City Index Spread Betting Review

Our Verdict On City Index

City Index scores 82/100 and ranks 7 of 14 because its nine-pair average is 2.16 points against a 1.7-point industry row. It prices above that average on eight of the nine, so what you trade decides the saving.

How We Scored City Index

Our overall score for City Index is 82 out of 100. Below is the assessment behind it: City Index marked on each of the criteria we score every account against, each one out of 10.

These marks do not add up to the score above, and they are not meant to.The criteria are weighted rather than totalled. We tested whether any set of weights reproduces our published scores from these marks alone, and none does. The table tells you the shape of the assessment rather than its arithmetic. The one figure on this page you can rebuild yourself is the spread average, from the nine rows in the cost table.

The same six criteria are scored on every account we rank, so a mark here means the same thing as the mark on any other review. 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.

For City Index specifically, the strongest mark is Trust and the weakest is Trading Cost. That gap is the useful part of the table. Two accounts on the same overall score can be strong in completely different places. The one that suits you is the one scoring well on what you care about.

Where That Score Comes From

Trading cost is the criterion City Index scores lowest on, and the cost table below is the evidence for that mark rather than a contradiction of the score above it. An account can be strong on trust, service and platform choice and still be an expensive place to put a trade on.

Whether that trade is worth making is a question about you rather than about City Index. Somebody who places a handful of bets a year and wants the protection and the support will pay the spread difference happily. Somebody trading often will pay it many times over, and the table below is where you can work out which of those you are.

Who You Are Actually Contracting With

Spread bets at City Index are placed with StoneX Financial Ltd, trading as City Index (FRN 446717). The brand is not the company, and this is one of the rows on our register table that does not return what you expect:

City Index is a trading name rather than an authorised entity: the firm on the register is StoneX Financial Ltd under FRN 446717.

That is a fact about company structure rather than a warning. StoneX is a large listed group and the UK firm is fully authorised. What it means practically is that a register search has to use the authorised name rather than the brand. Search for City Index itself and you will conclude that a real firm does not exist.

Client money at an FCA-authorised firm is held separately from the firm’s own, and negative balance protection applies to retail accounts. The FSCS and the Financial Ombudsman Service are open to you. That is a floor every provider in our ranking clears. Our guide to FCA regulation of spread betting publishes the authorised entity and reference number for every provider we track. Our spread betting broker reviews directory covers every brand, including the ones with no account left to open.

City Index Spread Betting Costs

City Index prices below the industry average on one of the nine pairs and above it on eight. Its nine-pair average of 2.16 points sits over the 1.7-point industry row.

What That Table Does Not Say

It does not say City Index is overcharging you, and it does not say the account is bad. It says that on the pairs we harvest, on the date we harvested them, this is a costly account relative to the field. That is the single most useful thing a comparison can tell you about cost.

City Index’s own pricing pages publish minimum spreads on selected markets, and several of those are genuinely competitive. A minimum is the best price on the best market at the best moment, and our table is an average. Our harvest methodology sets out how the harvest is run and why we never publish a floor as though it were an average.

Guaranteed Stops At City Index

Guaranteed stop-loss orders are available at City Index. A guaranteed stop closes your trade at the level you set even when the market gaps straight through it. An ordinary stop cannot promise that, and every provider charges a premium for the difference.

City Index charges that premium only if the order is triggered. It appears on your next statement as a separate charge rather than coming out of the position. The premium works out as either a number of points multiplied by the size of your position, or a percentage of the position’s notional value, depending on the market. Two brokers can both offer guaranteed stops and cost you completely different amounts over a year, depending on how often your stops actually fire.

City Index does publish guide charges for its most popular markets. It labels every one of them a CFD charge, so none of them belongs on a spread betting page. The rate varies by instrument and appears on the deal ticket before you confirm the bet, so the platform is the only honest place to read it. We do not publish a worked example here, because we would have to invent the rate to write one.

Attaching a guaranteed stop costs nothing. City Index states that amending one, adding one to a position you already hold and cancelling one are all free of charge as well.

Our guide to spread betting stop-loss orders covers how the order type behaves in a gapping market.

Why That Section Is The Best Thing On This Page

Almost every comparison site will tell you whether a provider offers guaranteed stops. Very few will tell you what one costs, because most providers do not say. City Index says: when the charge falls, both of the formulas it uses, and that attaching, amending and cancelling are free.

That is worth more than it sounds. A guaranteed stop you can move as a position runs, at no charge, is a different tool from one you pay to touch. Weigh this section against the cost table above it if risk management is the reason you are choosing an account. Our spread betting stop-loss orders guide covers how the order type behaves when a market gaps.

What You Trade On

City Index offers its own web platform alongside third-party software, and the list on our summary table below is the set we have confirmed carries the spread betting account. It is a wider choice than most accounts in our ranking give you.

City Index recorded a median fill of 112ms in our timed testing, across 15 live orders placed between 18 and 27 August 2026. Fill speed is the one exception, and it is measured: 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.

Our app test counts rather than times. It records the taps from a cold launch to a placed order, whether price alerts fire, and whether a guaranteed stop can be placed in the app. We drove both store builds on 22 and 23 August 2026, using an iPhone 15 Pro running iOS 18.6 and a Google Pixel 8 running Android 15. It measures no speed, so no app here carries a responsiveness verdict.

On City Index it took four taps to get from a cold launch to a placed order. Price alerts fired on both builds, and a guaranteed stop can be placed in the app itself. Neither build logged a crash or a stall.

One thing to know before you go looking for it: the City Index app listing now published as StoneX Trading after the rebrand.

City Index publishes a demo account, and we read its terms off City Index’s own demo page rather than inferring them: £10,000 in virtual funds, 12 weeks, checked 26 August 2026.

Our spread betting platform comparison ranks the fourteen accounts on the attributes we can evidence.

What Our City Index Service Tests Found

City Index took a phone call on 25 August 2026 and resolved it in 2 minutes. The account opened on 12 August 2026 and was approved in 1 hour. A withdrawal on 27 August 2026 cost £0 and arrived the next working day.

City Index resolved the question on that contact. All three tests ran on the same live funded account we opened ourselves, and the withdrawal came out of it.

City Index Versus ThinkMarkets And Trade Nation

The two accounts either side of City Index in our ranking, on figures every review on this site renders from the same data. City Index takes the first column. Spreads are from the August 2026 harvest, the fill time from the timed execution dataset, and the rest from each account’s own published terms.

A row where two accounts show the same figure is a tie on that measure, not on the account. The score is set on the criteria we publish, and the table above shows where the difference between these accounts actually sits.

City Index Versus CMC Markets

City Index against CMC Markets, on the same figures the ranking table uses. This account does not sit either side of City Index in our ranking, so the pair is a named comparison rather than one the ranking picked, and every cell is a field each rival’s own review renders in the same form. City Index takes the first column. Spreads are from the August 2026 harvest, the fill time from the timed execution dataset, and the rest from each account’s own published terms.

A row where two accounts show the same figure is a tie on that measure, not on the account. The score is set on the criteria we publish, and the table above shows where the difference between these accounts actually sits.

City Index Testing Log

Every dated test we ran on this account and every dated read behind the figures on this page, oldest first, from the datasets those figures are rendered from. The log is the evidence trail rather than a summary of it.

What Other Review Sites Say About City Index

These are City Index’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.

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.

City Index At A Glance

Every row below is a value we read on City Index’s own UK site or hold in our broker data with a source and a date beside it. An attribute City Index does not publish has no row here, because the alternative is a number we would be guessing.

What You Can Bet On

City Index publishes these counts on its own market pages. They are the figures it states rather than counts we made, and each one covers the market it names.

• Forex pairs: 84+
• Indices: 40+
• Commodities: 20+

City Index Pros And Cons

Each line is a field in our broker data with a source and a date behind it, not an impression. Where City Index does not publish an attribute, that absence is listed as a cost rather than left blank.

City Index Spread Betting: FAQs