IC Markets Review Australia 2026

IC Markets at a glance: 18 key facts

International Capital Markets Pty Ltd holds ASIC AFSL 335692 and has traded from Sydney since a 2007 founding. The 18 key facts in the table below cover the entity, three further regulators and the US$200 account floor.

The commission row is where this broker differs from the field, and the two sections below price it.

IC Markets Raw Spread pricing, measured

IC Markets Raw Spread pricing measured 0.01 pips on EUR/USD, the tightest single-pair figure in the May to June 2026 capture, and 0.15 pips across the eight-pair basket. Round-turn commission adds A$9.00 per standard lot, A$4.50 per side.

Those spread captures ran on rolling 24-hour samples with IceFX SpreadMonitor from a London VPS. Adding the commission puts the all-in EUR/USD cost at about 0.59 pips at an AUD/USD rate of 0.65, which keeps IC Markets competitive with the Pepperstone Razor and Fusion Markets Zero accounts.

The measured eight-pair average matched Eightcap for the tightest result in the lowest spread brokers in Australia test. The per-side commission rate sits at the dearer end of the field, against A$2.25 at Fusion Markets.

Standard account for casual traders

The Standard account prices spread-only with no commission. The Standard account spread averaged 1.0 pip on EUR/USD across the same captures, with the eight-major average at 1.2 pips. That spread is a full pip wider than Raw Spread on the headline pair, so the account suits infrequent traders rather than anyone trading majors with regularity.

What it costs to trade with IC Markets

IC Markets charges A$9.00 in round-turn commission per standard lot on MetaTrader, and what it costs to trade one lot on cTrader is billed differently, at US$3.00 per US$100,000 of notional per side.

That commission divergence is the most consequential pricing fact on this page, and it is usually buried. The MetaTrader commission bills a flat amount per lot regardless of what is traded. cTrader and TradingView bill against the US dollar value of the position, converted to base currency at spot.

IC Markets publishes the worked example. One lot of EUR/USD at 1.30 is US$130,000 of notional, which bills US$3.90 to open and US$3.93 to close, so US$7.83 for the round turn. The round-turn figure is neither US$6.00 nor a fixed number.

The consequence falls hardest on an Australian trading the local pair. One lot of AUD/USD is 100,000 Australian dollars, a smaller US dollar notional than a lot of EUR/USD, so it attracts a smaller cTrader commission while MetaTrader charges the same A$9.00 either way. The AUD/USD commission is therefore cheaper on cTrader, and the EUR/USD commission is cheaper on the flat MetaTrader rate. The per-side figure sits in the lowest commission forex brokers comparison at the dearer end.

Other fees AU traders should check

• Overnight swaps run competitive, particularly on AUD pairs, and vary with trade direction.
• Currency conversion on non-base-currency instruments is charged at interbank plus a spread.
• Withdrawals cost A$0 on most methods and no inactivity fee applies.
• The free VPS carries a deposit and volume threshold IC Markets publishes on its own site rather than here.

IC Markets trading platforms

IC Markets trading platforms number three third-party terminals, MT4, MT5 and cTrader, with TradingView execution riding on the cTrader integration. IC Markets builds no platform of its own.

That platform absence cuts both ways. A platform learned here transfers to another broker, which is a genuine benefit, and no in-house build exists to differentiate the experience.

cTrader, the IC Markets pick

cTrader carries level 2 depth-of-book pricing drawn directly from the IC Markets liquidity pool of 25 plus banks and non-bank market makers. Order types cover market range, OCO, stop limit and trailing stop. cTrader Copy is integrated, and cTrader Automate handles algorithm development.

MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5

MT5 connects to the same liquidity engine as cTrader and suits existing MT5 expert advisors or native equity, futures and index trading alongside forex. MT4 remains supported as the default for legacy expert advisors, though a new client is better served on MT5 or cTrader.

Copy trading and mobile

The copy-trading account runs through cTrader Copy, the layer built into cTrader, on the same pricing the cTrader account uses. No proprietary social feed of the eToro kind exists here, and the MetaTrader accounts are set up for expert advisors rather than for copying. IC Markets ships no app of its own, so mobile trading happens in the platform vendors’ apps, all of which connect with the same login.

IC Markets execution speed and slippage

IC Markets execution speed measured 32ms on market orders through the May to June 2026 cycle, captured from a London VPS with LD4 co-location, on no-dealing-desk routing.

The EUR/USD slippage on market orders averaged 0.05 pips over the same window, which is the more useful figure for a scalper. Latency decides how fast an order reaches the book, and slippage decides what it costs on arrival. Both matter more on a scalping strategy than the headline spread does, because a 0.01 pip quote filled 0.05 pips away is a 0.06 pip trade.

That execution record makes IC Markets a lead pick in the ECN forex brokers rankings. Pepperstone measured faster at 28ms on the same method, so IC Markets is second rather than first on latency among the brokers publishing a figure at all.

Australian clients can also opt into NY4 routing for US session trading, which trims latency on USD pairs during US hours.

Is IC Markets safe? ASIC AFSL 335692

International Capital Markets Pty Ltd has held ASIC AFSL 335692 continuously since 2009, with no material ASIC enforcement action in the last 36 months, and the group adds CySEC oversight from Cyprus.

ASIC regulation and global licences

International Capital Markets Pty Ltd holds AFSL 335692 with ASIC. The register records the licence as current since 2 July 2009.

The licence stack holds three further entries:

• CySEC (Cyprus, EU), Tier 1
• SCB (Bahamas), Tier 3, used for offshore wholesale
• FSA (Seychelles), Tier 3, offshore wholesale

The offshore entities serve clients by country of residence, and Australian residents are placed on the ASIC entity. That entity placement is the material point: an Australian client faces the licensed Australian entity rather than a Seychelles or Bahamas arm, which is not true of every broker running the same multi-entity structure.

History and ownership

IC Markets was founded by Andrew Budzinski in Sydney in 2007, remains privately held, and has been Australian-headquartered and continuously Australian-regulated since launch.

IC Markets client money protection and AFCA membership

IC Markets client money protection runs through segregated accounts at an Approved Australian Bank, and AFCA membership gives Australian clients an external dispute path at no cost.

Client money accounts sit separate from company funds. ASIC requires negative balance protection on retail CFD accounts, so a retail account cannot lose more than the money in it. AFCA hears claims up to A$1,263,000 and awards compensation up to A$631,500. The Compensation Scheme of Last Resort sits behind that with an A$150,000 cap, and it excludes CFD trading losses, so it covers unpaid awards for misconduct rather than losing trades. The retail protection standard is set out in the guide to how negative balance protection works.

The wholesale reclassification surrenders those retail protections along with the leverage caps, which is the trade it asks for.

Public reviews

IC Markets holds a Trustpilot rating of 3.6 out of 5 from 18 reviews, which Trustpilot labels average, captured August 2026. The profile has been claimed by the broker since June 2025.

The public rating panels carry the third-party scores for this broker. Recurring praise covers the spreads, the execution and the support desk, and recurring complaints cover occasional withdrawal verification delays.

What other review sites say

IC Markets' iOS app rates 4.81 out of 5 from 47 ratings on the Australian App Store (August 2026), listed as IC Markets cTrader.

TradingView users rate IC Markets 4.6 out of 5 from 8,263 ratings (August 2026). 79.7K TradingView users have connected a IC Markets account.

App Store AU

4.81

47 ratingsAugust 2026

TradingView

4.6

8,263 ratings79.7K Traders via TradingViewAugust 2026View on TradingView

IC Markets account types and minimum deposit

IC Markets account types number three, and the minimum deposit is US$200 on every one of them, above the A$0 entry at Pepperstone, CMC Markets, IG Markets and Fusion Markets.

The swap-free account is available as a variant of the Standard and Raw Spread pricing, with a flat-rate holding fee charged in place of overnight swaps.

No separate wholesale or professional account product exists. The wholesale status under the Corporations Act is a reclassification of the same Standard or Raw Spread account on the ASIC entity, with leverage to 500:1.

Minimum deposit

The minimum deposit applies across all three accounts at US$200, quoted in US dollars by IC Markets itself, and is the one entry barrier on this page. A 30-day renewable demo mirrors the Raw Spread feed and features in the demo account comparison, which is the practical answer: the spread claims are testable before the US$200 is committed.

IC Markets funding methods and withdrawal times

IC Markets funding methods number seven, all at A$0, and withdrawal processing runs same day on Neteller and Skrill to three business days on a card refund.

Deposit methods (AU clients)

Four of the seven credit instantly, and PayID and POLi are the two most useful for an Australian client because both settle without a card network in the middle.

Withdrawals

Withdrawals cost A$0 on most methods. Anti-money-laundering compliance requires withdrawals to use the same source as deposits wherever available. The withdrawal times run one to three business days on a card refund, one to two on a bank transfer, and same day on Neteller or Skrill.

Account opening

Account opening runs fully online, taking one identity document and one proof of address, and most Australian applications clear within hours.

IC Markets instrument counts across six asset classes

IC Markets lists 60 plus currency pairs across six asset classes, forex first, then a step down against the multi-asset CFD houses on every other class. The share CFD book trails CMC Markets, IG Markets and Interactive Brokers.

Forex is the class this page turns on, and the pricing sections above carry the tested numbers. Commodities beyond gold cover the energy and soft contracts at the ASIC 10:1 retail cap. Bonds and treasuries are thin, so a rates trader is better served by the broader-range brokers below.

Share CFDs and crypto CFDs

IC Markets lists approximately 2,000 share CFDs across ASX, NYSE, NASDAQ and LSE, tradeable on MT5 only. IC Shares, the separate share investing platform, is closed to new registrations as of May 2026, so a new client has no ASX ownership route here at all. The share CFD class is compared in the guide to ASX and global share CFDs.

The crypto range runs to 18 plus CFDs including BTC and ETH at the ASIC 2:1 retail cap, as contracts on the price rather than coins a client owns.

IC Markets leverage and margin under ASIC rules

IC Markets leverage and margin fall under a maximum retail leverage of 30:1 on major forex pairs, with lower caps on minors, indices, commodities and cryptocurrency set by ASIC.

ASIC caps retail CFD leverage at 30:1 on major forex pairs, 20:1 on minor pairs, gold and major indices, 10:1 on commodities other than gold, 5:1 on share CFDs and 2:1 on crypto assets. The caps come from a product intervention order extended to 23 May 2027, so they apply at every ASIC broker rather than at IC Markets alone.

The caps apply identically across Raw Spread, Standard and cTrader accounts, so the account choice changes the commission model and never the leverage. The wholesale tier reclassifies clients passing the Corporations Act tests to 500:1 on the same account.

Retail margin close-out sits at 50%. ASIC requires every CFD issuer to close a retail client’s positions once account equity falls below half the total initial margin on all open positions, positions cannot be netted against each other to reduce that figure, and a gapping market can close a position below the 50% level. The leverage tier structure is set out in forex leverage explained.

IC Markets customer support

IC Markets customer support runs live chat and email 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and phone 24/5 from Sunday 10:00 PM to Friday 10:00 PM GMT.

The live chat desk replied in under 90 seconds in testing, and the agents know the platforms well, cTrader especially. That platform knowledge matters more here than on a proprietary-platform broker, because a client problem is usually a terminal problem rather than a broker one.

The Sydney support desk covers Australian business hours with a global team overnight, which is a genuine difference from brokers routing every Australian query into one offshore pool.

The language range runs to English, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Thai. Seven languages on a 24/7 support desk is broad for a broker of this size, and reflects the international client base rather than the Australian one. The Australian desk is the part that matters to a local client, and it is staffed in local hours.

IC Markets research, tools and education

IC Markets research, tools and education number six items: the Insights blog, webinars, Smart Trader Tools for MT4 and MT5, a free VPS for qualifying clients, Trading Central research and Autochartist pattern recognition.

• IC Markets Insights blog with daily and weekly market analysis
• Webinars on platform use and trading topics
• Smart Trader Tools for MT4 and MT5
• Free VPS for qualifying clients
• Trading Central daily research
• Autochartist pattern recognition

Two of the six research items carry conditions rather than being open to every client. The VPS requires a deposit and volume threshold IC Markets publishes on its own site, and Trading Central access varies by account.

The stack is built for active traders and assumes the basics are in place. The research stack assumes competence, and a beginner gets more structured hand-holding at Plus500 or eToro.

How IC Markets compares to Pepperstone and Fusion Markets

IC Markets measured 0.15 pips across the eight-pair basket against 0.46 pips at Pepperstone, and charges A$9.00 round turn against A$4.50 at Fusion Markets. IC Markets compares to Pepperstone and Fusion Markets from in front on spread and from behind on commission.

The closest head-to-head comparison is covered in Pepperstone vs IC Markets.

The Pepperstone account holds a A$0 minimum, five platforms against four here, and faster measured fills at 28ms. Fusion Markets holds the cheaper commission at A$2.25 per side and a A$0 minimum, on four platforms and a smaller operation. IC Markets holds the tightest measured raw spread of the three and the deepest liquidity pool.

Should you open an IC Markets account?

IC Markets suits active forex traders who place more than a handful of trades a month, at 0.15 pips measured across eight pairs and A$9.00 round turn per lot. Traders funding small or wanting a broker-built platform are served better elsewhere than by an IC Markets account.

Two groups of trader gain clear value from an IC Markets account. Scalpers and expert advisor traders reach the tightest measured raw spread in this coverage with 32ms fills behind it. cTrader traders get the strongest build of that platform on the Australian market, on a commission model that favours AUD pairs.

Two groups should look past an IC Markets account. The minimum deposit gates small-balance traders at US$200 where Pepperstone and Fusion Markets ask nothing. Cost-first traders pay the dearest commission of the raw cohort, and Fusion Markets halves it.

IC Markets ranks fourth among the top-rated forex brokers in Australia on the 2026 scoring. The demo mirrors the Raw Spread feed, so the pricing is testable before the US$200 is committed.

Advertiser disclosure: commercial arrangements on this page are set out in full.