March 18, 2024 | Forex Brokers
Since there is a lot of confusion among retail traders about the overall quality of forex brokers, we have decided to create an advanced rating system and evaluate all the major forex brokers in the world according to the same set of criteria. Because we are aware that it is impossible to evaluate all forex brokers, we decided to rate only brokers with high daily turnovers. To appear in our ranking a broker must have an average daily volume above one billion dollars. At the end of the evaluation process, each broker is assigned a rating. The full list of brokers ranked from best to worst is available at the bottom of this article.
Our rating system splits the brokers into three major tiers: A, B and C. As you've probably guessed, the best forex brokers will have an "A" rating wile the worst will have a "C". Each category is also divided into three sub-categories, so there are a total of nine possible ratings: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C and C-. Below is the detailed description of what each category represents:
| A | A+ |
Only the brokers with very high scores on every of our major criteria will receive this rating. They are the best forex brokers in the world and are a good choice for every type of trader. |
A |
This rating belongs to very solid forex brokers which excel in almost any aspect and are just one small step below the industry leaders. Trading with such brokers is a very good choice. | |
A- |
Brokers in this category are usually very good and reliable. Most traders will have no issues working with such brokers, but if you want to trade large volumes you should try a broker with a higher rating. | |
| B | B+ |
Above average brokers will fit into this category. They are usually large brokers that cater to less sophisticated traders. They are safe to use for casual traders but are not a good choice for high frequency traders. |
B |
This is where you'll find the average forex brokers. While safe to use when it comes to your funds, those brokers don't have very competitive trading conditions. They are decent only if you never do day trading. | |
B- |
Brokers with this rating are not very reliable. While most of the times they do their job fine, there are instances when they fail to meet expectations. Not the worst brokers, but far from good. | |
| C | C+ |
Here you will find brokers with a rather poor reputation. Since there are much better brokers out there, we don't recommend any brokers with such low ratings. |
C |
Some people may call "C" rated brokers as scams, and they are not too far from the truth. Stay away from such brokers, and if you already use one, try to withdraw your money while you still can. | |
C- |
They are the worst forex brokers in the world. Stay away from them. Their business model is to trade against you and manipulate the prices in order to make you lose your money. |
As a general rule, brokers rated "A-" or above offer ECN/STP accounts and do not act as market makers for the standard and premium accounts they offer (they may still act as market makers for mini or micro accounts). This is why it is always recommended to choose a broker rated at least "A-".
It is also important to note that brokers rated "C+" or below are not very safe and are to be avoided. There are plenty of better forex brokers to choose from so there is no reason to work with a poorly rated broker.
Most mainstream brokers fall into the "B" range, and there are several reasons for that. They are usually market makers because most of their clients are casual traders coming from general advertising. They don't need to offer the best trading conditions since they deal mostly with less sophisticated clients who settle for less, since they don't know about the better options available. Having average trading conditions gives the broker better profit margins. This is why Saxo Bank, one of the largest forex brokers in the world by average daily volume, is rated only "B".
Figure 1: Saxo Bank main office in Copenhagen, Denmark
It is very hard for a broker to get into the "A" rating range because our criteria are very demanding. The brokers that make it into this category are the ones used by high volume traders and are the only ones recommended for those willing to trade large forex accounts. They are well known among the online forex trading community but are less visible offline.
Now that we explained what our ratings mean, it is time to show you the forex broker rankings.
Below is our ranking of forex brokers, from best to worst. We only include brokers with an average daily volume of at least one billion dollars into our ranking. Brokers with lower volumes are deemed unsafe because they may be unable to handle traders with large accounts, and this is why they are not included in our ratings-based ranking.
| A | A+ |
IC Markets (International Capital Markets Pty Ltd, Raw Trading Limited) Exness (Exness Limited) |
A |
XM Group (Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd, Trading Point of Financial Instruments Pty Ltd and XM Global Limited) HF Markets (HF Markets Ltd) |
|
A- |
IFC Markets (Ifcmarkets Corp) Pepperstone (Pepperstone Group Limited) Ava Trade (Ava Trade Ltd) |
|
| B | B+ |
FXTM (ForexTime Limited) Oanda (Oanda Corporation) Swissquote (Swissquote Group Holding SA) M4 Markets (Vantage International Group Limited) |
B |
Saxo Bank (Saxo Bank A/S) IQ Option (Iqoption Ltd) Iron FX (Notesco Limited) Olymp Trade (Inlustris Ltd) AXI Trader (Axitrader Limited) Eagle FX (EagleFX Ltd) Dukascopy (Dukascopy Bank SA) Instaforex (Instant Trading Ltd) Vantage FX (Vantage International Group Limited) |
|
B- |
Forex.com (GAIN Capital Holdings Inc) IG Markets (IG Group) CMC Markets (CMC Markets UK plc) X-Trade Brokers (Xtrade International Limited) Expert Option (Eo Services Limited) FXDD (FXDD Malta Limited) FX Open (FXOpen Markets Limited) Plus500 (Plus500 Ltd) |
|
| C | C+ |
Admiral Markets (Admiral Markets Group AS) FXCM (FXCM Group) |
C |
Easy Markets (EF Worldwide Ltd) Markets.com (Safecap Investments Limited) FX Pro (FxPro Financial Services Limited) |
|
C- |
Alpari (Alpari Limited) Etoro (eToro Europe Ltd) Roboforex (Roboforex Ltd) Interactive Brokers (Interactive Brokers LLC) |
Disclaimer: Our forex broker ratings are the result of our independent research. We are not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned above. While we do our best to assess a relevant rating to each forex broker we analyze, it must be understood that the ranking is just our opinion and does not offer any guarantee in relation to the mentioned companies. We try to keep the ranking updated every quarter according to the changes we observe when we update our forex industry analysis.
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