A perfect guide for achieving success through the selection of a favorable Lowest Spread Forex Broker. Pick the best Low Spread Forex Brokers to help in minimizing the trading fees:
About a third of forex traders make a profit and the rest losses. The difference is mostly how they trade, what they used to trade, and the risks of trading forex.
Hence, among the first steps to profiteering in forex trading are knowing the ins and outs of trading, using the right tools to trade and limit risks, and choosing a brokerage platform that offers the tools and support to support successful trading.
That said, spread betting, spot FX, forex CFDs, and forex options are the most common types of FX trading although it is possible to invest in forex as other products such as forex indices or baskets and of course the IPOs.
Table of Contents:
Most Popular Zero Spread Forex Brokers
Choosing a broker and/or FX pair that carries 0 pip or very low spread is important because the profit of trading is very minimal (usually about 5 to 10 pips profit for between 1 to 5 minutes of trading).
Thus, too large of a spread will limit profits. Choosing low spread forex brokers is beneficial to regular and high-frequency traders but also helpful to the starter and intermediate trader categories.
This tutorial on Low Spread Forex Brokers provides information on how you can succeed by selecting a favorable forex broker and a list of low spread forex brokers you can work with to reduce the forex trading fees.
In this tutorial on low spread forex brokers, we recommend forex brokers that offer low spreads and related costs while also providing trading tools, trading customization, and trader support that supports successful trading.
Types of Forex Brokers
FX brokers employ software to grant retail traders access to otherwise inaccessible FX markets while safeguarding their funds. For example, retail traders do not have or need a lot of capital to trade forex at the interbank market where the actual forex market happens.
#1) Market Makers/Dealing Desk Brokers: Market makers, which are most FX brokers, purchase large positions from liquidity providers and then divide them into smaller sizes for retail FX traders. Orders are executed in-house and there are benefits of fixed spreads, no commission on trades, low entry barriers, and single price quotations, among others.
#2) Direct Market Access Brokers (DMA)/Non-Dealing Desk (NDD) brokers/Straight Through Processing (STP) brokers: The brokers provide retailers with direct access to interbank forex markets with the pricing and execution being done by the big banks as liquidity providers.
They thus provide market access to those who have the funding to afford large orders and volumes, mostly professional traders. In this case, various price quotes are listed, spreads are variable, and they charge commissions.
#3) ECN (Electronic Communication Network) Brokers: ECN brokers channel their client orders to interbank FX market players but also to prime brokers and other players at the interbank FX market level. A retailer would need a large capital to trade on an ECN platform.
In this case, various price quotes are listed, spreads are variable, and they charge commissions.
How to deal with High Forex Spreads:
- Choose a broker platform that offers tight spreads even during volatile times.
- Avoid trading during times of volatility. Check the economic calendar for the release of important economic data that could affect spreads later. Concerning that, it is advisable to trade during times of high liquidity.
- Choose pairs with zero or low spreads on a broker platform. Exotic pairs, which include currencies from emerging economies, can increase trading costs because they have wider spreads.
- Using limit orders which provide the order to buy or sell a pair at a specific price or better. You get to set prices.
How to Choose a Forex Broker?
Things to consider:
Step #1: Understand how markets work. Lack of it is why most traders lose money since to them forex is not a make-money-quick scheme.
Step #2: Decide on which pairs to trade or jump directly to step #3 to decide which broker platform on which to trade.
Step #3: Research a few things about the broker including the number of forex markets available on a broker platform (you probably will need to trade more than one pair), charged spreads and commissions, deposit and withdrawal fees, minimum deposits and withdrawals, nature of support offered for free or at a cost to traders, trading hours, regulatory compliance, leverages and margin amounts, and the platforms on which you can access the market (mobile, desktop, etc).
Step #4: On choosing a broker, deposit funds and start trading.
How we Selected the Low Spread Forex Brokers for this Research
We initially came up with a list of forex brokers who would qualify for listing as low spread forex brokers then narrowed it down to the top 14.
The list we made is decided mainly on the spreads the forex brokers charge in combination with other factors, mainly platform features, trader support, types of commodities, and FX pairs tradable.
As you read through you will discover some low spread forex brokers charging as low as zero fees but some others charging fairly lower amounts and having platforms with much better features, trader support, and performance.
List of the Best Low Spread Forex Brokers
Some noteworthy list of Zero Spread brokers:
- IG Group
- CMC Markets
- Forex.com
- Capital.com
- ICMarkets
- FPMarkets
- Interactive Brokers LLC
- eToro
- Tickmill
- Pepperstone
- TD Ameritrade
- Trade Nation
- AvaTrade
- OANDA
Comparison Table of Top Forex Brokers with Low Spreads
| Broker | Spreads | FX pairs tradable | Other assets tradable for purposes of diversification | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IG Group | From 0.6 pips for majors | 100+ | CFD contracts and DMA lots on Forex, shares, indices, commodities, thematic and baskets, options, and futures. | 5/5 |
| CMC Markets | From 0.6 on majors | 330 | 80+ indices, 100+ commodities, 8,000+ shares, 1,000+ ETFs, 28 share baskets, and 50+ treasuries. | 4.8/5 |
| Forex.com | From 0.7 pips | 82 | 17 indices, 4 stocks, 9 commodities, and 10 metals | 4.7/5 |
| Capital.com | From 3 pips | 125 CFDs+ on FX currencies. | 20 indices, 19 commodities, 2792 shares, and 115 cryptocurrencies | 4.4/5 |
| ICMarkets | From 0.00 pips. | 48+ CFDs for FX pairs | Commodities CFDs, indices, metals, bonds, and cryptocurrencies | 4.4/5 |
Spreads for Popular Currencies on Top Platforms
| FX Broker | EURUSD | GBPUSD | EURGBP | USDJPY | AUDUSD |
| IG Group (average) | 0.85 | 1.40 | 1.40 | 0.94 | 0.82 |
| CMC Markets (minimum) | 0.50 | 0.90 | 1 | 0.70 | 0.60 |
| Forex.com (average) | 1.3 | 1.6 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.6 |
| Capital.com (actual) | 0.6 | 1 | 0.9 | 1.52 | 0.6 |
| ICMarkets_(average) | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
Detailed reviews on low spread forex brokers:
#1) IG Group
Best for trading community for extra support, trading rebates especially for corporate and advanced accounts.
IG Group enables customers to trade over 1,700 markets including 100+ forex pairs, through mobile apps, a web-based platform, third-party tools like L2 Dealer, trading terminals, and trading APIs.
The company offers both CFD contracts and DMA lots to forex traders with the former charging zero commissions for FX and the latter applying a variable commission.
Further Reading => Detailed Review of CM Index – Is it Legit
It rates as one of the best low spread forex brokers with spreads/commissions on major FX pairs starting from 0.6 to 0.9 pips. Spreads on major indices start from 0.8 pips upwards and spreads on commodities from 0.1 pips.
In addition to its rich trading education channels, customers can also automate trading and analysis for instance using the vast options provided by the ProRealTime trading platform.
Trading Platforms: Web platform, IG’s in-house Android and iOS trading app, MetaTrader 4, ProRealTime.
Minimum Deposit: $0. Maximum deposit of $99,999 per transaction by debit card and $50,000 per transaction by credit card.
Other Features:
- Trade with leverages of up to 200 times on most major FX pairs.
- No account opening charges or fees.
- Negative balance protection.
- Monthly cash rebates are based on a customer’s trading activity.
- Expansive trading knowledge — interactive courses, webinars, seminars, news, tutorials, etc.
- Risk management (with guaranteed stops, basic and trailing stops, and limit orders) built in IG’s and other trading platforms.
- Advanced charting with hundreds of trading indicators.
- Demo accounts, expert support 24 hours a day, and premium services (e.g. higher rebates, premium trading support, exclusive market insights, and networking opportunities) are not available on standard accounts.
Specifications:
| Number of Currency Pairs | 100 |
| Spread for EUR/USD (minumum) | 0.6 pips |
| Minimum Deposit | $0 |
| Max Leverage | 1:200 |
| U.S Clients Accepted? Yes/No | Yes |
| Regulation | Financial Conduct Authority, ASIC, FMA, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). |
Why we selected this Low spread broker:
In addition to low spreads starting at just 0.6 pips and outstanding features, IG is a highly trusted forex broker that has been in operation since 1974 and has one of the largest customer bases at 400,000+.
Pros:
- Vast options in terms of trading platforms, trading education, and types of markets to trade beyond FX.
- Protect your account balances with diverse own and built-in risk protection such as account closures on margin calls and negative balance protection. Own risk management approaches include limit orders, price alerts, stop-losses, and guaranteed stops.
- Trading community IG Community complete with forum, tips, guides, real-time chat, etc.
Cons:
- ProRealTime offers a free option for those trading at least four times in a given month and regular traders would need to pay from $40 monthly based on trading activity.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Forex spreads range from 0.6 to 0.9 pips on major FX pairs. Minors, Australasian, Scandinavian, Exotic, and Emerging FX pairs are available at higher spreads sometimes over 1000 and above pips although the majority are below 30 pips.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight funding fee to keep cash CFD positions open (past 10 p.m. U.K. Time); losses due to slippage on stops (slippage on limits may also mean profit).
Website: IG
#2) CMC Markets
Best for Forex indices investing for those who need diversification or perhaps lesser risk FX dealing, automated charting such as automated pattern recognition for trade suggestions, trading community.
CMC Markets offers more than 330 forex pairs both for the most popular global currencies like USD and lesser popular currencies.
Therefore, in addition to being one of the markets with the widest range of forex pairs tradable, you can get to trade less popular pairs unavailable in most other forex broker markets. Besides, like IG Group which has 440,000+ traders, CMC is also very liquid with 275,000+ traders using it globally.
It also ranks as one of the low-cost forex brokers with spreads starting at 0.6 pips for majors to around 4.2 pips for less popular pairs (minors). Hence less popular pairs are more expensive. Exotic pairs are even much more expensive to trade.
Trading Platforms: Web, native Android and iOS app (offers mobile charting with 115 technical indicators and drawing tools, more than 70 chart patterns, and 12 chart types ), MetaTrader 4.
Minimum Deposit: $0. Maximum is up to £50,000 per transaction when using credit and debit cards.
Other Features:
- Also, trade/invest in forex indices which are baskets of chosen pairs (currently 12 baskets are available). CMC Markets also offers 80+ indices, 100+ commodities, 8,000+ shares, 1,000+ ETFs, 28 share baskets, and 50+ treasuries to trade.
- FX market pattern recognition scanner which scans trading instruments every 15 minutes and identifies chart patterns to help traders trade better via future price projection practice.
- Advanced charting, execution (with trailing and guaranteed stop losses, partial closure, market orders, and boundary orders), trading education, news and analyses, risk management orders, demo account, and trading directly from the charts. It also provides client sentiment and sees several clients on a position and their position value in real-time.
- Trading community includes chart forums to discuss, share, and instantly copy chart analysis over the web.
- APIs for banks, brokers, funds, and trading desks.
- Up to 30 times leverage.
Specifications:
| Number of Currency Pairs | 330 |
| Spread for EUR/USD (minumum) | 0.6 pips |
| Minimum Deposit | $0 |
| Max Leverage | 1:30 |
| U.S Clients Accepted? Yes/No | Yes |
| Regulation | Financial Conduct Authority, ASIC, BaFin, FMA, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), CIRO in Canada. |
Why we selected this Zero Spread broker:
Low spread broker with rates starting at 0.6 pips, in addition to the high trust score and rating by the client as a testament to the outstanding features.
Pros:
- Versatile trading innovation from market scanners to client sentiments to the trading community.
- Low spreads for majors. Also, a huge number of forex pairs are available to trade.
- Trade FX indices for FX trading diversification.
Cons:
- Costly to trade some minor FX and exotic pairs pairs.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Spreads of between 0.6 pips to 2.2 pips for majors depending on currency pair. Between 0.7 pips to 4.2 pips for minors. Exotics cost between 3 and 100.80 pips spread to trade. FX indices cost between 0.25 and 5 pips on spreads.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: £10 monthly inactivity fee for accounts that run dormant for a year; overnight fees calculated as tom-next rate (difference between interest rates of the two currencies in a trading FX pair) + an additional 0.0027% CMC Markets charge.
Roll-over cost (although traders save 50% on the spread cost by rolling positions); small charge on guaranteed stop-loss order (GSLO); and a market data fee if you have an active subscription for the same.
Website: CMC Markets
#3) Forex.com
Best for specialist trading support from marketing strategists to build your custom trading plan, trading rebates for busy traders, and high leverages.
Forex.com offers desktop and web trading platforms on which customers can get free trading analyses (based on Autochartist and Recognia) for actionable trading opportunities. Through the company’s analysis tools, customers also get proprietary research from analysts, news and commentaries about current market trends, and technical insights from analysts.
I counted and Forex.com provides around 82 pairs including majors, minors, and exotics, and on this market, you can get to trade even the rarest pairs unavailable in other broker markets. The least spread at Forex.com is 0.7 pips for EUR/USD but it can go up to 225 pips for the rarest FX pairs.
Trading Platforms: Web, iOS, and Android apps, desktop platforms, MT4, MT5, and APIs. TradingView integration.
Minimum Deposit: $100. Max is up to $10,000 per transaction.
Other Features:
- Advanced trading of 70+ technical indicators (including pre-defined indicators on the desktop app), 50+ drawing tools, multiple chart types, etc.
- Advanced orders with guaranteed stop loss, trailing stop, etc. to help manage risks. Other order types include market, limit, stops, and OCOs. A partial close is also provided. Hedging tools allow you to go long and short in the same market.
- Webinars, research including from the Global Research Team, insights, economic calendar, week ahead reports, trading courses (beginner, intermediate, and advanced courses), etc.
- Account types – Standard, DMA, and Raw Spread Account.
- Forex.com also offers a negative balance protection, liquidation when equity available drops below 100% of the margin, and rollovers.
- Trade 17 indices, 4 stocks, 9 commodities, and 10 metals in addition to FX.
Specifications:
| Number of Currency Pairs | 82 |
| Spread for EUR/USD (minumum) | 0.7 pips |
| Minimum Deposit | $100 up to $10,000 |
| Max Leverage | 1:50 to 1:500 |
| U.S Clients Accepted? Yes/No | Yes |
| Regulation | Financial Conduct Authority (UK), ASIC (Australia), CFTC (USA), NFA (USA), IIROC (Canada). |
Why we selected this forex broker:
Spreads start at 0.7 pips and its large customer base attested to its high trust score among the clients and outstanding features.
Pros:
- Get specialist support from market strategists to develop your trading plan (personalized guide and support).
- Trader rebates which can benefit high volume traders (up to $10 per million dollars ). Also an affiliate program.
- Availability of rare FX pairs for trading. 80+ FX pairs.
- High leverage — Up to 50 times for standard accounts, 200 times for commission accounts, and up to 500 times for professional accounts.
Cons:
- High cost when trading rarest pairs.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Raw Spread Accounts attract a commission of between 0.7 to 2.8 pips for majors and up to 225 pips for rarest +flat $5 commission per standard lot (100K) charged when trade is executed. Standard Accounts attract a spread-only charge and no commissions. Margins from 0.5% to 20% on FX.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: $15 inactivity fees when the account is dormant for a year.
Website: Forex.com
#4) Capital.com
Best for among other lowest deposit minimums, forex CFD variability, rebates, multi-account trading in different currencies.
Capital.com provides 125 CFDs+ on FX pairs as part of the total 3,700+ markets. Others include 20 indices, 19 commodities, 2792 shares, and 115 cryptocurrencies. With spreads lying as low as 0.00035 (3 pips) to 2.2 points depending on the currency pair.
Apart from charging very low spreads, especially on majors, the platform is very popular having attracted over 555,000 customers and 98,000 monthly active clients.
Trading Platforms: Web, proprietary iOS and Android apps, desktop app, Capital.com API, TradingView, MetaTrader 4.
Minimum Deposit: $20.
Other Features:
- Leverage is up to 30 times.
- Education Hub offers trading courses and guides. Benefit from news, market analyses, videos, and economic events. Dedicated trading education app Investmate.
- Smart risk management tools, guaranteed stop-loss orders, take-profit orders, etc.
- Advanced charting with 75+ indicators and drawing tools.
- Open up to up to 10 demos and 10 live accounts in different currencies.
Specifications:
| Number of Currency Pairs | 125 |
| Spread for EUR/USD (minumum) | 3 pips |
| Minimum Deposit | $20 |
| Max Leverage | 1:30 |
| U.S Clients Accepted? Yes/No | Yes |
| Regulation | Financial Conduct Authority (UK), Securities Commission of The Bahamas, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (EU), CySEC (Cyprus), FSA, and SCB. |
Why we selected this broker:
Capital markets not only offer low-spread betting but also rebates for busy forex clients managing high volumes. It offers 125+ CFDs on forex, has free currency conversion, and the possibility to open multiple accounts for trading different currencies.
Pros:
- Start as low as a $20 deposit. Demo trading is also available for risk-free testing.
- Popular and non-popular FX CFD pairs to trade. Free currency conversion, no money withdrawal fees,
- Rebates for active traders – 10%, 15%, to 20% for trading volume categories $50m – $200 million, > $200m – $300m, and > $300m respectively.
- Vast options on FX pairs for FX customers.
Cons:
- Low leverage compared to some other platforms.
- $0 protection for US clients while it is £85k to UK clients, CAD 1 million to Canadian clients
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Spreads range from 0.00040 to 2.2 points. 0.00040 to 0.014 points on majors. Spreads on other FX pairs cost between 0.00035 to 2.2 points.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight fees (ton-next +/- 0.00411% daily fee), guaranteed stop-loss fee, etc.
Website: Capital
#5) ICMarkets
Best for trading platform flexibility with the possibility for better-automated analyses and auto trading, copy trading, and account type flexibility.
ICMarkets ranks as a low-spread forex CFDs trading platform because the spreads start as low as 0.00 points for Raw Spreads accounts. The EUR/USD average spread of 0.1 pips is indeed one of the lowest in the world even based on the comparison we did in this list. The market pulls 25 different liquidity providers and therefore very liquid.
ICMarkets lets you trade 48+ CFDs for FX pairs and therefore though you get better trading options than on IG Group, it is not the most variable when compared to some other brokers in the list some of which individually offer hundreds of FX pairs. However, like with most other brokers, you can trade commodities CFDs, indices, metals, bonds, and cryptocurrencies.
Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MT5, cTrader; MetaTrader and cTrader web, mobile (Android, iPhone/iPad, and iOS), and desktop (Mac). Also virtual private server, trading servers, and MT4 Advanced Trading tools (additional 20+ tools on MT4).
Minimum Deposit: $200.
Other Features:
- Automate trades using cTrader Automate. Develop own algorithms and customize technical indicators and trading strategies.
- Do copy trading using the cTrader copy trading platform. You decide on who to copy based on their performance in the market.
- Different types of accounts – Raw Spread, cTrader Raw Spread, Standard, and Islamic.
- Account funds protection with Smart Stop Out.
- Trader education including webinars, WebTV, podcasts, and tutorials. Extra resources such as blog, forex calculator, economic calendar, forex glossary, and TeamViewer.
Specifications:
| Number of Currency Pairs | 48+ |
| Spread for EUR/USD (minumum) | 0 pips |
| Minimum Deposit | $200 |
| Max Leverage | 1:500 max |
| U.S Clients Accepted? Yes/No | Yes |
| Regulation | Financial Conduct Authority, FSA, ASIC. |
Why we selected this broker:
Very low spreads at just 0.0 pips, huge support for extra professional trading tools, a huge customer base, and high trust scores, among other things.
Pros:
- Extra professional 20+ tools on top of MT4, such as Alarm Manager, Sentiment Trader, Tick Chart Trader, Correlation Matrix, Correlational Trader, Trade Terminal, Market Manager, etc.
- One of the lowest-spread forex trading brokers. Also charges low spreads and commissions on other financial instruments.
- APIs, liquidity provision service, and white-label program for broker clients such as start-ups and existing brokerages with a Forex trading volume of over $1 billion.
- Insurance cover of up to US$1,000,000 per client on trading funds.
Cons:
- Limited diversification or usage for those wanting to trade stocks, ETFs, or funds.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Majors – 0.0 pips while the average ranges from 0.02 to 0.85 pips depending on account type. Minors – from 0 pips (average ranges from 1.04 to 2.12 pips). Exotic – 0 to 10.3 pips, with an average ranging from 0.67 to 139.98 pips.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight fees (including short position overnight fees), guaranteed stop-loss fees, etc.
Website: IC Markets
#6) FPMarkets
Best for automated charting and trading, copy trading, and account type flexibility.
FP Markets offers spreads of 0.0 pips for major pairs. Most of the cost range between 0 and 100 points minimum and less than 100 points on average. However, it can spike to 6230 points when dealing with Pesos currency and 3962.4 with Kenyan shilling.
FP Markets allows trading of 10,000+ financial instruments including 71 FX pairs, ETFs, bonds, digital currencies, indices, derivatives, commodities, metals, and shares.
Trading Platforms: MT4, MT5, Iress, WebTrader, cTrade, mobile app, VPS, Autochartist, Myfxbook, MAM/PAMM, Traders Toolbox, Signal Start, and Social Trading.
Minimum Deposit: $100 and $1000 for geographically restricted Lress accounts.
Other Features:
- Leverages of up to 500 times.
- Trading knowledge, blogs, guides, demo accounts, webinars, ebooks, tutorials, and live support.
- Other resources such an economic calendar, a forex calculator, daily reports from experts, and technical and market insights from experts.
- Copy trading which allows to automatically and easily copy strategies from successful traders. Available on MT4 and MT5 platforms.
- Negative balance protection.
- Regulated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).
- Different types of accounts – Raw ECN account, standard account, Iress Invest account, Iress ViewPoint accounts.
Further Reading => List of the Best Forex Brokers in Australia
Pros:
- Trade even rare pairs available in dominant FX markets.
- Copy trading is helpful for beginner investors.
- Insurance coverage for EU clients up to €20k.
- Low minimum deposit of $50 — up to $50,000 for premier accounts. Demo trading is also available for a free test.
- Waiver for non-trading fees such as deposit fees and inactivity fees.
Cons:
- No investor protection for US investors while EU clients are covered for up to €20k.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: From 0 pips for major pairs. Average of between 0 and 100 for most pairs.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Transaction fees, overnight fees swap rates, live price feed or stamp duty or settlement fee, withdrawal fees, currency conversion, and account fees (MT4 and MT5 accounts are free).
Website: FP Markets
#7) Interactive Brokers LLC
Best for among highest interest paid on immediately available balance, portfolio management tools alongside trading, stock lending income, and among the fairest FX pricing mechanisms (prices pulled from 17 markets),
Interactive Brokers supports trading of 100+ FX pairs through the FXTrader platform at low commissions of between 0.08 to 0.20 bps tiered fee based on one’s monthly trading volumes. It supports up to 24 base currencies. The spreads are as low as 1/10 pip and the platform derives real-time prices for FX pairs from 17 of the world’s largest FX dealing banks.
Trading Platforms: IBKR Trader Workstation, proprietary IBKR mobile app, IBKR GlobalTrader, web portal, APIs, and IBKR Impact with which clients can invest in companies.
Minimum Deposit: $0 for cash accounts, $2000 for T Reg margin accounts, and $110,000 for a portfolio margin account. Maximum is $100,000 ACH deposits.
Other Features:
- Trading education, insights, podcasts, quant blog, webinars, student trading lab, short videos, trader’s calendar, and glossary.
- Portfolio management tools on the Trader Workstation platform include a rebalancer, risk navigator, mutual fund/ETF replicator, and ETF/stock benchmarker.
- Different types of accounts include individual, joint, trust, IRA, UGMA/UTMA, non-pro advisor accounts, family office accounts, small business accounts, advisor accounts, and money manager accounts. Also supports broker and FCM accounts, proprietary trading group accounts, hedger and mutual fund accounts, compliance officers, administrators, and institutional hedge fund investors.
- Earn interest up to 4.83% on instantly available cash balances or borrow at USD 5.83% – 6.83% from a single brokerage account. Other money management services include purchases and withdrawals using the IBKR Debit Mastercard, and bills payment.
- Between 1.0% to 22.4% margin rates depending on the base currency and account type (Pro or Lite).
Pros:
- 100+ order types including algo for automated trading.
- Free reporting tools – portfolio analysis, tax information, account analysis, reporting tools for brokers and advisors as well as for compliance officers.
- Earning interest on available cash balances. Rates are some of the highest in the market compared to other brokers.
- Earn stock yields when one avails the stock for lending to other traders.
- No inactivity fees, and low minimums for base accounts.
- One of the most feature-rich FX broker platforms we have reviewed yet including those in this list.
- One of the best institutional-grade desktop trading platforms.
Cons:
- Complicated account opening.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: 0.08 basis points for those with > 5,000,000,000 monthly volume to 0.20 basis points for those with 1,000,000,000 trading volume.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Short sale cost (cost of borrowing), research and market data access fees depending on subscription (some are free), exposure fee for high-risk accounts, etc.
Website: Interactive Brokers LLC
#8) eToro
Best for copy and social trading, straightforwardness, and ease-of-use for both advanced and beginner traders.
eToro does offer FX trading but not to USA clients. However, it provides access to 52+ currency pairs and FX CFDs for the rest of the clients in locations where eToro FX is accessible.
In addition to FX trading, eToro allows clients to trade stocks, ETFs, commodities, indices, cryptocurrencies, CFDs, metals, NFTs, and others, all constituting 3,000+ financial instruments.
Trading Platforms: Proprietary iOS and Android apps.
Minimum Deposit: $10, $50, $500, $200, or $10,000 for the first deposit depending on location and deposit method. After the first deposit, the minimum is $1. Maximum is from $5,500 up to an unlimited amount depending on the deposit method.
Other Features:
- Social trading and copy trading with an expansive community of 30 million investors. Easily copy and automate trades.
- Free online education. Extras include market analyses, commentaries, insights from professionals (for instance through the Tipranks Research Tab), weekly recaps, trader talks with professional traders, and market news.
- Trade currencies with CFDs.
- Short without leverage.
- Individual stop loss.
- Zero balance protection.
- Price alerts and pro charts.
- Smart portfolios.
Pros:
- Straightforward charges.
- Insurance up to up to 1 million euros or AUD, up to aggregate limit purchased by eToro. CFDs are covered.
- Robust social and copy trading platform.
Cons:
- No support for Forex trading for US clients.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: The average spread is 1 pip
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight fees, inactivity fees ($10/month after 12 months of inactivity), currency conversion (150 points), $5 bank wire fees, $5 withdrawal fees, copy trading fees, etc.
Website: eToro
#9) Tickmill
Best for automated charting and acquiring trader suggestions, copy trading, and mobile charting.
Founded in 2014, Tickmill offers 725 tradeable symbols that include 63 FX pairs, indices, metals, bonds, and cryptos. It also offers futures and options. It offers three types of accounts, namely classic which is commission-free, Pro, and VIP accounts with the latter two charging a per-trade commission.
Trading Platforms: MT4 and MT5 (Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS), CQG, AgenaTrader and TradingView. VPS hosting for algorithmic trading, API, Autochartist, and web platform. Tickmill mobile app.
Minimum Deposit: $100 and $50,000 for VIP accounts.
Other Features:
- Trade with leverage up to 500 times.
- 50+ charting indicators and 15 drawing tools. Mobile charting included.
- Copy trading, Signal Center for trading signals. Autochartist plugin for automated technical analyses.
- Trader education and market research — ebook, daily articles including technical and fundamental analyses, news, sentiment data. Webinars and podcasts.
- $100 minimum deposit.
- 5 base currencies.
- Swap-free Islamic accounts. Partnerships introducing broker, IB loyalty, multi-account manager, affiliate program, and Tickmill Prime.
Pros:
- Any strategy is allowed. Copy trading is also supported through the Expert Advisors tool and Signals Center.
- Negative balance protection.
- A range of third-party tools that enhance trading.
Cons:
- Small choice of currency pairs.
- Trade for 5 days per week from 7:00 to 16:00 GMT.
- Does not accept US traders.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: $2.00 commission per lot. Starting at 1.6 pips for Classic accounts and from 0 pips for pro and VIP accounts. 0.0 pips typical spread on majors. Zero commissions on Classic accounts. The commission is 2 per side per 100,000 traded for Pro and 1 per side per 100,000 traded for VIP accounts.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Withdrawal fees, overnight fees.
Website: Tickmill
#10) Pepperstone
Best for automated charting (with multiple tools supported for flexibility), auto trading, and base currency flexibility (with 10).
Pepperstone allows customers to trade 60+ currency pairs and more than 1200 CFDs across different assets 24 hours a week. It ranks as one of the low-spread forex trading broker platforms as spreads start at 0.00 pips for majors, 0.1 pips for minors and crosses, 0.3 to 700 pips for exotics, and 6 to 600 pips for NDF pairs.
Trading Platforms: TradingView, MT4, MT5, and cTrader on desktop, mobile, and web. APIs, free VPS on all account types, DupliTrade.
Minimum Deposit: $0. Maximum is unlimited except up to 50,000 of your base currency for Paypal, Neteller, and Skrill electronic deposit methods.
Other Features:
- Up to 500 times leverage.
- Smart Trader tools and Figaro package to enhance trading on MT4 and MT5. Manage risk, enhance technical analyses, etc.
- ASIC, BaFin, CMA, CySEC, DFSA, FCA, and SCB regulated.
- Also trade commodities, indices, crypto, currency indices, shares, and ETFs.
- Market analyses, daily market commentaries and reviews, expert commentaries, videos, economic calendars,
- Automate trades with extra tools like cTrader Automate, Capitalise.ai, Autochartist, and algorithmic trading tools (code your strategies).
- MetaTrader signals, DupliTrade, and copy trading via the Myfxbook copy trading platform.
- $200 minimum account opening balance.
- 10 base currencies – AUD, USD, JPY, GBP, EUR, CAD, CHF, NZD, SGD and HKD.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: From 0.00 pips for majors, 0.1 pips for minors and crosses, 0.3 to 700 pips for exotics, and 6 to 600 pips for NDF pairs. 0.0 – 0.2 pips for Razor accounts and 1.0 – 1.2 pips for Standard accounts. Commissions on standard lots – 10% of a standard lot when you trade 0.1 of a lot and 1% when you trade 0.01 of a lot.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Funding and withdrawals.
Website: Pepperstone
#11) TD Ameritrade
Best for auto-discovery of trading opportunities, portfolio management and analyses, and income-earning lending programs.
TD Ameritrade platform provides market access to 70 different currency pairs which can be traded from 6:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET daily, Sunday through Friday. It lets you trade options, futures, stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, futures, CDs, and bonds.
It is well known for its $0 commissions on online stock, ETF, and option trading products but FX is also commission-free on the platform.
Trading Platforms: Thinkorswim desktop, web, and mobile; TD Ameritrade mobile apps, Classic Web Platform, Next Gen Web Platform. The latter three do not support FX trading.
Minimum Deposit: $50. $2,000 for leverage or option-privileged accounts.
Other Features:
- Leverage is between 30 to 50 times.
- Research (including independent research for free ), use Stocks Overview and SnapTicket to uncover and use trading opportunities, insights, and trading education. Charting and analyses, market news,
- Portfolio management and monitoring over time, for instance, automatically track capital gains and losses to make tax season simple.
- Other types of accounts – Retirement, and IRA.
- Lending income-earning program (earn passive income on your stocks), stock dividend reinvestment, investment in IPOs, and cash solutions (investment cash and transactional cash).
- Types of accounts are Standard, Retirement, Education, Specialty, and Margin Trading accounts.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Spreads start from 0 to 2.5 pips with majors remaining mostly under 1.5 pips. The average is 1.2 pips.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Withdrawal and bank transfer fees.
Website: TD Ameritrade
#12) Trade Nation
Best for copy trading, high leverage of up to 500 times.
Trade Nation spreads start at 0.0 and you can choose to pay variable spreads or fixed spreads depending on the account opened. It also offers indices, commodities, stocks, bonds, and CFDs in addition to Forex. Clients can also trade these assets via copy trading.
Trading Platforms: MT4, iOS, and Android TN Trader app.
Minimum Deposit: $0.
Other Features:
- Leverage is up to 500 times.
- Copy trading where you mirror expert’s trading activity on the platform’s Android and iOS TradeCopier app. View and copy multiple people simultaneously. Social trading with discussions and chats about trade.
- Multiple account types – Standard (no commissions), Raw (spreads from 0.0 pips and commission from $3.50 per lot, per side), TN Trader (with low fixed spreads).
- Negative balance protection.
- Trade forex for 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.
- Trading insights.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: On TN proprietary app, spreads start from 0 pips to 50 pips. Majors are mostly below 1.5 pips. Margin rates from 0.5% to 2%. On MT4 the spreads start at 0.9 pips to 22.4 pips though they mainly remain at below 2.0 pips for majors.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight financing, dividend adjustments, slippage, and guaranteed stop charge (mostly 3 x Stake Triggering).
Website: Trade Nation
#13) AvaTrade
Best for social and copy trading, trade risk management with trade loss protection, and trading tool flexibility.
AvaTrade is a market maker broker with an in-house dealing desk. It deals in spot Forex CFDs and FX options.
With the platform, you can leverage AI-powered trading signals for improved trade automation and success, trade loss protection, and many more. On the platform, you can trade 1250+ instruments including 53 Forex pairs, Cryptocurrencies, Stocks, Commodities, and Indices.
Trading Platforms: MetaTrader 4, MT5, AvaTrader’s WebTrader, AvaTradeGO app, automated trading platforms DupliTrade and ZuluTrade among others. AvaTradeGo, AvaOptions.
Minimum Deposit: $100.
Other Features:
- Up to 400 times leverage or margins.
- AvaProtect risk management tool which offers up to 1 million dollars protection. Protect trades against losses of up to one million dollars. They are supported on WebTrader or AvaTradeGO.
- Minimal deposit $/€/£ 100.
- Trading education, tips, market insights, and intelligence from Trading Central with whom they partner (supported on WebTrader and AvaTradeGO and through SMS/email/push), trading calculator, global economic calendar,
- Social and copy trading via the (Android and iOS) AvaSocial app which also supports trade automation.
- Swap-free Islamic accounts.
- Professional accounts — with better risk protections, negative balance protection, and other favors.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: 0.9 to 300 basis points depending on FX pairs. Most regular pairs are charged below 4 basis points. FX options spreads range from 0.0005 to 2.8 basis points. The margin for the options is 1% to 5%.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Overnight fees, inactivity fees ($50 after 3 months of inactivity), $100 administration fee after 12 months of inactivity, etc.
Website: AvaTrade
#14) OANDA
Best for trade rebate earning, corporate accounts and option for relationship managers, low spread trading.
Oanda facilitates trading of 68 forex pairs using one of the two pricing models supported spread-only or Elite Trader. The first pricing model charges only the spreads while the second enables traders to earn cash rebates starting at US$5 to US$17 per million. The spreads range from 1.4 to 3.1 pips depending on the pair.
Trading Platforms: Oanda mobile and web app. MT4, TradingView, VPS, and APIs.
Minimum Deposit: 25 EUR, USD, GBP. 50,000 EUR, GPB, USD.
Other Features:
- Up to 50 times (majors) and 20 times (for all the other pairs) margin/leverage. Margin rates of between 2% and 25% depending on the currency pair.
- Corporate accounts.
- Advanced charts (100+ technical indicators, drawing tools, up to 8 charts viewable in one layout at the same time, 11 customizable chart types, etc.), access to TradingView from the proprietary web and mobile app, spreads calculator, trading education, etc.
- Access to automated technical pattern analyses via Autochartist. Also available are the MotiveWave professional charting analysis tool, and the MultiCharts trading software platform.
- VIP content and events, exclusive third-party discounts, and a relationship manager, all on the Elite Trader program.
- Trading hours are Sun-Fri: 17:03 – 16:58 New York Time zone.
Charges/Cost of Trading Forex: Spreads range from 1.4 to 3.1 pips. Minimum commission of $0.01 per trade.
Other Potential Charges/Costs: Financing fees, funding rates (overnight fees which are calculated as the tom-next swap rates plus admin fees between 1% and 4%)
Website: Oanda
Lowest Spread Forex Broker FAQs
1. What forex broker has the lowest spread?
eToro charges a pip as spread on the EUR/USD on average and there are no commissions charged. However, depending on the FX pair you want to trade, some low spread forex brokers charge 0 pips — they include ICMarkets, FP Markets, Tickmill, Pepperstone, TD Ameritrade, and Trade Nation, which charge from 0 pips for majors although minors and exotics can be expensive.
Interactive Brokers charges from 0.01 to 0.2 basis points, AvaTrade from 0.003 pips, and thus are some of the lowest in FX markets. CMC Markets, IG Group, and Forex.com charge 0.1 to 0.6 pips.
2. Is a low spread good in forex?
The importance of choosing a low-spread currency pair and broker is clear because a trader wants to make a small profit ranging from 5 to 10 pip over 1 to 5 minutes of trading. Too high spreads will cut into profits by the trader.
3. How do you avoid huge spreads in forex trading?
By choosing brokers who offer 0 pip spreads of FX pairs or the so referred to as zero spread forex brokers. In most cases, that will be for a select of FX pairs especially in the majors category. This means choosing a pair that offers a 0 pip spread can also be helpful.
Traders can also reduce spreads by trading during high liquidity, using limit orders, avoiding exotic currency pairs, and effectively monitoring economic events that affect spreads (most brokers now provide economic calendars).
4. Why do spreads in FX tend to widen at night?
This is due to the overlap of the Asian and European trading sessions, lack of market liquidity, and release of economic data (such as GDP, inflation, and employment figures) which mainly happens during the European session thus affecting the Asian session spreads. Increased volatility affects the spreads and subsequently the cost of trading.
5. How do you compare zero spread accounts?
TD Ameritrade, Tradenation, Pepperstone, Tickmill, FP Markets, and IC Markets are the zero spread forex brokers in this list but you will certainly discover that this is possible on the four (among major FX pairs) mostly traded namely EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, AUD/USD, and USD/JPY. Others will attract more spreads somethings going to hundreds of pips.
Comparing these brokers and accounts should therefore be done based on the following: the pairs that they charge zero spreads, the cost of trading other than spreads, the cost of trading other pairs or the spreads and other charges on other pairs.
Conclusion
This research tutorial dwelt on the list of top Low Spread Forex Brokers in trading. We saw from the research that a good number of low-spread brokers in FX provide zero spreads but this is mainly on major pairs while minors, exotics, and other pairs are super expensive to trade.
Brokers that provide zero spreads for some pairs, especially majors include ICMarkets, FP Markets, Tickmill, Pepperstone, TD Ameritrade, and Trade Nation. These Low Spread Forex Brokers are recommended when you want to trade just a few FX pairs that carry zero spreads.
Interactive Brokers, the most feature-rich FX trading platform, charges from 0.01 to 0.2 basis points, AvaTrade from 0.003 pips, and thus are some of the lowest-spread brokers in the FX markets.
CMC Markets, IG Group, and Forex.com charge 0.1 to 0.6 pips but rank top for other factors including Liquidity with 400,000+ traders, large amount of forex pairs tradable, trader support, and risk management tools provided.
We also discussed a number of ways traders can minimize FX trading costs and spreads.
Who is this research for?
- FX retail and corporate traders who want to minimize FX trading costs and understand FX trading better. This research on Low Spread Forex Brokers is very helpful for those searching for forex brokers with low spreads and overall trading costs.
- FX brokers who want to compare FX trading fees and spreads with others.
- Anyone interested in learning about FX trading fees.
Research Process:
- Total Low Spread Forex Brokers Enlisted: 30
- Top Low Spread Forex Brokers Reviewed: 14
- Time Taken to Research this Article on Low Spread Forex Brokers: 2 days