Best Forex Brokers for 2026

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 falling victim to a forex scam.

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 funds (in the form of 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 regulatory licenses in the countries where it operates, and is it in compliance with local laws?

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. 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.

If you are a beginner, you’ll need to determine if online forex trading is suitable for you. Check out my guide to forex trading for beginners to learn more about the basics of forex trading and to find out what beginner tradres should be looking for in a broker.

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 2026 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 (data excludes Japan due to the abnormally high trading volumes known to come from Japanese brokers), with an average of $1.35 trillion in monthly forex trading volume during the second quarter of 2025, according to data compiled by Finance Magnates. IC Markets’ pricing and execution makes it an excellent choice for algo traders and 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 second quarter of 2025 (data excludes Japan due to the abnormally high trading volumes known to come from Japanese brokers):

1. Exness
2. IC Markets
3. IG
4. TMGM
5. EC Markets
6. Plus500 (offers forex via CFDs)
7. Saxo
8. CMC Markets
9. CFI
10. XM

IG has the best forex trading platform in 2026. I've been reviewing IG's award-winning trading platform suite for ten years, and it still manages to impress me, year after year. IG combines platform power with usability better than any other broker I've tested. Its flagship is loaded with features that serve traders of all experience levels, including streaming news and integrated trading signals from Autochartist and PIA First, advanced charting with 30+ technical indicators, and the ability to trade directly from charts with precision. I really like its innovative "Recommended News" feature, which personalizes content based on your trading behavior.

IG also delivers one of the best forex trading apps in the industry, helping it snag our 2026 Annual Award for #1 Mobile App. It features excellent mobile charts that deliver dozens of technical indicators and drawing tools, and the ability to drag-to-modify orders with integrated risk-reward ratios calculated on the fly.

IG offers the most tradeable CFDs in the industry, with a staggering 17,000+ tradeable CFDs. CFDs, or "contracts for difference," enable traders to speculate whether the price of a stock, forex pair, market index, or commodity will rise or fall – all without taking ownership of the underlying asset. If you’d like to learn more about how CFDs, check out my guide to the best CFD 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. CMC Markets won the ForexBrokers.com 2026 Annual Award for #1 Most Currency Pairs (CMC has held a five-year streak for this Annual Award).

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 highly 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.