No. AvaTrade has no FCA-authorised UK entity, so there is no UK spread betting account to open, checked on 26 Aug 2026. Its UK web address does not serve a UK site: it redirects to the global one. Spread betting is a product only an FCA-authorised firm can offer a UK retail client, and AvaTrade does not publish one.
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, and two things it used to say have been retired. It priced AvaTrade spread bets in the present tense on a page arguing AvaTrade does not offer them, and it published an FCA firm reference number for AvaTrade that we had never verified against the register. The page now states only what AvaTrade publishes about itself: the regulators it names, the licence numbers it gives, and the UK domain that redirects to its global site. Later the same day the FCA register was read for the first time on this project, and it did not put the number back: the entry it holds is an Irish firm in supervised run-off rather than a UK authorisation, so the page states what the register says instead of what we could not find.
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What “No UK Entity” Actually Means
AvaTrade is a real broker with real licences. It is not a UK broker, and for spread betting that distinction is the whole answer.
A UK spread betting account is a regulated product. The firm taking the other side of your bet has to hold Financial Conduct Authority authorisation to offer it to a UK retail client. A firm authorised in Ireland, Australia or Abu Dhabi is authorised to do business there, and that is not the same permission.
The register itself says so, which is better evidence than our not having found something. Read on 26 Aug 2026: AVA Trade EU Limited appears on the FCA register under firm reference number 504072, and not as a UK-authorised firm: it is an Irish company in supervised run-off since 31 December 2023, permitted to act in the UK only where necessary to perform a contract entered into before then, and barred from holding or controlling client money.
Two parts of that matter to a UK reader. A firm in supervised run-off is winding an existing book down rather than opening new accounts, and a firm barred from holding client money cannot take your deposit at all. This page used to state the absence of an FCA authorisation as something we had looked for and not found. What it states now is the regulator’s own record of a firm on its way out of the UK.
The most direct evidence is AvaTrade’s own web address. A reader who types the UK domain does not reach a UK site. The domain returns a redirect to the global one, so there is no UK property, no UK product page and no UK account-opening route to examine.
This page used to say something different. It described AvaTrade spread betting in the present tense and quoted a spread for it. The conclusion further down the same page was that AvaTrade does not offer it to UK traders. That copy is gone.
Who Regulates AvaTrade
AvaTrade publishes its own list, which is the useful thing about this question: you do not have to take our word for any of it. These are the regulated companies it names in its footer, with the licence number it gives for each.
Company
Regulator and licence
Ava Trade EU Ltd
Central Bank of Ireland, C53877
Ava Trade Markets Ltd
BVI Financial Services Commission, SIBA/L/13/1049
Ava Capital Markets Australia Pty Ltd
ASIC, 406684
Ava Capital Markets Pty
FSCA South Africa, 45984
Ava Trade Middle East Ltd
ADGM FSRA, 190018
Read the right-hand column and note what is not in it. The Financial Conduct Authority appears nowhere, and this is AvaTrade describing itself rather than us describing it.
We are careful about this one. Our own page previously stated an FCA firm reference number for AvaTrade and described its position on the FCA register. Nobody here had read that register entry, and the number we published looked like an FCA reference while the licence AvaTrade actually publishes for that company is an Irish one. We have removed it rather than restate it, and it comes back only if someone reads the register and records what it says. Our guide to FCA regulation of spread betting covers the brands where a register search returns a company you were not looking for.
AvaTrade On The FCA Register
AVA Trade EU Limited, FRN 504072, on the FCA Financial Services Register: status EEA Authorised - Supervised run-off, status date 23 Jul 2009. 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. The permissions panel is not in it, 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.
What A UK Trader Gives Up
The absence of a UK entity is not a technicality about paperwork. It removes three specific protections a UK spread bettor otherwise has, and each one matters at the moment something goes wrong.
Compensation if the firm fails. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers clients of authorised UK firms. Without one, a failed broker leaves you making a claim as a creditor in whatever jurisdiction the company sits in.
A complaints route that binds. The Financial Ombudsman Service takes complaints about UK-authorised firms and its decisions bind the firm. It has no jurisdiction over a broker that is not authorised here.
The FCA conduct rules themselves. Segregation of client money, retail leverage limits and negative balance protection are FCA requirements on FCA firms. A broker outside that perimeter may apply similar rules by choice, and choice is not the same as a rule you can enforce.
Every provider in our ranking clears that floor. It is not a reason to pick any one of them over another, and it is the reason the ranking contains only firms that clear it.
What Other Review Sites Say About AvaTrade
These are AvaTrade’s 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.
AvaTrade’s 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.AvaTrade’s 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.AvaTrade’s 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 AvaTrade
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 spread betting platforms we rank.
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. Every one of them is authorised by the FCA, which is the first filter rather than a feature. The ranking is set on criteria we publish and is never influenced by what a broker pays us.
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 no longer offer the product and the brands that never did. We rank the FCA-regulated spread betting brokers that do offer the product against each other on cost and platform.
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.
AvaTrade Spread Betting: FAQs
Is AvaTrade regulated by the FCA?
No AvaTrade entity offers UK spread betting, on the evidence AvaTrade publishes and on the regulator’s own record. Its footer names five regulated companies with a licence number for each, covering Ireland, the British Virgin Islands, Australia, South Africa and Abu Dhabi, and none of them is a Financial Conduct Authority authorisation. The one AvaTrade company on the FCA register, read on 26 August 2026, is AVA Trade EU Limited, firm reference number 504072 — an Irish firm whose UK permissions are run-off only, exercisable where necessary to perform contracts entered into before 31 December 2023, and it cannot hold or control client money. A firm in that position cannot open a UK spread betting account for a retail client.
Can a UK resident open an AvaTrade spread betting account?
No. Spread betting is a UK and Ireland product offered by FCA-authorised firms, and AvaTrade publishes no UK entity and no spread betting product. Some other sites still price AvaTrade spread bets. We published a page that did the same thing until this rebuild, and it was wrong.
What protections does a UK trader lose without an FCA-authorised firm?
Three that matter. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not cover you, so a failed firm is a creditor claim rather than a compensation claim. The Financial Ombudsman Service will not take your complaint. And the FCA rules on client money segregation, leverage limits and negative balance protection for retail clients do not apply, because the firm is not an FCA firm.
Is AvaTrade a scam?
No, and that is a different question from the one this page answers. AvaTrade is a licensed broker in several jurisdictions and names each licence publicly. What it does not have, on its own published evidence, is UK authorisation. A UK reader looking for a spread betting account needs an FCA-authorised firm rather than a well-regulated firm somewhere else.
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.
