Best Forex Brokers in Australia (2026)

What are the 10 best Australian forex brokers?

Other brokers we tested

Our 32-broker 2026 test panel is listed below with every broker’s score, so you can see exactly how the ranked list above was drawn. The top 10 by Overall 2026 Score all scored 79 or above. The twenty brokers below that line did not make the cut, so none carries a best label its score does not support.

All 32 brokers with full scores are listed on the forex broker reviews hub.

What trading costs per month

Five cheapest of the 32 ASIC-regulated brokers we cover

Lots / month

−+

Account style

RawStandard

Rates as of Mon 31 Aug 2026, 5pm New York close Measured May to June 2026

ASIC-regulated brokers, ranked by total monthly trading cost at 10 standard lots on a raw account, cheapest first.

#	Broker	Total / month
1	AxiCheapest	A$67.35
2	ACY Securities	A$87.27
3	Eightcap	A$90.95
4	GO Markets	A$93.52
5	Fusion Markets	A$95.29

Compare all 32 brokers in the full cost calculator →

How to choose an Australian forex broker

1. Check the broker is ASIC regulated

I would always start with ASIC regulation. Choosing one of the best ASIC-regulated brokers is the single most important step for an Australian trader because it directly reduces the risk of scams. Brokers under AFSL conditions are heavily scrutinised and must follow strict client-money, capital-adequacy and disclosure rules to keep your funds safe.

ASIC caps retail leverage on major forex pairs; see our ASIC forex regulation guide for the full tier list and what each protection does. I would check the AFSL on ASIC Connect myself before depositing. Check that the broker is also a member of AFCA, the free dispute resolution scheme. ASIC does not insure deposits the way some overseas regulators do, so the regulator’s protections sit upstream of your money rather than around it. Segregated client funds, mandatory negative balance protection, and the AFCA scheme are the three protections that matter most.

2. Make sure the broker matches your type of trading

The broker you need depends on how you trade. There are four main styles to consider:

• Day trading. Open and close positions within the same day. Needs fast execution and tight spreads.
• Scalping. High volume, very short holds (seconds to a few minutes). Needs Raw or ECN-style pricing and stable order routing.
• Swing trading. Holds positions for days to weeks. Less sensitive to spread, more sensitive to overnight financing rates.
• Position trading. Long-term, fundamentals-driven. Spreads matter least, swap rates and platform reliability matter most.

A broker that suits a scalper (Pepperstone Razor, IC Markets Raw) may not be the best for a position trader (CMC Standard, IG Standard). I would always match the broker to your style.

3. Check the trading platforms offered

Which platform features you need is personal. The ones I weigh first are ease of use, order execution quality, risk-management tools, advanced charting, automation support, available leverage, and overall versatility are the ones that keep coming up.

The four platforms used by most ASIC-regulated brokers are MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 (compared head-to-head here), cTrader and TradingView. Several brokers (CMC, IG, Plus500, eToro) run their own proprietary platforms in addition to or instead of MetaTrader. You will want to try a demo of each; our trading platforms guide walks you through the breakdown.

4. Ensure the trading costs are low

Trading fees are one of the leading factors impacting your profit and loss. In our experience, Raw accounts on ECN brokers are generally cheaper than the Standard no-commission accounts once you add the spread and commission together. The exception is low-volume traders who hold positions for days at a time, where the convenience of a single all-in spread on a Standard account can outweigh the small saving on Raw. I would use the broker cost calculator to get one all-in figure per standard lot so the comparison stays like-for-like.

Other costs to check are overnight financing (swap rates), inactivity fees, currency conversion fees if your account base is not the same as the asset’s quote currency, and deposit/withdrawal charges. These can eat into your profits quietly. See our lowest spreads and lowest commissions guides for live comparisons. To size a trade before you open one, our trading calculators work out margin, pip value and position size for any pair.

5. Make sure customer service meets your needs

We always test customer service. I cannot overstate how important this is when you get stuck mid-trade or have time-sensitive questions. Slow or poorly informed support can cost you on an open position.

Things to check before depositing:

• Hours of phone and live chat support (24/5 versus 24/7)
• Languages supported
• Quality of in-platform help and self-service knowledge base
• Speed and quality of response in our test (we open a real chat with a generic question and time the reply)

What I would want here is a support desk that answers when I am actually trading. Pepperstone, IC Markets, IG and Plus500 all run 24/5 chat with strong response times. eToro, CMC and OANDA close support over the weekend. If your weekend includes crypto markets and you want a human on the other end, that gap matters more than the chat widget’s daytime performance.

Compare brokers by the factor that decides it

I have re-ranked the market for one decision factor in each shortlist below, tested the same way as this page.

Who is the largest forex broker in Australia?

IG Markets is the largest forex broker in Australia by website traffic, with an estimated 176,000 monthly Australian visits (Ahrefs, July 2026). By brand-search volume, CMC Markets leads with around 49,500 monthly Google searches for the broker name. That does not tell you which broker is best for your trading, but it does show who dominates the conversation.

By client tenure, IG Markets and CMC Markets are the long-standing market leaders, both operating in Australia for more than 20 years. I have watched Pepperstone, founded in Melbourne in 2010, grow from a local startup to a global challenger on trading volumes.

Which Australian broker has the lowest spreads?

IC Markets and Eightcap tied for the tightest measured spreads in our May to June 2026 testing, both averaging 0.15 pips across eight major pairs on their raw accounts. Our capture was led by Noam Korbl, and for you that 0.15 pip average is razor-thin. The table shows the five tightest measured averages with each broker’s round-turn commission. The full 17-broker table and our capture method are in the lowest spreads guide.

Our own IceFX SpreadMonitor captures: rolling 24-hour windows, May to June 2026, London VPS.

What is the best forex trading platform in Australia?

Pepperstone is the best forex trading platform pick in Australia for 2026. It is the only top-three broker running all four mainstream platforms, MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView, and it recorded the fastest execution in our live testing. I would recommend Pepperstone to anyone who wants every platform under one roof. If you already know which software you want, the table below names our tested broker pick for each platform.

You will find a quick way to filter by platform in the comparison router in the how-to-choose section above.

Which broker is best for high-leverage trading?

No ASIC-regulated broker can exceed the Product Intervention Order caps, so the ceiling on this page is 30:1 on major forex pairs. If you need more than that, the only domestic path is wholesale client classification, and it costs you your retail protections: A$2.5 million in net assets or A$250,000 gross income is the entry ticket. See our guide to wholesale classification. In my view, most traders should exhaust every ASIC-protected option first. For the full breakdown of the cap, the wholesale route and the offshore risk, see our high-leverage forex brokers guide.

How we tested and scored the 32 brokers

Our team tested 600+ data points that matter for Australian forex traders, and Pepperstone, with a score of 98/100, was the clear winner. I oversaw the scoring framework, but the heavy lifting was done by Noam Korbl, who led the live spread and commission capture, and David Levy, who verified the numbers against source documents. Each broker was scored across regulation, spreads, commission, execution speed, platform availability, instrument range, mobile app quality, customer service and account opening experience.

We opened live AUD accounts with every broker. Our spread capture ran during Sydney and London sessions. Execution speeds were measured on EUR/USD market orders. Customer service was tested by lodging a generic question via live chat and timing the response.

Watch: Best forex brokers in Australia.

See our full methodology for the scoring rubric.

Compare brokers by trader type

These core trader-type guides are the first stop; each gets its own write-up below. Platform-, strategy- and asset-specific broker shortlists are linked from the comparison router in the how-to-choose section above.

1. Best Demo Trading Accounts

Demos vary more than people expect. I have been surprised by how different they are. Some expire after 30 days. Some run on stale prices. A few replicate live spreads and execution accurately enough to be useful. We rank the most usable demos for AU traders, including which ones reset, which support MT4/MT5/cTrader, and which let you keep the demo open after you fund a live account. Compare them in the best demo trading accounts in Australia guide.

2. Best ECN Brokers in Australia

True ECN means raw interbank pricing plus a fixed commission. Most ASIC brokers calling themselves “ECN” are actually STP or hybrid models. I find the label gets thrown around loosely. We unpack the difference, list the brokers offering genuine ECN execution, and benchmark spreads and commission on a typical 1.0-lot EUR/USD trade. The full list is in our guide to ECN forex brokers in Australia.

3. Best Forex Brokers for Beginners

The first 30 days are make-or-break. I have seen too many beginners get overwhelmed by a platform that throws 50 indicators at them on day one. Beginners need a platform that does not intimidate, education that is not a sales funnel, and a demo that gives an honest read on live conditions. We rank the brokers that consistently deliver on all three, and call out a couple we would avoid for first-time traders even though they are solid for experienced ones. See our shortlist of the best forex brokers for beginners.

4. Best Fixed Spread Forex Brokers

Fixed spreads are wider than variable on average, but they do not widen during news, rollover or thin liquidity. If you trade around news events, a fixed spread can save you from an instant 2-pip widen. I would only recommend fixed spreads for swing, news, or position traders, because on average variable spreads are tighter. We name the ASIC brokers offering meaningful fixed-spread accounts and explain when fixed beats variable. Compare the best fixed spread forex brokers.

5. Lowest Commission Forex Brokers

On RAW/ECN accounts the commission line often matters more than the spread. AUD 7 round-turn vs AUD 6 vs AUD 4.50 adds up fast if you are trading 50 lots a month. We benchmark commission across every RAW account on the AU shortlist and rank by total cost on a typical EUR/USD trade. Our lowest commission forex brokers guide has the full benchmark.

6. Lowest Spread Forex Brokers

This is the question the site gets most often, and I understand why: a fraction of a pip changes the maths on every trade. Our capture runs EUR/USD, AUD/USD and four other majors across a full 24-hour cycle that spans Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. IC Markets, Pepperstone and Fusion Markets cluster at the top every cycle. The differences are small enough that commission and execution speed often swing the real result. Because those two costs pull in opposite directions on the top two, we set them against each other in a dedicated Pepperstone vs IC Markets comparison so you can see which one tilts your way.

The part I keep coming back to is this: forex and CFD trading carries a high level of risk and can lead to the loss of some or all of your deposit; it is not suitable for everyone. My rule is simple. Only trade with money you can afford to lose, and read each broker’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and Target Market Determination (TMD) before opening an account. If those documents do not make the risks clear enough, walk.

Most Popular Forex Brokers in Australia

IG Markets is the most popular ASIC-regulated forex broker in Australia, with an estimated 160,656 monthly Australian visits to its website (Ahrefs, July 2026).

This ranking measures website visits, not trading quality: it is one lens on the market, separate from our tested best forex brokers verdict above, which scores each broker on live account testing. Popular is not the same as best.

ASIC-regulated forex brokers ranked by estimated monthly Australian website visits (July 2026)

#	Broker	Est. monthly AU visits
1	IG Markets* Most popular	160,656
2	CMC Markets*	129,313
3	eToro	41,947
4	Interactive Brokers	20,948
5	Forex.com	17,878
6	Pepperstone	14,765
7	Plus500	9,965
8	AvaTrade	9,542
9	IC Markets	8,626
10	FP Markets	8,568
* IG Markets and CMC Markets are multi-asset businesses in Australia including share trading; visits reflect their full websites. † OANDA excludes its currency-converter tool (about 91% of its AU organic traffic). ‡ Capital.com includes a material educational-content footprint.

Show all 30 brokers in this traffic dataset

#	Broker	Est. monthly AU visits
11	Capital.com‡	7,099
12	Mitrade	5,817
13	OANDA†	5,603
14	FXCM	4,228
15	Vantage	3,409
16	TMGM	2,973
17	Axi	2,538
18	ThinkMarkets	2,092
19	GO Markets	1,406
20	Fusion Markets	1,289
21	Eightcap	1,187
22	Trade Nation	1,175
23	Blueberry Markets	951
24	Totality	803
25	ACY Securities	743
26	Trading.com	278
27	Global Prime	247
28	easyMarkets	216
29	MultiBank Group	187
30	Focus Markets	15

IG Markets, CMC Markets and eToro together attract more Australian visits than the remaining 27 brokers combined.

Ranked by estimated monthly Australian organic visits to each broker's website (Ahrefs, July 2026). OANDA excludes its currency-converter tool; Capital.com includes an educational-content footprint. Estimates are directional, not audited client counts. Updated quarterly.