Low Spread Forex Brokers UK – Cheapest Platforms Revealed

Forex brokers in the UK allow you to trade in the forex markets without having to pay any commissions. However, their alternative to commissions is making you pay spreads, some of which can occasionally be quite high. The solution to that is to trade through a forex broker that charges low spreads, and therefore allows you to save on paying fees as much as possible. In this guide, we review some low spread forex brokers that you can use in the UK during 2022. 

Low Spread Forex Brokers UK List

There are several brokers out there that allow you to trade on forex currency pairs with low spreads. However, only some of them have all the characteristics that it takes in order to be called low spread forex brokers in the UK. The list of low spread forex brokers is as follows: 

• AvaTrade
• eToro
• XTB
• Libertex
• Skilling
• Forex.com
• FXTM 
• Plus500
• FXCM

Tamaño de mi operación € 1,000 (0.01 lots) EUR/USD More Filters Close Filters Sort By Rating Price 3 Provider that match your filters Providers that match your filters Payment methods Bank Transfer Credit Card Paypal Sepa Transfer Skrill Sofort Giropay Neteller Trading platforms Demo Webtrader Copytrading Mt4 STP/DMA Ctrader MT5 Avasocial Ava Options Regulated by FCA CYSEC ASIC CFTC NFA BAFIN CMA SCB Support Very Good Good Average Bad Min.Deposit $ 1 Leverage max 1 Currency Pairs 1+ Classification 1or more Mobile App 1or more Remove Filter Apply Filter No results found Trying adjusting the filter to see some results. Rating Total cost $0 Commission 0.00 Mobile App 9/10 Min.Deposit $100 Spread min. Applied pips Leverage max 30 Currency Pairs 56 Trading platforms Demo Webtrader Mt4 Funding Methods Regulated by FCACYSEC What you can trade Forex Indices Actions Raw Materials Etfs Average spread EUR/GBP 2.4 pips EUR/USD 1.4 pips EUR/JPY 2.4 pips EUR/CHF 2.4 pips GBP/USD 2.4 pips GBP/JPY 3.4 pips GBP/CHF 2.4 pips USD/JPY 1.4 pips USD/CHF 2.4 pips CHF/JPY - Additional Fee Continuous rate Variable Conversión Applied pips Regulation Yes FCA Yes CYSEC No ASIC No CFTC No NFA No BAFIN No CMA No SCB No DFSA No CBFSAI No BVIFSC No FSCA No FSA No FFAJ No ADGM No FRSA Read More Visit Site 76.57% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider Rates and assets Rating Total cost $0 Commission 0.00 Mobile App 10/10 Min.Deposit $10 Spread min. 0.5% to 1.5% pips Leverage max 30 Currency Pairs 50 Trading platforms Demo Webtrader Copytrading Funding Methods Regulated by FCACYSECASIC What you can trade Forex Indices Actions Cryptocurrencies Raw Materials Etfs Average spread EUR/GBP 1.5 pips EUR/USD 1 pip EUR/JPY 2 pips EUR/CHF - GBP/USD 2 pips GBP/JPY 3 pips GBP/CHF - USD/JPY 1 pip USD/CHF 1.5 pips CHF/JPY - Additional Fee Continuous rate Variable Conversión 0.5% to 1.5% pips Regulation Yes FCA Yes CYSEC Yes ASIC No CFTC No NFA No BAFIN No CMA No SCB No DFSA No CBFSAI No BVIFSC No FSCA No FSA No FFAJ No ADGM No FRSA Read More Visit Site 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. Rates and assets Rating Total cost $0 Commission 0.07 Mobile App 9/10 Min.Deposit $10 Spread min. 0.0001% pips Leverage max 30 Currency Pairs 80 Trading platforms Demo Webtrader Mt4 MT5 Funding Methods Regulated by FCACYSECASIC What you can trade Forex Indices Actions Cryptocurrencies Raw Materials Etfs Average spread EUR/GBP - EUR/USD 0.0 EUR/JPY - EUR/CHF - GBP/USD - GBP/JPY - GBP/CHF - USD/JPY - USD/CHF - CHF/JPY - Additional Fee Continuous rate Variable Conversión 0.0001% pips Regulation Yes FCA Yes CYSEC Yes ASIC No CFTC No NFA No BAFIN No CMA No SCB No DFSA No CBFSAI No BVIFSC No FSCA No FSA No FFAJ No ADGM No FRSA Read More Visit Site Trading CFDs involves substantial risk of loss and may not be suitable for all investors. Rates and assets

Low Spread Forex Brokers UK Reviewed 

Now that you have seen the list of some low spread forex brokers in the industry, below is the detailed review of the brokers on the list.  

1. AvaTrade

Forex trading with AvaTrade is a popular choice for traders who are looking for a user-friendly and reliable platform to execute their trades. AvaTrade provides access to over 50 currency pairs, including major, minor, and exotic pairs, allowing traders to diversify their portfolio and potentially increase their returns. The platform offers competitive spreads and flexible leverage options, which means that traders can manage their trading costs and increase their trading power.

In addition, AvaTrade provides a range of trading tools and resources to help traders make informed decisions about their trades, including real-time market news and analysis, as well as advanced charting tools. The platform also supports automated trading through its AvaOptions and MetaTrader 4 platforms, which can help traders execute their trading strategies more efficiently and accurately.

Another important feature of forex trading on AvaTrade is the availability of risk management tools. Forex trading can be volatile, and AvaTrade offers a range of tools to help traders manage their risk and protect their investments. These tools include stop-loss orders, which allow traders to limit their potential losses by setting a predetermined exit point for a trade, and take-profit orders, which enable traders to lock in profits by setting a predetermined exit point for a trade.

Additionally, AvaTrade offers negative balance protection, which means that traders cannot lose more than their account balance. This can provide peace of mind for traders, especially during times of high market volatility. AvaTrade’s commitment to risk management and investor protection has earned it a reputation as a trustworthy and reliable forex broker.

Finally, AvaTrade offers excellent customer support and assistance, including 24/7 live chat and phone support, as well as email support and a comprehensive FAQ section. Overall, forex trading with AvaTrade offers traders a comprehensive and reliable platform to execute their trades, manage their risk, and potentially increase their returns.

Your money is at risk

2. eToro

eToro offers a variety of instruments that are available to trade, including 45 forex CFDs. It includes all the major and minor currency pairs, and the platform even has some of the more exotic currencies that you can trade. At the same time, they also allow you to trade several other asset classes such as stocks, indices, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, and commodities. Their spreads start as low as 1 pip, which makes them an extremely affordable low-cost platform. 

eToro has its own trading platform that has been designed for both web portals as well as a mobile app. The platform has a clear interface and is also simple to navigate. At the same time, eToro also offers a demo account to all its users where they can trade with virtual capital before deciding to risk real money. This provides traders with an opportunity to get familiar with the platform and its navigation, in addition to trying out some of their strategies to test them under market conditions. Their platform also includes over 100 built-in technical indicators and charting tools that you can use for your analysis. 

eToro is also, at its core, a social trading platform. This has several advantages. The first advantage is that at any point in time, you can easily find out what other analysts and traders think about a particular product. This is an extremely useful tool because it enables you to understand the market sentiment behind any product, which can inform your trading decisions. Another advantage of this being a social platform is that you also get access to expert analysis and articles written by a variety of experienced traders and forex analysts. At the same time, the platform also has a news feed that will keep you updated with the latest happenings in various major economies and markets. This is a very convenient way for you to be able to keep up with major events and announcements that could affect your portfolio. 

Lastly, another advantage of eToro being a social trading platform is that they provide you with the ability to copy trade with other more experienced traders. This enables you to capitalise on the experiences of someone else and profit from making the same trades as them. All you have to do is to go to the eToro copy trading page, select the trader you wish to copy, and allocate a certain amount of money into copying them. You can also filter among traders who have had over a certain percentage of gains in their portfolio, or those who only trade a particular asset. This will allow you to put your forex portfolio on autopilot as you copy someone with a higher degree of experience than you. 

eToro is a regulated platform, as it is regulated by numerous agencies across the world including the UK’s FCA. They have a very low minimum deposit requirement, at just GBP 200. This can be deposited through either bank transfer, credit/debit card, or PayPal. 

eToro fees:

3. XTB

A popular trading platform for stocks, currencies, and commodities that accepts a variety of assets is called XTB Broker in Europe. The platform has been accessible for more than 15 years and has more than 400,000 subscribers globally.

XTB provides more than 2100 trading instruments in total. This makes it a tempting choice for anyone wishing to diversify their portfolio and increase their market exposure. Additionally, XTB promises reasonable spreads and charges. Those who maintain positions after the market closes are subject to overnight costs according to the website.

Members of XTB can access a range of educational tools if they are brand-new to trading. There are also numerous tutorials and a whole trading academy included. Additionally, Users have access to in-depth market analysis to help them make trading decisions on XTB.

Additionally, XTB provides a demo account, a terrific method to test out the platform without risking any money. XStation 5 and XStation Mobile are the two trading systems that XTB provides. The second choice is the best for mobile trading.

XTB is perfect for scalping because the platform offers fast execution speeds. You can start trading with as little as you like because XTB has no minimum deposit requirements.

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Your money is at risk.

4. Libertex

Unlike other CFD forex brokers that are present in the market, Libertex has taken an entirely different approach. They charge fixed commissions instead of charging variable spreads. This is something that advanced and experienced traders prefer, since when they trade using a fixed commission, they can always know how much a particular trade is going to cost them, and thus, they are in a much better position to be able to account for this in their strategies. The commissions that Libertex charges are also pretty low, and they start at just 0.008% of the trade, making it one of the cheapest platforms available for low spread forex trading. 

Libertex offers its own forex trading platforms for both the web and a mobile app, which are equipped with a variety of tools and functions to assist forex traders in making decisions. At the same time, the platform is also compatible with both the MT4 trading platform and the MT5 trading platform, making it the broker of choice for traders who wish to trade using these platforms. These platforms allow traders to create forex signals, custom technical indicators, and even backtest strategies to see how they would have performed historically. 

Libertex does not charge any deposit or withdrawal fees, and they have a very low minimum deposit required to create an account. You can set up an account through Libertex in a few minutes by simply adding 10 GBP as your initial deposit. They offer a selection of 60+ currencies, ranging from major to minor and even exotic pairs, therefore you will not find their collection lacking. They also provide leverage of up to 30x for retail traders. The platform is regulated by the CySEC and is considered widely to be a trustworthy low spread forex broker. 

Libertex fees:

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Low Spread Forex Brokers UK Fees & Leverage Comparison

A tabular representation of the spreads for major currency pairs, deposit/withdrawal fees, as well as any other fees they may charge has been provided below for several major low spread forex brokers. 

What Are Forex Spreads?

A forex spread is one of the many ways in which a forex brokerage platform makes its profits. Whenever you place an order on the market, there is a difference between the price at which you are willing to buy a particular forex currency pair and the price at which the seller is willing to sell their currency pair. The difference between these two prices is called the spread, and it is how exchanges make their money. 

However, forex trading platforms these days are market makers. Therefore, they do not directly fulfill your order at the exchange. On the other hand, they observe the current price of whatever currency pair you are looking to trade, and then they give you their own buy and sell price based on the current market price. If you, for example, place a buy order on the USD/EUR pair, then your broker will take on the other side of the transaction and sell you USD/EUR pairs. They will then set off this position in the market or by combining a buy position from you and a sell position from someone else. What this means is that market maker brokers do not actually fulfill your order directly at the exchange, but they take on the other side of the transaction themselves. The fee that they charge for doing this is called the spread and is visible as the difference between the buy and the sell prices of the pair. 

This is why, if you decide to buy and sell something instantly, you will actually end up booking a loss, because the selling price for a currency pair on a market-making platform is always lower than the buy price at any given point in time. This is called the spread. This is the way commission-free platforms such as eToro make their money. 

What Is Considered A Low Spread In Forex?

The spread that will be considered a low spread really depends on the currency pair that you wish to be trading. For example, if you were to trade a major currency pair, then a low spread would differ significantly from the low currency spread for a minor pair. So, based on the currency pairs you wish to trade, you need to decide which broker offers you the lowest spreads. As a general rule, major currency pairs have the highest spreads, followed by minor currency pairs, and then exotic currency pairs, which have the highest spreads of all. 

For example, the EUR/USD pair is a frequently traded forex pair and it is commonly used as a metric for comparing spreads between different brokers. The industry average spread for the EUR/USD pair is 1 pip. This means that any broker who charges a spread lower than 1 pip is going to be considered a low spread broker. There are several brokers who charge such low spreads, and thus are more preferable for forex traders who are looking to primarily trade on major currency pairs. 

It is important here to note that different forex brokers can have lower spreads than the industry average for different forex pairs. What this means is that a broker who has the lowest spreads in the industry for the GBP/USD pair might not necessarily have the lowest spreads for the EUR/USD pair. Different brokers tend to price currencies differently, and it is important for you to know this. Therefore, if you are looking to trade one particular currency pair more often than others, then you should definitely do your research to identify the broker that identifies the broker with the lowest spread for that particular currency pair. 

Another major factor to keep in mind is that some brokers offer variable spreads whereas others have fixed spreads. This is important for two reasons. The first reason why knowing whether your broker offers variable or fixed spreads is important is that this will affect your trading time. Usually, currencies can be traded around the clock, and the forex markets never reality close. If you have a broker with a fixed spread, then there is no issue and you could trade the currency pair at any time. However, if your broker offers variable spreads, then this means that the lowest spreads will only be present at certain times during the day. What those times are, depending on what currency you wish to be trading. 

For example, if you choose to trade major currency pairs, then the time for you to trade, in order to take advantage of the lowest variable spreads, would be to trade when both the European and the US markets are open since these are the markets wherein traders provide the maximum liquidity and activity in the forex markets. There is a 4-5 hour time period in the day wherein both these markets are open, and therefore, the trading volumes are at their highest point. At this point during the day, since there is a very high buying and selling volume, it is quite likely that you will be able to trade with much lower spreads. This time wherein spreads are the lowest for variable spread brokers will differ if you were to trade minor currency pairs or exotics. 

The second reason why knowing whether your broker offers fixed or variable spreads is important is that sometimes you might be misled by brokers into thinking that their spreads are low. For example, a particular broker might tell you that their spread for EUR/USD is 0.5 pips, but what they will bury in the fine print is that this is actually the lowest spread that they will offer, and that the spread can differ at various times during the day. Therefore, in effect, you will usually end up paying a spread of more than 0.5 pips at times during the day. This is not a problem with brokers that offer fixed spreads, but their spreads are usually higher, making it the same thing in effect anyway. 

Tips For Trading With Low Spread in the UK

If you are looking to trade with a low spread broker, then there are several things that you should keep in mind. Some of these things have been listed below in detail: 

• Ensure that you are aware of whether the spread is variable or fixed. In case it is a variable spread, ensure that you find out when the spreads are at their lowest and only trade during these times. 
• Make sure that you are aware of any other hidden charges that the broker might levy. This might include overnight fees, inactivity fees, and deposit/withdrawal fees. Such small fees can actually add up and eat into your profits, thereby affecting the effectiveness of your trading strategies. 
• Make sure that you’re not trading with higher leverage than what you are comfortable with. The main thing that you need to remember is that the higher the leverage that you use, the lower your risk of margin and the higher your losses will be if the trade turns against you. Therefore, you should only use leverage if you’re comfortable with that degree of risk. 
• Combine both technical and fundamental analysis. For you to be a successful trader, it is important for you to be proficient in either technical or fundamental analysis. However, whichever strategy you choose in order to trade, it is important for you to be aware of the other side as well. For example, if you primarily trade on technical analysis, you should still know about major events and macroeconomic announcements that might affect currency prices. Knowing both sides of the trading world is important for you to maximise your chances of success in the forex markets. 

Conclusion

In summation, trading forex using a low spread broker gives you access to among the biggest capital markets in the world. Having low spreads enables you to trade while paying minimal fees, therefore it is important for you to ensure that you are only trading with the broker who charges you the lowest spreads. While there are several low spread forex brokers in the UK, and different brokers are suitable for different needs, consider eToro for low spread forex trading. 

FAQs

What is a spread in forex trading?

Put very simply, the spread is the difference between the buy and sell price of a particular security or a currency pair.

What is a pip?

A pip is 1/100th of a percent, or 0.01%.

How much money do I need to trade forex in the UK?

The amount of money you need to trade forex in the Uk will depend on the minimum deposit requirements of the particular broker you wish to use. Since brokers in the UK provide a high leverage, they have low minimum deposit requirements and do not require you to put up a large amount of capital to begin trading. For example, in order to set up an eToro account, you only need to deposit 200 GBP.

Which UK broker has the lowest spreads?

Different brokers have low spreads for different currency pairs, so depending on the products that you mainly want to trade, the suitable broker will differ.

Can I trade cryptocurrencies with low spreads from the UK?

Yes, through a platform like eToro, you can also trade cryptocurrencies in addition to forex pairs on very low spreads.