ActivTrades publishes target spreads on all nine pairs we read, and no average, typical or fixed figure on any of them. That is unusual among the accounts we track.
🗺️ FCA regulated: ActivTrades Plc (FRN 434413), checked on the FCA register 22 Sep 2026
Updated on 28 Sep 2026: The Customer Service mark is now computed from our support test under our published rule, rather than typed from the scoring sheet. ActivTrades’ Customer Service mark moves from 6/10 to 9/10, its overall score moves from 60/100 to 65/100, and it moves from eleventh to tenth of 14. The review now prints the number of contacts behind the mark, one, and the date, 27 Aug 2026, beside the mark. The author line, this change note and the payment disclosure now sit after the opening answer and the four fact tiles.
Our spread bet content is supported by broker partners, who pay us on a retainer basis rather than per referral.
Our Verdict On ActivTrades
ActivTrades scores 65/100 and ranks 10 of 14. ActivTrades publishes only target spreads, which we keep out of the brokers' average. Judge it on the rest and check its prices on the platform.
How We Scored ActivTrades
Our overall score for ActivTrades is 65 out of 100. Below is the assessment behind it: ActivTrades marked on each of the criteria we score every account against, each one out of 10.
ActivTrades marked out of ten on each of the six criteria we score every account against, shown as a bar on each row.
Criterion
ActivTrades
Trading Cost
4 / 10
Trading Experience
6 / 10
Trading Platform
6 / 10
Trust
6 / 10
Range Of Markets
8 / 10
Customer Service
9 / 101 service contact, 27 Aug 2026
The overall score shown above the table is the sum of these six marks, each out of 10, divided by 60 and multiplied by 100, rounded half up. No criterion is weighted, and this has been how every score on the site is computed since 24 September 2026.
Our account scoring method sets out what each criterion covers, where the data behind it comes from, and which parts of an account we assess rather than test.
Who You Are Actually Contracting With
Spread bets at ActivTrades are placed with ActivTrades Plc (FRN 434413). The brand and the authorised firm share a name here, so a register search for ActivTrades returns the company you were looking for.
On 15 March 2011 the Financial Services Authority (the FCA’s predecessor regulator) issued a Final Notice against ActivTrades Plc, FRN 434413, fining it £85,750 for breaches of Principle 3 (Management and control) and Principle 10 (Clients’ assets) of the FSA’s Principles for Businesses, and associated CASS Rules, between 14 April 2009 and 2 September 2010. The notice itself states that the failings placed some client money at risk (although none of ActivTrades’ clients suffered any losses as a result). It was settled at stage 1 of the regulator’s procedure for a 30% discount. The firm remained authorised at the FCA register read on 31 August 2026; the register marks such action as historic or possibly current without stating which.
The FCA register lists two clone firms impersonating ActivTrades between 24 May 2023 and 16 January 2025; these are fraudsters copying the name, not findings about the firm. Check FRN 434413 on the register before depositing.
The Financial Ombudsman Service and the FSCS may be available to you, depending on eligibility.
Our guide to FCA regulation of spread betting publishes the authorised entity and reference number for every provider we track. It also sets out what electing professional status costs you, which matters here because ActivTrades publishes a professional leverage ceiling.
Is ActivTrades Regulated By The FCA?
Activtrades Plc is on the Financial Services Register under firm reference number 434413, and its status panel reads Authorised, since 27 Oct 2005. We read the entry on 3 Sep 2026, and the capture below is what the register showed that day.
Activtrades Plc, FRN 434413, on the FCA Financial Services Register: status Authorised, since 27 Oct 2005. Captured 3 Sep 2026. Source: the firm’s register entry, Financial Conduct Authority.
The permissions panel is not in the capture, so this page makes no claim about which regulated activities the authorisation covers. Our regulation guide sets out the FCA register check, step by step.
ActivTrades Trust, Ownership And Client Money Protection
Can You Trust ActivTrades?
ActivTrades is run by Activtrades Plc, a firm Authorised by the FCA since 2005. ActivTrades states that it "segregates all retail client funds from its own money in accordance with the UK FCA's Client Asset rules", and that it "will reimburse the negative balance on your account". The firm reference number is 434413. (FCA register, read ; ActivTrades's own site, read ; ActivTrades's own site, read )
Who Owns ActivTrades?
Companies House lists one individual, not named here, as a person with significant control of Activtrades Plc, the UK firm that runs ActivTrades and holds FCA authorisation. (Companies House, read )
What Happens To Your Money If ActivTrades Fails?
ActivTrades states that it "segregates all retail client funds from its own money in accordance with the UK FCA's Client Asset rules". It also states that it is "a member of the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)". The FSCS's own limit, from fscs.org.uk, is up to £85,000 per eligible person, per firm, for a firm that failed after 1 April 2019. (ActivTrades's own site, read ; FSCS, read )
How Long Do ActivTrades Withdrawals Take?
We requested a withdrawal from ActivTrades on 27 August 2026. The fee was £0, and the money arrived the next working day. (our August 2026 withdrawal test, requested )
£10 a month once there has been no activity on the account for 18 months
ActivTrades Spread Betting Costs
ActivTrades publishes a target spread for spread betting on all nine pairs, in pips. A target is the spread it says it aims to execute at, a statement of intent rather than a measurement.
We list the targets below and keep them out of the brokers' average.
This table shows what ActivTrades publishes for spread betting on the nine pairs, with the kind of each figure and its window, as read on 18 Sep 2026.
The spread figure ActivTrades publishes for spread betting on each currency pair, with the kind of figure and the window it covers.
ActivTrades does not offer guaranteed stop-loss orders. An ordinary stop closes your trade at the next available price rather than at the price you set. A market that gaps overnight can therefore close you out below your stop, and the loss is yours.
ActivTrades recorded a median fill of 167ms in our timed testing, across 15 live orders placed between 18 and 27 August 2026. A claim about execution speed or app responsiveness needs a dated test with a recorded device and method behind it, and we now publish one for fill speed, timed on live funded accounts and released with its raw rows.
We drove both builds on 22 and 23 August 2026, using an iPhone 15 Pro running iOS 18.6 and a Google Pixel 8 running Android 15.
On ActivTrades it took four taps to get from a logged-in state to a placed order. Price alerts fired on both builds. Neither build logged a crash or a stall.
ActivTrades publishes a demo account, and we read its terms off ActivTrades’s own demo page rather than inferring them: £10,000 virtual funds, no deposit to open, checked 22 September 2026.
One row per dated testing event on ActivTrades: the date, and what we did and what we found on it.
Date
What we did and what we found
Both builds driven on an iPhone 15 Pro running iOS 18.6 and a Google Pixel 8 running Android 15 (iOS on 22 Aug 2026, Android on 23 Aug 2026): four taps from login to a placed order, and price alerts fired on both builds.
Criterion scores read from our master scoring sheet.
Support contacted by live chat. First response in 6 minutes; resolved.
Withdrawal requested. Fee £0; the money arrived the next working day.
15 live orders timed between 18 and 27 August 2026. Median fill 167ms, tenth-fastest of the fourteen accounts we timed.
ActivTrades’ Trustpilot profile, captured 1 Oct 2026. We re-read these ratings every month, so the figure in the table is the one the platform displayed on that capture date.
On 1 Oct 2026, Trustpilot showed neither a TrustScore nor a star rating for ActivTrades, and the profile carried Trustpilot's own notice that the rating is unavailable because of a breach of its guidelines, and the screenshot above shows the notice as it appeared. A withheld score is not a score of zero and not a low rating, and it means Trustpilot is not vouching for the figure at the moment.
ActivTrades’ Apple App Store listing, captured 1 Oct 2026. We re-read these ratings every month, so the figure in the table is the one the platform displayed on that capture date.ActivTrades’ Google Play listing, captured 1 Oct 2026. We re-read these ratings every month, so the figure in the table is the one the platform displayed on that capture date.ActivTrades’ TradingView profile, captured 1 Oct 2026. We re-read these ratings every month, so the figure in the table is the one the platform displayed on that capture date.
ActivTrades At A Glance
Key facts about ActivTrades: its FCA-regulated entity, minimum deposit, spread bet platforms, markets, inactivity fee and guaranteed stops.
🗺️ FCA regulated
ActivTrades Plc (FRN 434413)
💰 Minimum deposit
£0
📊 Spread bet platforms
ActivTrader, MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5
🛍️ Markets available
603
💱 Inactivity fee
£10 a month once there has been no activity on the account for 18 months
🛡️ Guaranteed stops
Not offered
What You Can Bet On
ActivTrades publishes these counts on its own market pages.
Forex pairs: 48
Commodities: 18
ETFs: 34
ActivTrades Pros And Cons
Pros
No minimum deposit
603 markets on the spread betting account
Cons
Publishes Target Spreads Only
Ranks 10 of 14 on our review score
No guaranteed stop-loss orders
Your Experience With ActivTrades
If you have traded with ActivTrades, tell us what a new customer should know. Submissions are read by the team. Only reviews we can verify are ever published, and none are published yet. Nothing you enter here appears on this page.
Reviews are never paid for and never edited for a broker.
ActivTrades Spread Betting: FAQs
Which company do you contract with when you spread bet at ActivTrades?
Spread bets at ActivTrades are placed with ActivTrades Plc (FRN 434413). ActivTrades runs separate companies under separate regulators in other countries, and those are different firms.
What spreads does ActivTrades charge on a spread bet?
ActivTrades publishes targets instead of prices. Its own pricing page states, for each pair, the spread it aims to execute at, with no method or window behind the numbers.
Does ActivTrades offer guaranteed stop-loss orders?
No. ActivTrades does not offer guaranteed stop-loss orders. Its UK Customer Agreement, read on 22 Sep 2026, offers none, and its help centre article on order types lists no guaranteed stop.
What leverage can you use on an ActivTrades spread bet?
The same caps as at every FCA-authorised provider, because the limits are set by the regulator rather than by the firm. ActivTrades publishes a higher ceiling for professional clients, and electing professional status removes the retail protections that come with those caps. Our regulation guide sets out what is given up in that trade.
Is An ActivTrades Spread Betting Account Worth Opening?
Several of the FCA-regulated spread betting platforms we rank score higher than this account and publish their pricing.
If you came here for one market rather than for the account, our pages on index spread betting and commodity spread betting cover how those bets are priced. For most UK retail traders, spread betting profits are not subject to Capital Gains Tax, though tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and can change. Our guide to spread betting and tax covers the details.
69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.
Your capital is at risk. Spread betting is leveraged, so losses can exceed the amount you set out to risk on a bet. This page is not financial or tax advice.
Justin Grossbard co-founded Spread-Bet.co.uk with Noam Korbl in 2024, and co-founded the broker comparison network CompareForexBrokers with him in 2014. He has written for Kiplinger, Entrepreneur, Finance Magnates and MoneyShow since 2022, with articles on forex and trading at MoneyShow, Finance Magnates and Kiplinger.
Change history: 8 earlier dated notes
Updated on 24 Sep 2026: we recomputed every score on the site as the sum of the six criterion marks, each out of 10, divided by 60 and multiplied by 100, rounded half up, with no criterion weighted, and the ranking follows the scores, with brokers on the same score sharing a place. ActivTrades’s score moved from 56/100 to 60/100 and its place moved from twelfth to eleventh of 14. The paragraph under the table of marks now states this rule, where it had said the marks do not add up to the score. The comparison with the brokers ranked either side follows the new order.
Updated on 23 Sep 2026: Every claim was checked against primary sources on 22 and 23 September 2026, and several passages that repeated what other pages own, or that we could not source, were removed. Guaranteed stops are now stated as unavailable, sourced from ActivTrades’s UK Customer Agreement and help centre. An inactivity fee of £10 a month after 18 months, market counts, app test results and a live chat response were added, and FSCS and Ombudsman wording now reflects eligibility.
Updated on 22 Sep 2026: Broker facts were re-read at ActivTrades’s own UK pages and the FCA register on 22 Sep 2026, including the demo terms, the market count (now 603) and a target spread of 0.60 points on the UK 100. The platform list now names ActivTrader, MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. The average drawn from the brokers that publish one is now named the brokers’ average, and the market list now distinguishes published totals from our own counts.
Updated 19 Sep 2026. This review has a new section answering whether you can trust ActivTrades, who owns it, what happens to your money if it fails and how long withdrawals took in our test, each with its sources and the date we read them (19 September 2026). The FCA register section now opens with the question of whether ActivTrades is regulated. The byline now credits David Levy as fact-checker. A sentence now notes that ActivTrades also offers CFDs, with a link to our comparison of the two products. No score, rank or spread figure changed.
Updated 18 Sep 2026. We changed how we read spreads: we now read each broker’s own UK site and record what kind of figure it publishes, average, typical, fixed, target or minimum. The cost section, the verdict and the pros and cons now follow what ActivTrades publishes. No score or rank changed.
Updated 5 Sep 2026. A section inviting readers who have traded with ActivTrades to tell us what a new customer should know now sits before the FAQ: a rating, how long they have traded, the markets, one thing to know, and their consent. Submissions are read by the team, only reviews we can verify are ever published, and none are published yet; nothing entered there appears on this page. No figure changed.
Updated 3 Sep 2026. Two changes on the day. First, the FCA register entry for the authorised firm was re-read and captured, and the capture sits under the section on who you contract with, beside the licence list; the rail’s section list was cut to the sections readers use. Second, the page moved onto the new review layout: a head-to-head against the two accounts either side of it in our ranking, a dated testing log built from the August datasets, a licence list, a per-bet cost tool on the spread table, and a section carrying the third-party ratings read from the platforms themselves, each with the date it was captured. No spread figure, score or rank changed.
Updated 1 Sep 2026. Four dated tests were added and none was on the page before: a support question timed to first response, an account opening timed to approval, a withdrawal with its fee and its outcome, and both store builds of the app driven on an iPhone and a Pixel. The sentence saying we have published no assessment of how these platforms perform is retired, because the app test now measures part of what it disclaimed. The entity section gains the firm’s regulatory history, rendered from the FCA register read of 31 Aug 2026: the 2011 Final Notice and the register’s clone-firm warnings, neither of which was on the page before. No spread figure, score or rank changed.
