The Forex Market is the largest and most liquid financial market globally, where currencies worldwide are traded continuously, 24 hours a day, five days a week. Traders in this market speculate on currency values by analyzing changes in global exchange rates.
Having spent over 25 years in forex trading and speaking at conferences internationally, I am committed to assisting traders in finding reliable online brokers. I have thoroughly tested and reviewed more than 60 forex brokers, and in this guide, I’m excited to share my top picks for the best brokers in the industry.
Best Forex Brokers for Beginners
Choosing the right Forex broker is crucial for beginners, and experts at Traders Union consider several key factors to ensure a positive and user-friendly trading experience. Here’s a breakdown of the qualities that influence their ratings:
Regulation: Reputable brokers are overseen by recognized financial authorities, offering a safety net for traders’ funds and promoting fair trading practices.
Education: Brokers that cater to beginners typically provide extensive educational resources, including tutorials, webinars, and trading guides to help newcomers grasp the fundamentals of Forex trading.
Demo Trading: Access to a demo account allows beginners to practice their trading strategies and get accustomed to the broker’s platform without the risk of losing real money.
Accessibility: Brokers with low minimum deposit requirements enable beginners with limited funds to enter the market, making it easier to start trading with smaller amounts.
Social Trading: Features that support social trading allow beginners to observe and replicate the trades of more experienced traders, providing valuable insights and learning opportunities.
Forex Signals: Some brokers offer helpful resources to improve trading strategies, including trading signals from trusted sources like Trading Central, along with tools for technical analysis that help traders make informed decisions based on expert recommendations.
Additional Tools: Certain brokers provide various trading tools and features, such as technical indicators, charting options, and customizable interfaces, to assist beginners as they advance in their trading careers. For instance, some brokers offer tools like Autochartist to enhance trading strategies.
IG
IG is an excellent choice for beginners and first-time forex traders due to its intuitive trading platforms and extensive educational content. It received the ForexBrokers.com 2024 Annual Award for #1 Education, reflecting the high quality of its resources. IG offers a wide variety of educational materials, including articles, videos, webinars, and courses, all designed to cater to traders of different experience levels. Additionally, there’s a dedicated mobile app focused solely on education.
Beyond its educational offerings, IG is among the highest-rated brokers I have reviewed for ForexBrokers.com, consistently ranking at or near the top in almost every key category. This performance led me to choose IG as the #1 Overall Broker in the ForexBrokers.com 2024 Annual Awards.
As a publicly traded entity (LON: IGG) and regulated in eight Tier-1 jurisdictions, IG is regarded as a highly trusted and reliable broker. For beginner forex traders, finding a more suitable option is hard. After nearly ten years of reviewing IG.
AvaTrade
AvaTrade is another outstanding option for beginner forex traders, providing a thorough educational experience for those starting in the forex markets. Newcomers will find a wealth of educational resources, including over a hundred articles, a variety of videos, and one of my favorite features for novice traders—interactive quizzes with integrated progress tracking. The Ava Academy offers more than a hundred lessons along with numerous quizzes.
Traders at AvaTrade also benefit from content provided by Trading Central, a well-regarded third-party provider that collaborates with AvaTrade. This diverse range of educational materials in different formats from multiple sources contributed to AvaTrade earning Best in Class recognition in our Beginners and Education categories for the ForexBrokers.com 2024 Annual Awards.
In addition to its educational strengths, AvaTrade is an excellent all-around choice for forex traders. Its proprietary platform suite is both impressive and robust, and traders also have access to the complete MetaTrader suite (MT4 and MT5).
eToro
eToro is widely recognized as a pioneer in the copy trading arena, but it is also an excellent option for beginner forex traders. In recent years, eToro has significantly enhanced its educational offerings. New traders can access a variety of videos, articles, and weekly webinars through the eToro Academy, all conveniently categorized by experience level.
Additionally, eToro combines valuable tools and robust features within a user-friendly platform suite that caters to casual traders and novice investors. I’ve found that eToro’s web platform and mobile app are more intuitive to use compared to some of the more complex trading platforms available in the market.
One feature I particularly appreciate at eToro, which beginners will also find helpful, is the educational insights integrated directly into its platform suite. For instance, traders can find supplementary information next to each trading symbol, including details about specific instruments like the EUR/USD currency pair, as well as general considerations to keep in mind before making investment decisions.
XTB
Established in 2004 and based in Warsaw, Poland, XTB has become a popular choice for budget-conscious forex traders. The broker offers zero-commission trading on standard accounts, imposes no deposit minimums, and provides 5.2% interest on uninvested cash. Its transparent fee structure further adds to its appeal, extending to other service areas such as withdrawals and deposits, where XTB maintains low or no fees depending on the payment method, enhancing overall profitability for traders.
Beyond its cost advantages, XTB delivers a robust trading platform suitable for both beginners and experienced traders. The xStation 5 platform is user-friendly, equipped with advanced charting tools, and supports a wide array of technical indicators. This combination of user-friendliness and powerful features makes it an excellent option for traders aiming to elevate their trading without incurring high expenses.
XTB also excels in its educational offerings, featuring webinars, market analysis, and tutorials that are invaluable for traders seeking to enhance their skills. Additionally, the broker is well-regarded for its customer service, providing prompt and knowledgeable assistance. However, XTB has some limitations in the area of social trading, where its offerings are somewhat restricted. Furthermore, like several other brokers we reviewed, XTB does not operate in the U.S. and imposes inactivity fees. Lastly, traders looking to fund their accounts using PayPal, Skrill, or credit cards will find that these options are unavailable.
Pepperstone
Founded in 2010 and based in Melbourne, Australia, Pepperstone is a well-regulated broker recognized for its ultra-low latency execution, making it particularly attractive to scalpers and high-frequency traders. The broker provides access to popular trading platforms such as MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and cTrader, all of which are equipped with advanced tools, customizable indicators, and automated trading features.
Pepperstone’s premium Razor account boasts some of the tightest spreads in the industry, often reaching as low as 0.0 pips during peak trading hours, along with transparent commission-based pricing. For those interested in algorithmic trading, the broker supports various APIs, allowing traders to easily create, test, and implement their trading algorithms.
Additionally, Pepperstone offers several sophisticated risk management tools. While there is an added fee for these features, traders can set guaranteed stop-loss orders, ensuring they exit positions at predetermined levels regardless of market fluctuations. The platform also includes negative balance protection, preventing clients from losing more than their initial investment—an essential safeguard for those trading with leverage.
Another notable aspect of Pepperstone is its active trader program, which rewards high-volume traders with rebates and other benefits, effectively lowering trading costs. The broker also facilitates social trading through partnerships with platforms like Myfxbook and DupliTrade, allowing users to follow and replicate the strategies of successful traders.
However, like many forex brokers, Pepperstone is not available in the U.S. Additionally, it offers a relatively limited selection of tradable symbols and does not provide trading in non-CFD shares, ETFs, or cryptocurrencies.
CMCX
Founded in 1989 and publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CMCX, CMC Markets has always aimed to make financial markets more accessible to investors. It is among the most highly regulated forex brokers and is well-regarded for its quality research and innovative trading tools.
The company offers a comprehensive educational section titled “learn,” has no minimum deposit requirement, provides ample customer service options, features well-designed trading platforms, offers a practice (demo) account, hosts community trading forums, and maintains favorable pricing—all of which make it an excellent choice for beginner traders. However, the platform particularly excels for more advanced and active traders seeking to leverage their skills.
Like many leading forex brokers, CMC does not offer services to traders in the U.S. However, it serves over 1 million traders across 11 other countries on three continents, providing an impressive selection of 12,000 available instruments, including 330 Forex pairs, more than 80 indices, 11,000 stocks and ETFs, over 100 commodities, and 50+ treasuries.
The CMC Markets Next Generation trading platform, along with the downloadable MetaTrader 4 platform, caters to traders of all experience levels, while mobile apps are designed for iOS and Android users on the go. With competitive and transparent pricing, reasonable spreads, direct trading from charts, and a practice demo account, the platforms offer significant advantages for active forex traders.
However, for speculative investors interested in trading CFDs, the option to trade cryptocurrencies is limited to professional traders on the platform. Additionally, the features and asset selection available on MT4 are not as extensive as those found on the Next Generation platform.
FOREX.com
FOREX.com operates under strict regulations with licenses from the U.K., U.S., Singapore, and Australia, along with respected licenses from Japan, Canada, Cyprus, and the Cayman Islands. In the U.S., customers have access to more than 80 currency pairs, while in other regions, including the U.K., the broker offers leveraged products such as spread trading and Contracts for Difference (CFDs). Additionally, clients can trade stocks, commodities, and bonds through a StoneX account, although foreign exchange trading occurs solely on FOREX.com platforms.
The broker provides a seamless trading experience through its range of proprietary and third-party platforms. Features such as fast order execution, automated trading algorithms, and the proprietary Performance Analytics tool—which helps traders analyze their personal trading performance—set it apart as one of the industry leaders. FOREX.com particularly excels in its mobile applications, offering excellent customization options, comprehensive portfolio analysis, extensive research, accessible educational resources, and innovative tools, all within a user-friendly mobile interface that focuses on what traders need most.
However, FOREX.com does require substantial account balances to begin earning interest on uninvested cash, and a high trading volume is necessary to qualify for active trader discounts. Lastly, U.S. clients have limited product offerings, restricted to spot forex trades.
Tastyworks
After acquiring the well-known options trading platform Tastytrade in June 2021, IG rebranded and revamped its offerings for the U.S. market, unveiling tastyfx in June 2024. As a publicly traded and highly regulated company, IG has built a solid reputation for providing excellent trading and research tools, advanced trading technology, competitive pricing, and user-friendly platforms. This heritage has benefited U.S. traders, as tastyfx incorporates many of the outstanding qualities of its parent company.
Headquartered in Chicago, tastyfx caters to both novice and seasoned traders, thanks to its thoughtfully designed platforms, extensive educational resources, rapid execution speeds, zero commissions, low spreads, and excellent customer service. Users can access multiple trading platforms, including mobile applications and a web-based interface. What truly distinguishes tastyfx is its ability to combine advanced features with user-friendliness.
U.S. clients will have access to more than 80 forex pairs, CFDs, and spread betting opportunities, while enjoying the advantages associated with an IG brokerage account, ensuring a smooth trading experience. However, it’s important to note that tastytrade’s award-winning derivatives trading platform operates as a separate account on a different website. Additionally, tastyfx offers limited transparency regarding overnight interest charges, and its chat support can be slow during non-business hours.