No. Admirals publishes no UK spread betting product and no route to open a spread betting account, checked on 26 Aug 2026. The UK firm behind the brand is Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FRN 595450), and that authorisation is current. It holds the FCA permissions to offer spread betting to retail clients and does not use them. What it opens for a UK client is something else: CFDs, on forex, commodities, indices, stocks and ETFs.
UK firm behind the brand: Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FRN 595450)
Updated 3 Sep 2026. The FCA register entry this page rests on was re-read and captured, and the capture now sits on the page under the sentences it supports. Earlier: Rebuilt on 26 Aug 2026 to answer its question in the first sentence. The page now states the FCA entity behind the brand, the date we last checked, and what Admirals sells instead, and it compares a spread bet with a contract for difference on the three points that actually differ. The broker comparison table has gone: a spread betting cost table on a page about a broker with no spread betting account was a table its own subject could not appear in.
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What Admirals Offers Instead
Admirals is an authorised UK firm and a working broker. The gap is the product, not the regulation, and that is a different answer from the one most “does X offer spread betting” pages give you.
That is a claim about permissions, so it comes from the permissions. Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FRN 595450) holds six regulated activities on the FCA register, read on 26 Aug 2026, and five of the six list “spread bet” among the investment types they cover, for retail clients as well as professional ones. One of the five is dealing in investments as principal, which is the permission a firm needs in order to be the counterparty to a retail client’s spread bet.
Arranging (bringing about) deals in investments
Arranging safeguarding and administration of assets
Dealing in investments as agent
Dealing in investments as principal
Making arrangements with a view to transactions in investments
Safeguarding and administration of assets (without arranging)
So the answer to whether Admirals could offer spread betting is yes, and it has chosen not to. It has published no reason for that, and we are not going to invent one.
Its account menu opens a trading account, an investment account, an Islamic account and a demo. None of them is a spread betting account. The leveraged product behind the trading account is the contract for difference, which is what its own site-wide risk warning names and the only leveraged product that warning mentions.
A CFD is leveraged, priced in a spread, and settled in cash against the movement of an underlying market. That makes it the closest relative spread betting has, and the differences that remain are set out below.
Admirals does publish an explainer on spread betting in its education section, and knowing what that article is matters, because finding it is how most people arrive at this question. The article explains the product in general terms and tells the reader how to judge a spread betting provider. It then closes by pointing the reader at an Admirals CFD account. It never says Admirals offers spread betting, and every account button on it opens a CFD account.
Admirals On The FCA Register
Admiral Markets UK Ltd, FRN 595450, on the FCA Financial Services Register: status Authorised, since 12 Jun 2013. Captured 3 Sep 2026. Source: the firm’s register entry, Financial Conduct Authority.
The capture is the firm details and firm status panels of the entry as the register served them on that date, and the link opens the live entry. Our regulation guide sets out how to verify a firm on the FCA register.
Spread Betting And CFDs: What Actually Differs
Both are leveraged derivatives, both are priced in a spread, and neither gives you the underlying asset. Three things separate them for someone in the UK.
Spread betting
CFDs, including at Admirals
Capital Gains Tax
Outside the scope of CGT for most UK retail traders
Within the scope of CGT for a UK individual
Stamp Duty
None
None
How you size a trade
A stake per point of movement
A number of units or contracts
Ownership of the underlying
None
None
Who can open one
UK and Ireland residents only
Available across most of the markets a broker serves
The tax row is the reason most people searching for spread betting are searching for it specifically. Spread betting profits sit outside Capital Gains Tax for most UK individuals and CFD profits do not. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and can change, so you should seek professional tax advice if you are unsure. Our page on spread betting and tax covers the conditions under which the exemption stops applying, and spread betting versus CFD trading compares the two products in full.
The last row explains something about the shape of Admirals itself. Spread betting is a UK and Ireland product, so a broker selling a single platform into many countries has a reason to standardise on CFDs. That is an observation about the business rather than a statement from Admirals, which has published no reason.
The stake row matters more in practice than it reads. A spread bet is sized in pounds per point. A CFD is sized in units of the underlying, so the same question needs the contract size and the currency of the market before you can answer it.
A worked example. You back a market at £1 a point and it moves ten points your way, so you make £10; it moves ten points against you and you lose £10. Nothing about the contract size or the currency of the underlying enters the arithmetic, which is the practical difference between the two products.
What Other Review Sites Say About Admirals
These are Admirals’ ratings on the platforms below, each read on the date shown and stated in that platform’s own scale. They are other people’s ratings, gathered on those sites’ own terms, and we publish them so you can weigh them against ours.
Admirals’ Trustpilot profile, captured 3 Sep 2026. We recapture these monthly, so the figure in the table is the one the platform showed on that date rather than a number typed in once and left to age.Admirals’ Apple App Store listing, captured 3 Sep 2026. We recapture these monthly, so the figure in the table is the one the platform showed on that date rather than a number typed in once and left to age.Admirals’ Google Play listing, captured 3 Sep 2026. We recapture these monthly, so the figure in the table is the one the platform showed on that date rather than a number typed in once and left to age.
Our own score is set on the six criteria we publish and is not influenced by any third-party rating. A high rating on a review platform and a low mark here can both be true of the same account, because they measure different things.
Where To Spread Bet Instead Of Admirals
These are the three highest-scoring accounts in our ranking that you can open today, in score order. The order is the ranking’s own and does not change from page to page. Our scores are set on the criteria we publish and are never influenced by what a broker pays us. The list below is therefore the same list you will find on our FCA-regulated spread betting platforms.
1. Pepperstone - Review score 98/100
Nine-pair average: 1.34 points, EUR/USD at 0.6 points
76.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.
Your capital is at risk. This page is not financial or tax advice.
How We Picked Those Three
They are the top three of the fourteen accounts in our ranking, in score order, with nothing else applied. The ranking is set on criteria we publish and is never influenced by what a broker pays us. The same three appear on every page of ours that asks this question.
Each carries the spread average we harvest from the broker’s own site each month, which is the one cost figure every provider publishes on the same basis. Our spread betting broker reviews directory has the full list, including the brands that offer no spread betting product. Our UK spread betting platform comparison ranks them against each other, and shows which of them run MetaTrader if that is what brought you to Admirals.
Between 61% and 76.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with the providers we compare.
Spread betting is leveraged and losses can exceed the amount you set out to risk on a bet. This page is not financial or tax advice.
Admirals Spread Betting: FAQs
Is Admirals regulated by the FCA?
Yes. Admiral Markets UK Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and its firm reference number is published in the footer of its own site. Being FCA-authorised is not the same as being authorised for every product. The account Admirals opens for a UK client is a contracts for difference account rather than a spread betting one.
Why does Admirals not offer spread betting?
Admirals has not published a reason and we will not invent one. What its own site shows is that spread betting appears in its education section and nowhere in its products or its account types. The explainer it publishes on the subject tells the reader how to choose a spread betting provider, then points them at an Admirals CFD account. That is the shape of a broker writing about a product it does not sell.
Is a CFD taxed differently from a spread bet in the UK?
Yes, and Capital Gains Tax is the difference. Profits on contracts for difference are within the scope of CGT for a UK individual, while spread betting profits fall outside it for most retail traders. Neither product attracts Stamp Duty, because neither transfers ownership of the underlying. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and can change, so you should seek professional tax advice if you are unsure.
Which spread betting account is the closest alternative to Admirals?
Admirals is a MetaTrader broker at heart, so the closest alternatives are the FCA-authorised spread betting accounts that also run MetaTrader. Our platform comparison lists which of the accounts we rank carry it. The accounts carded above are the highest-scoring spread betting accounts you can open, ranked on our own criteria rather than on what a broker pays us.
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 been investing since 1998 and actively trading since 2014, and has written on forex and CFD trading for Kiplinger, Entrepreneur, Finance Magnates and MoneyShow since 2019.
