Best Spread Betting Platforms In The UK

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. OANDA moved from 91 to 80 and now shares sixth place with StoneX Trading, and FxPro moved from 57 to 30 and is now 14th. The labels are now each taken from the measure they name: best overall is Pepperstone (highest score), widest market range is CMC Markets (the largest market count a broker publishes, 21,000), best for beginners is Spreadex (the beginners rule), and joint fewest taps to trade is Capital.com and Trade Nation (our app test). We removed the "best app" label because no measure we hold decides it. We corrected the row notes for OANDA, IG and ThinkMarkets: OANDA states no minimum stake, IG’s minimum deposit is £250, and ThinkMarkets’ guaranteed stops are not counted for spread bets. In the guaranteed stop list ThinkMarkets is no longer included and Trade Nation now is. The opening paragraph now names Pepperstone, ranked first at 98/100, as the only broker in our spread read that publishes a spread betting average on all nine pairs, and says to check the account is with Pepperstone Limited, FRN 684312. We removed the 14 broker cards. Each row of the ranked table now opens to show the broker’s FCA register entry, its overnight financing and inactivity fee where it publishes them, and a link to its full review, and every row shows these details with JavaScript off. Spread Co’s row shows that its fixed spreads apply to bets of up to £50 a point. We removed the timed-order summary above the table; the full results remain in the execution section, which now comes before the section on guaranteed stops. A new list shows four firms not yet in our tests, with each firm’s FCA entity, register status and published loss figure. Three FAQ questions were removed and are now linked to the pages that answer them. The opening paragraph now states the evidence beside Pepperstone’s score, the 210 live orders we timed at the FCA-regulated spread betting brokers between 18 and 27 August 2026. Its last sentence now asks readers to check any broker’s firm name and FRN on the FCA register before depositing, with Pepperstone Limited as the example. The ranked table has a shorter heading, a one-line introduction, and a caption that states the test window. The top picks now sit in a list under the table. Our beginners page is now a section below the ranked table, and its old address redirects here. The section names our beginners pick, Spreadex, with the rule that picks it. Its linked Beginner filter keeps 8 of the 14 brokers with a demo account we confirmed and a minimum deposit of £20 or less. The old page’s six steps to a first bet, stake-per-point calculator and smallest spread bet answer carry over. Our link on opening an account now goes there. Our beginners pick is now CMC Markets, where it was Spreadex. Our pick comes from the Beginner filter’s brokers, those with a confirmed demo and a deposit of £20 or less, ranked by published minimum stake and then by guaranteed stops. When we read Spreadex’s own UK site on 24 Sep 2026, it did not state a demo, and the filter does not show it.

Updated on 23 Sep 2026: Account-opening and approval times were removed, as these are no longer published anywhere on the site, along with a large amount of repeated and unsourced text. Added notes that ETX Capital no longer offers UK spread betting and that OvalX was the same Monecor business, plus corrected tax wording on capital gains and loss offsetting. The video review and withdrawal test descriptions were reworded, and broker cards were trimmed.

Updated on 22 Sep 2026: Each broker’s platform list, minimum deposit, overnight financing and inactivity fee were re-read at the broker’s own UK pages. Spreadex’s minimum deposit now reads £5 where it read £0, so seven of the 14 brokers now ask for no minimum deposit, where the page said eight. FxPro’s and Spread Co’s UK sites state no minimum deposit, so both now read "not stated" where they read £100 and £50. An average drawn from the brokers that publish one is now named as such.

Updated on 22 Sep 2026: the opening sentence now gives the test window as 18 to 27 August 2026 instead of the month, and describes the 14 brokers as FCA-regulated, the wording the rest of the site uses for the same test. No score, rank or figure changed.

Updated on 21 Sep 2026: the binary options FAQ asks whether UK retail clients can trade binary options and links the options page, which answers the first question. The claims that spread bets have no expiry date and that binary options ran 5 minutes to 24 hours are removed. The spread FAQ adds the read’s wide end with Spread Co and links the statistics page. The slippage link opens at the results table. No score, rank, spread or loss figure changed.

Updated on 21 Sep 2026: The opening sentence now names financial spread betting and describes it as a leveraged bet staked in pounds per point. No score, rank or figure changed.

Updated 19 Sep 2026. The opening now leads with the 210 live orders we timed and gives Pepperstone’s score, median fill and minimum deposit. Pepperstone’s published August 2026 spreads are compared with the average of the brokers that publish one in the costs section and the FAQ. An evidence strip below lists the top five brokers’ timed results. Broker cards show FCA register entries captured on 3 September 2026. A table of approval times from our August 2026 account-opening test now sits under the section on opening an account, and a broker matcher now sits under choosing a broker. Every spread average on the page now states how many brokers it covers. The answer on which brokers offer spread betting names three brands that do not. No score, rank or spread figure changed.

Updated 18 Sep 2026. Spread figures now come from our own read of each broker’s UK site, with the kind of each figure recorded. Averages cover only average, typical and fixed figures, and each shows the number of brokers behind it. No score or rank changed.

Rebuilt on 6 Sep 2026. The ranked list and comparison table were merged into a single table with the same filters and sorting. Each row expands to show the broker’s FCA entity, the share of retail accounts losing money, guaranteed-stop status and its score across our six criteria. The number one pick card and Top Picks cards were removed; the top pick is now the highlighted first row with a reason sentence. No figure changed.

Updated 6 Sep 2026. A sentence about the tightest nine-pair average used to say it was the tightest of the thirteen that publish one. No broker publishes a nine-pair average; we compute it from each account’s harvest row, and the sentence now says the tightest of the accounts in our harvest. Also on 5 Sep 2026: AvaTrade, Admirals and Markets.com left the harvest because a UK reader cannot open a spread betting account with any of them. On 5 Sep 2026 the nine-pair average moved from 1.74 to 1.7 points, the USD/SGD average row moved from 3.6 to 3.2 points, and the cost board went from sixteen accounts to thirteen. No broker’s own spread figure, score or rank changed.

Rebuilt on 3 Sep 2026 onto the site’s new design: a navy band carries the answer with the number one pick beside it, a row of jump chips replaces the sticky contents bar, and the section that restated the opening paragraph is gone. No figure changed.

slimmed on 2 Sep 2026. The fourteen per-broker sections, which restated each broker’s own review, are fourteen information cards with every figure rendered from our data. The ranked table gained a median-fill column, its sort and filter controls are now built by the page’s script rather than shipped switched off, and the ranking video sits directly after it. The cost, how-to-choose and markets sections are a board, a list and a list; the leverage, risk and pros-and-cons sections are one link each to the page that owns the answer; the FAQ is six entries; the software and loss tables are gone because every ranked row shows its platforms and every card its loss percentage. No score, rank, spread or loss figure changed.

30 Aug 2026, support, account-opening and withdrawal tests added, and timed execution across 210 live orders placed between 18 and 27 August 2026, which put OANDA first at 88ms; 26 Aug 2026, every average spread corrected to cover all nine pairs. Spreads come from our 18 Sep 2026 data.