Each year FxScouts and our sister sites in the FxScouts Group evaluate the world’s favourite Forex and CFD brokers. We have worked with some of these companies for over a decade, and as 2024 comes to a close, we want to award the best of them for their accomplishments this year. Our independent and unbiased review process is the only basis for these awards.
We would like to congratulate each of these brokers; and also extend our congratulations to their hard-working and dedicated staff, who are the backbone of their success.
Our 2023 Award Winners
Below you will find the very best brokers in business who have earned the honour of being rewarded as this year’s Forex award winners in various categories. Click on the image to find out more about what sets them apart from their competitors and why we selected them as our winners 2023.
Pepperstone – Global Forex Broker of the Year
This year, Pepperstone secures the Global Broker Award for the second consecutive year, maintaining its exceptional standards and continuing to meet traders’ needs.
With incredibly low trading costs, a diverse range of trading platforms, robust trading tools, comprehensive education and market analysis resources, and round-the-clock customer support, Pepperstone truly excels.
Pepperstone’s commitment to excellence is evident through its recent addition of TradingView to its platform lineup, offering advanced charting capabilities and enhancing the trading experience. Pepperstone also consistently monitors and optimises its trading costs while providing cutting-edge analysis and trader education.
Tickmill – Best Trading Conditions
Tickmill has earned the Award for Best Trading Conditions in 2023. Founded in 2009, with a strong reputation and regulatory oversight, Tickmill offers some of the most competitive Forex trading conditions available.
Tickmill’s minimum deposit requirement of just 100 USD makes it accessible to a wide range of traders. However, where Tickmill truly excels is with its exceptionally low commissions. The Tickmill Pro Account has raw spreads starting at 0 pips and a round-turn commission of a mere 4 USD per lot. For professional traders, Tickmill offers a dedicated account option featuring even lower commissions at just 2 USD per lot traded.
These trading costs are some of the lowest in the world and, with such a low minimum deposit, are accessible to all, even beginners just starting out.
XTB – Best Proprietary Platform
Founded in 2002, XTB takes the spotlight in our 2023 awards as the recipient of the Best Inhouse/Proprietary Trading Platform Award, thanks to its cutting-edge xStation 5 platform. With a user-friendly interface and easy setup, XTB’s proprietary platform sets the standard for an excellent trading experience.
xStation 5 brings innovation by incorporating sentiment data, allowing traders to measure the percentage of clients trading long or short. The platform also offers a large set of powerful charting tools, one-click trading, multiple order types, and real-time performance statistics.
To further assist traders in making informed decisions, xStation 5 includes a comprehensive market analysis tab with a heatmap, an ETF scanner, real-time news updates, and an integrated economic calendar.
AvaTrade – Most Innovative Forex Broker
Founded in 2006, Avatrade stands out as our choice for the Most Innovative Forex Broker in 2023.
Avatrade’s award-winning mobile app, AvatradeGO, is a testament to its innovation. The app has a user-friendly dashboard and intuitive home screen, providing access to educational videos, market analysis materials, and direct customer support. One notable innovation is AvaProtect, Avatrade’s risk management system. This unique tool allows clients to purchase protection against potential losses within a specified time frame, ensuring peace of mind.
In addition to its innovative features, Avatrade offers competitive trading fees, a great range of trading tools, and a large choice of trading platforms.
FBS – Best Trading Account for Beginners
This year, the honour of the Best Trading Account for Beginners goes to FBS. FBS is a well-regulated broker that offers a range of account options, all featuring low minimum deposits and competitive trading fees.
What sets FBS apart is its Cent Account, tailored specifically for new traders. This account boasts an impressively low minimum deposit of just 5 USD, with balances and transactions measured in cents. This unique feature makes it an ideal choice for traders who are starting their journey or even experienced traders looking to experiment with new strategies.
XM – Award for Best Education
XM, one of our top all-around brokers, distinguishes itself with its exceptional and well-structured educational resources and is therefore the recipient of the Best Forex Education Award 2023
At XM, aspiring traders have an abundance of learning options at their fingertips. The offerings include Live Education, Videos, Forex Webinars, and Platform Tutorials, all accessible free of charge. For those who prefer in-person learning, XM also hosts Live Forex Seminars worldwide, providing a physical classroom experience.
XM also provides a demo account which never expires. This means you can practise and learn at your own pace without any time constraints.
IC Markets – Best Customer Support
In this year’s selection, the Best Customer Support award goes to IC Markets.
IC Markets has a dedicated support team, available 24/7 via email, live chat, and phone, even on weekends, which is exceptional in the industry where the norm is 24/5. Furthermore, they provide a comprehensive FAQ section with answers to the most common inqueries. The support team offers assistance in over 15 languages, ensuring accessibility for traders around the world.
In our experience with IC Markets’ customer support staff they were polite, responsive, and knowledgeable, providing satisfactory answers to all our inquiries.
FP Markets – Award for Best Trading Tools
This year’s Best Trading Tools award goes to FP Markets. FP Markets is a great broker with strong regulatory oversight, competitive trading fees and a wide range of trading platforms, including MT4, MT5, and cTrader — a range not commonly found in the industry.
However, it’s with trading tools where FP Markets truly shines. They provide an impressive suite of resources, including Autochartist, Trading Central, News Analytics and Sentiment Research, and Technical Views. Additionally, FP Markets offers a free VPS service, ensuring uninterrupted trading. Finally FP Markets’ Trader’s Toolbox comprises 12 online trading tools, complemented by Mam/PAMM accounts and various social trading services.
FxScouts overall Forex Rankings
Our Forex Rankings table below provides a continuously-updated overview of the CFD broker market, where each broker is graded on 200+ metrics across seven areas of interest, and weighted to give a total average score.
We are commited to bring transparency in the Forex trading market. We conduct exhaustive broker reviews, in-depth platform tests, and employ our proprietary FX Integrity Score system. We are forensic in our research, ensuring brokers’ claims align with their actual services, going beyond mere surface-level analysis.
FxScouts 2024 Overall Rankings Table
Our Ranking Methodology
Our specialism has always been reviewing and rating the best CFD brokers in the world and we thought it was time to open up our methodology to you, the traders. For this Rankings table report we have assessed brokers across seven areas of interest and then combined them to get an overall rating.
For ease of use, you can sort the brokers by any of the seven areas of interest to find the one that best performs in the category that is most important to you.
Brokers are constantly improving their product offering and this report will reflect any changes they make, so it is worth checking back here occasionally to see what has changed.
Areas of Interest (with weightings)
Platforms and Tools (17.5%)
A broker which supports the widest range of platform choice is in the best interest of the trader. While proprietary trading platforms can add value, they can be a barrier to the free movement of traders between brokers as they hunt for better trading conditions.
Trust and Regulation (20%)
Regulation in the CFD trading industry is the single best indicator of trust; the better the regulator overseeing the broker, the more trustworthy the broker is. As regulators operate independently and have varying rules and enforcement mechanisms, we have categorised regulators into four different tiers, where Tier 1 regulators are the most trusted to protect clients and Tier 4 regulators are the least trusted. More information on our tiering system and which regulators are in what tier can be found here.
Deposit & Withdrawal (10%)
Most of the complaints we receive about brokers relate to client access to their funds. Therefore, we place more value in withdrawal methods than deposit methods; and fast, fee-less withdrawals are favoured over conventional banking methods.
Assets Available (12.5%)
The more CFD assets classes available to traders, the better and more varied the trading experience can be. While the basics must always be covered, brokers with comparatively more inventory are rated higher than those with less.
Education & Research (10%)
Quality of education and research is vital to traders of all levels, and we reward brokers with well-structured and high-quality learning content for traders of all levels.
Customer Service (10%)
As CFD brokers are financial institutions that hold client funds, quick access to customer service is essential. Brokers who offer clients faster access
Forex Awards 2022
Each year FxScouts Philippines and our sister sites in the FxScouts Group evaluate the world’s favourite Forex and CFD brokers. We have worked with some of these companies for over a decade, and as 2022 comes to a close, we want to award the best of them for their accomplishments this year. Our independent and unbiased review process is the only basis for these awards.
We would like to congratulate each of these brokers; and also extend our congratulations to their hard-working and dedicated staff, who are the backbone of their success.
Pepperstone – Global Forex Broker of the Year
One of the most respected brokers in the world, Pepperstone wins our award for Global Forex Broker of the Year for its ongoing commitment to providing traders with low costs and the widest platform choice available. Pepperstone has no required minimum deposit and some of the lowest costs in the industry, and it has let traders choose between the MT4, MT5 and cTrader platforms for many years. This year, Pepperstone’s platform capacity has increased even further with the addition of TradingView integration for cTrader and Capitalise.ai’s MT4 plugin.
All platforms feature Pepperstone’s ultra-fast, low-cost market execution, with most orders executed in less than 30 milliseconds. With tight spreads on two simple accounts, deep liquidity, and discounts for high-volume traders, Pepperstone is our favourite Forex broker for good reason.
Read our full Pepperstone review here.
HFM – Best Trading Account for Beginners
While traders have the choice of five account types at HFM, our winner of the best Trading Account for Beginners is the HFM Micro Account. With tight spreads, leverage of up to 1000:1, and minimum deposits starting at 5 USD, the Micro Account is the best account for new Forex traders. Traders can access HFM’s full range of instruments, including Forex, cryptocurrencies, metals, energies, indices, shares, commodities, bonds, and ETFs and spreads are very competitive, starting at 1 pip on the EUR/USD.
Beginners will also appreciate HFM’s award-winning customer support, available 24/5 in over 27 languages. HFM also provides a world-class repository of educational and market analysis materials, including articles, video tutorials, and frequent webinars on current events, advanced trading strategies, and chart analysis.
Read our full HFM review here.
IG – Best Trading Conditions
Founded in 1974, IG has established itself as one of the foremost brokerages in the world. Trading conditions at IG are unparalleled in the industry. The sheer volume of tradable instruments available is staggering. Not only does IG offer one of the widest selections of shares to trade in the industry – over 17,000 and rising – but it also offers some unique features such as weekend trading on major pairs and innovative CFDs such as Sectors and the Crypto Index. Trading costs are low, with IG’s standard CFD account featuring commission-free spreads as low as 0.75 pips on the EUR/USD.
IG’s trading conditions are further enhanced by its great range of trading tools, with trading signals from both Autochartist and PIAfirst available in its own awarding-winning, web-based trading platform and the ProRealTime advanced charting package. Finally, with an API and DMA accounts for experienced traders and MT4 support for devotees, IG ensures that all types of traders are catered for.
AvaTrade – Best Customer Service
AvaTrade is one of the best, largest, and most reputable brokers in the world, and for a good reason. It offers a wide range of trading platforms, including its award-winning mobile trading app, AvatradeGO. It also offers world-class customer service alongside excellent analytical and education sections.
AvaTrade’s customer support is available 24/5 for CFD trading and 24/7 for cryptocurrency trading. And while 24/7 customer service isn’t unique, we have found that the quality and responsiveness of AvaTrade’s customer service, even over the weekends, is head and shoulders above its competitors. In addition, support is available in various languages via local telephone numbers, email, and live chat in many countries around the world.
Read our full AvaTrade review here.
IC Markets – Best Trading Tools
An excellent all-around broker, IC Markets was founded in 2007 and is well-known for its low trading costs, choice of trading platforms, and wide range of trading tools. IC Markets is one of the few Forex brokers to support all three major trading platforms, including MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, and cTrader, and offers numerous trading tools for each, including VPS services, managed accounts, Autochartist, Trading Central, and various copy trading services.
While it’s easy to find a broker with some of these tools, finding a single broker with all of them as well as all three major platforms and low trading costs is almost impossible. Once you add the integrated tools, IC Markets makes available on cTrader and the Metatrader platforms, IC Markets is plainly unbeatable for traders looking for the widest range of technical options. We were also very impressed with IC Market’s approach to education; with a full library of course material, independent market analysis, and webinars, IC Markets offers new traders a comprehensive education.
Read our full IC Markets review here.
XM – Best Education and Market Research
A well-regulated market maker broker, XM offers trading on over 1000 instruments, including over 57 Forex pairs. XM also provides some of the best educational and market analysis materials in the industry. XM’s education section is comprised of various sections, including live education available Monday to Friday, daily Q&A sessions, educational videos, Forex webinars presented by highly skilled experts in 19 languages, platform tutorials, and Forex seminars. We have always found XM’s education and analysis to be of the highest quality, and traders taking advantage of this wealth of material will be well-equipped to get their trading careers underway.
Once fully educated, traders will appreciate XM’s broad range of assets, including Forex, stocks, commodities, equities, precious metals, energies, and shares. Traders can choose between four live accounts on both the MT4 and MT5 platforms. XM boasts a strict no requotes and no rejections policy, and 99.53% of all trading orders are executed in less than one second.
Skilling – Best Forex Trading Innovation
Founded in 2016, Skilling is a CFD broker with low trading costs on Forex, crypto, indices, commodities, and equities. Alongside industry stalwart MT4, Skilling supports both cTrader and its own trading platform, which integrates directly with cTrader.This innovative approach continues with the Skilling Trader app. Available on both Android and iOS devices, the Skilling Trader app is well-designed and includes a Trading Assistant that walks you through the app. It also has a huge range of technical indicators and charts in multiple time frames. We loved how easy it was to execute orders, and all of Skilling’s educational materials and market news are available on the app.
Read our full Skilling review here.
Forex Awards 2020
Each year FxScouts Philippines along with our sister brands TradeforexSA, FxScouts and Fx-Australia evaluate the best brokers in the world. We have worked with some of these brands for over 10 years, and as 2020 comes to a close, we feel it appropriate to award some of them for their accomplishments this year.
Our review process and editorial policy guide the way we review brokers for our State of the Forex Market report. Our research alone, without bias, is how we create these awards. Congratulations to each of these brands for the hard work and dedication from their staff to be crowned as one of the best of 2020.
AvaTrade – Global Forex Broker of the Year
AvaTrade has consistently delivered for clients in 2020 by offering trading conditions and platforms options on a wide range of assets. Fitting for newcomers and veterans of CFD trading, AvaTrade has strength in regulation from leading global authorities and offers reliable customer support. Read our full AvaTrade review here.
Khwezi Trade – Best FX Broker: Africa
This shining star of local African brokers, Khwezi Trade stands out as our leading broker on the continent for 2020. Headquartered in Cape Town, this FSCA regulated broker receives clients with an exceptional level of customer support and onboarding. The overall trading experience for beginners and experienced traders alike is equally outstanding and is only enhanced by Khwezi Trade’s fast withdrawal process. Read our full Khwezi Trade review here.
FP Markets – Best FX Broker: Australia
FP Markets has a long history of being at the forefront of Australian brokers. With a comprehensive selection of advanced trading platforms, top-tier liquidity, competitive trading conditions, and exceptional customer service, FP Markets wins our Best FX Broker Australia award for 2020. Read our full FP Markets review here.
CMC Markets – Best Forex CFD Provider
Leading the market with a wide range of CFDs and regulation from 3 tier 1 regulators, CMC Markets is our #1 CFD broker for 2020. CMC Market’s competitive trading conditions and platform offering, combined with its comprehensive education and customer support for beginner traders, sets them apart from other leading brokers in the field. Read our full CMC Markets review here.
Axi – Best Forex ECN Broker
With competitive pricing on raw spreads, high liquidity, and fast execution Axi is our best ECN broker of 2020. Other highlights include a detailed and well-structured course for beginners and leading market analysis for all clients. Axi combines leading ECN trading conditions on the pro account with world-class regulatory oversight. Read our full Axi review here.
HotForex – Best Forex STP Broker
Dedicated to the security of client funds and full transparency in trade execution, HotForex wins the best STP Forex broker of 2020. As an STP broker regulated by multiple major international organisations including the FCA, CySEC and the FSCA, HotForex has built a reputation among traders for achieving a stable, fair, secure and transparent trading environment for both the beginner and expert level trader. Read our full HotForex review here.
MarketsX – Best Trading Platform
Marketsx is a new brand and platform from Markets.com, a well-regulated broker with high-security standards. The Marketx trading platform is packed full of features and trading tools and is optimised for lightning execution. As well as in-depth charting and asset comparison tools, Marketsx also gives traders a wealth of decision-supporting data with sentiment tools, tutorials, and regular live-streamed, expert analysis.
Feature-rich and very easy to use for new traders, Marketsx wins the award for best trading platform for 2020. Read our full Marketsx review here.
Tickmill – Best Trading Conditions
Tickmill’s dedication to reducing trading costs and fast STP market executed trades in the absence of any dealing desk interference is apparent.
With an average execution speed around 0.20 seconds, a minimum trade size of 0.01, low commissions, and a variety of accounts for beginners, intermediates and professionals, Tickmill wins our overall award for the best trading conditions for 2020. Read our full Tickmill review here.
Exness – Best Trading Account
Over recent years Exness has gained wide international popularity, which we attribute to the quality of the trading accounts. The Exness Standard Account wins best trading account of 2020 for its appeal to all traders – tight spreads, unlimited open positions and a low minimum deposit needed to trade currency pairs, metals, cryptoсurrencies, energies and indices CFDs. Read our full Exness review here.
XM Group – Best Islamic Forex Account
Islamic accounts are notoriously difficult to open. However, XM Group stands out in this category for its commitment to creating an easily accessible swap-free account that does not expire, with no spread widening, no commissions and hidden fees.
For a truly 100% Shariah Compliant account, made easily accessible to traders of the Islamic faith, and with fair and ethical trading conditions, XM Group wins our award for Best Islamic Forex Account 2020. Read our full XM Group review here.
Pepperstone – Best Forex Trading Execution
With most orders executed in less than 30 milliseconds, Pepperstone Group wins our award for best execution, furnishing clients with tight spreads and broad platform support. Read our full Pepperstone review here.
BDSwiss – Best Market Research Provider
The BDSwiss market research team, led by the world-renowned financial expert Marshall Gittler, produces exceptionally detailed and thoughtful market analysis for traders of all experience levels. Head and shoulders above its peers in the industry, the financial commentary at BDSwiss gives traders a unique insight into how to make better trading decisions. In addition, the BDSwiss Trading Academy offers deep and well-structured beginner, intermediate, and advanced trader courses.
This combination has made BDSwiss the best in class for market research, offering a near-perfect research and education experience for all traders. Read our full BDSwiss review here.
FxPro – Best Trading Experience
FxPro provides a thoroughly satisfying experience, from the signup and deposit to onboarding, trading and fund withdrawal. At FxPro, the trading experience on the MT4, MT5 & cTrader accounts as well as on mobile devices is cohesive and elevates the trading experience for all levels of traders. Read our full FxPro review here.
FXTM – Best Customer Service
For FXTM’s dedication to their global client base, FXTM leads our customer service category. Convenient multi-lingual 24/7 customer support by phone, live chat and email in a positive, solution-oriented and welcoming environment wins FXTM the Best Customer Service award for 2020. Read our full review of FXTM here.
XTB – Best Forex MT4 Broker
Well-regulated and with fast execution speeds, XTB is a true leader in the Forex trading industry. With ambitious trading conditions, excellent trader education and rock-solid analysis, XTB’s MT4 offering to clients is best in class. Read our full XTB review here.
IC Markets – Best Forex MT5 Broker
IC Markets wins our MT5 broker of the year award for its remarkable execution speeds and trading flexibility on the MT5 platform. Already feature-rich, the IC Markets MT5 platform has no trading restrictions – ideal for scalping, high-frequency trading and hedging.
All IC Markets MetaTrader 5 servers are located in the Equinix NY4 data centre in New York, offering 1-millisecond latency on a wide range of financial instruments. These features, combined with low spreads and unrestricted trade sizes, makes IC Markets the clear choice for MT5 users. Read our full IC Markets review here.
OctaFX – Best Forex Copy Trading Platform
OctaFX has developed the leading copy trading platform which invites traders to invest using the strategy of successful traders. OctaFX has lowered the threshold to allow beginner traders to profit from the sophisticated trading strategies used by professional traders, using seamless integration in their trading platforms. Read our full OctaFX review here.
easyMarkets – Best Forex Trading Innovation
Few leading brands can truly innovate in the Forex industry, but easyMarkets manages it with surprising frequency. With a collection of unique tools such as easyTrade, dealCancellation and Freeze Rate, easyMarkets continues to offer unique solutions for beginner traders to improve their trading experience and mitigate risk. For their commitment to advancing the industry while maintaining their commitment to traditional clients, easyMarkets are the leading innovator in the Forex market for 2020. Read our full easyMarkets review here.
Admiral Markets – Best Cryptocurrency Trading Platform
As Cryptocurrency CFDs gain popularity with traders, Admiral Markets has earned their place as the leading broker for trading Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. Admiral Markets has shown that the best regulated and established brokers can support a wide range of cryptocurrency CFDs with competitive leverage. Read our full Admiral Markets review here.
