfx); BMA investment business and digital assets 54814 · cfd, commodities, crypto, etfs, forex, indices, stocks Trusted 8.3 /10 19 Sep 2026 FOREX.com Review 2026: Eight Licensed Companies Behind One Brand CFTC / NFA, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) · FCA 446717; NFA 0339826; CySEC 400/21; CIRO Investment Dealer; Kanto Local Finance Bureau (Kinsho) 291; AFSL 345646; MAS Capital Markets Services licence; CIMA 25033 · commodities, forex, indices Trusted 7.9 /10 19 Sep 2026

Recent verdict changes

20 Sep XTB Review 2026: Fined PLN 20 Million Over How It Sold CFDs Neutral First published at 6.8, Neutral. The finding that drives the review is KNF's decision of 30 March 2026 imposing a PLN 20,000,000 fine on XTB S.A., read on KNF's own site, on four grounds: improperly establishing clients' knowledge and experience between 1 January 2022 and 16 August 2023; failing to define the target market proportionately to instrument complexity; publishing a HOT list to clients while executing their orders on its own account, creating an unmanaged conflict of interest; and providing unreliable and misleading information about CFDs and their risks. KNF's summary is that the company assessed the appropriateness of CFDs using clients' experience of non-complex instruments. KNF's later notice of 11 May 2026 confirms XTB has requested reconsideration and that the decision is NOT FINAL, which the review states in the lede and repeats in the FAQ. The 2018 PLN 9.9 million asymmetric-slippage fine, upheld on final appeal on 1 March 2023, is reported from trade press and marked as such. Regulation and fund safety both score 7.5: the FCA register records XTB Limited can hold and can control client money, so UK clients have the FSCS at GBP 85,000 rather than an overseas carrying broker, and the parent is WSE-listed; both are held down by the Belize entity, which has no compensation scheme. Cost scores 6.0 on the widest majors of the six UK-rankable brokers (EUR/USD 0.8, USD/JPY 1.1, read on XTB's own instrument pages) and the 0.5% currency conversion fee behind the 0% commission headline, which costs GBP 100 on a GBP 10,000 round trip against about GBP 3 at Interactive Brokers. Transparency scores 6.0: fees are published clearly but spreads are only on individual instrument pages, the EUR/GBP page publishes an implausible 0.000010 that we excluded as a page error, and the KNF finding is itself about misleading risk information. Complaints scores 4.0 against two KNF fines and a 74% retail loss rate, the worst of the six. Ten clone firm warnings on the FCA register, the most we have counted, recorded but not scored against the firm. No XTB entity appears on the FSCA OTC Derivative Providers register; all 94 entries read, and XTB does not appear to market to South Africa, so this is an absence rather than a gap.

20 Sep Interactive Brokers Review 2026: Your UK Account Is Carried in America Trusted First published at 8.1. Five entities verified at the regulator's own source: the FCA register (Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited, FRN 208159, Authorised 06/02/2002, one cosmetic previous name, and six clone firm warnings), the Central Bank of Ireland register (Interactive Brokers Ireland Limited, C423427, a MiFID firm and separately a MiCAR crypto-asset service provider), the MAS Financial Institutions Directory (Interactive Brokers Singapore Pte. Ltd.), FINRA BrokerCheck (Interactive Brokers LLC, CRD 36418) and SIPC's own protection terms. The finding that drives the review is IBKR's own UK disclaimer that accounts are cleared and carried by Interactive Brokers LLC and that products are only covered by the UK FSCS in limited circumstances, which leaves a spot forex position with no compensation scheme behind it in any jurisdiction checked. Fund safety scores 7.5 rather than higher despite $22.3bn of equity capital, because per-client statutory cover on the products this site reviews is weaker than a UK-carried account would give. Transparency scores 8.5, the highest recorded, for publishing the full tiered commission schedule with minimums, the margin benchmark and markup by tier, the client fund segregation split, and the carrying and FSCS disclosure itself. Complaints scores 6.0 against 92 final regulatory events and 29 arbitrations on BrokerCheck, led by the $38 million SEC, FINRA and CFTC settlement of 10 August 2020 over more than 150 unfiled Suspicious Activity Reports, and nine orders totalling roughly $6.2 million in 2025. The review states plainly that a US broker-dealer's exchange disciplinary record is not directly comparable with a UK-only firm's FCA record. Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India and Japan are recorded as IBKR declares them and marked as not verified; AFCA's member search returned 404 on three attempts.

20 Sep Saxo Review 2026: A Systemically Important Bank That Left Australia Trusted First published at 8.1. Four entities verified at the regulator's own source: Finanstilsynet's SIFI designation of 25 June 2026 naming Saxo Bank A/S among seven Danish systemically important institutions, the FCA register (Saxo Capital Markets UK Ltd, FRN 551422, five declared Saxo trading names and a single cosmetic previous name), the esisuisse member bank list (Saxo Bank (Schweiz) AG) and the MAS Financial Institutions Directory (Saxo Capital Markets Pte. Ltd.). Danish and Swiss deposit-insurance limits read at each scheme's own site. Fund safety scores 8.0, the highest recorded, on the strength of the SIFI designation and two banking licences. Cost is held at 7.0 because EURUSD at 0.7 is the widest of the five brokers we would rank for the UK and because the general charges page lists fourteen fees without rendering any values. AFCA's register shows AFSL 280372 now held by Totality Wealth Limited and home.saxo/en-au redirecting to totality.com.au, so Saxo has exited Australia; that is recorded in the review because most published comparisons have not caught it. Hong Kong, the Netherlands, France, Japan and the UAE were not checked, and Finanstilsynet's enforcement record was not searched, so the complaint pillar is held at 7.5 rather than rewarding an untested clean result.

20 Sep CMC Markets Review 2026: No Offshore Entity, One Licence Being Cancelled Spreads found and the holding-rate basis resolved. The trading-costs page tables still do not render, but the same figures are published on each instrument's own page at cmcmarkets.com/en-gb/instruments/, which does: EUR/USD 0.50, EUR/GBP 0.70, USD/JPY 0.70, GBP/USD 0.90 minimum, plus minimum trade size, guaranteed-stop availability and a tier-1 margin rate of 3.34%. Against IG's published minimums, CMC is tighter on EUR/USD and EUR/GBP and level on the other two. Those pages also print the daily and yearly holding rate side by side, and yearly equals daily times 365 on every pair checked, which confirms at source the annualisation the review had previously shown as our own arithmetic. Cost raised 7.5 to 8.0 now that the spreads are readable and competitive. Transparency raised 7.5 to 8.0 because the figures are published, just not on the page that claims to carry them. Score moves from 8.1 to 8.2. Verdict unchanged.