The safest spread betting brokers in the UK are FCA-authorised, and all 14 we rank are. The table shows each firm’s register entity, reference number and authorisation status, read on the Financial Services Register on 3 Sep 2026.
Updated on 5 Sep 2026: the page now opens with the safety comparison. The table of all 14 firms gains each firm’s register status, authorisation date and read date from the FCA register, with a link to the captured entry on each review. The list beneath it states every entity and reference number in one place. The FCA and Gambling Commission split moved into its own section. No figure changed. Earlier: Updated on 3 Sep 2026: the page moved onto the site’s guide layout, with the FCA and Gambling Commission split drawn beside the answer and a diagram of the five retail protections against the professional column added under the rules section. No figure changed. Earlier the same day: every provider’s register entry was re-read and captured, the Checked column carries that date, and each review page now shows the capture of its own firm’s entry. Earlier: rebuilt on 26 Aug 2026 as the FCA layer page. The authorised entity and reference number for all 14 providers are now published in full with the date each was checked, the leverage limits are quoted from the FCA Handbook rather than paraphrased, a procedure for checking the register has been added, and our professional spread betting page has been folded in at the Professional Client Status section.
Our spread bet content is supported and we may receive payment when you visit a partner site. This page is information rather than financial or legal advice.
Financial spread betting is the FCA’s; sports spread betting is the Gambling Commission’s. Section 10 of the Gambling Act 2005 draws the line, and this site covers the FCA side only.
The Safest Spread Betting Brokers: All 14 Firms On The FCA Register
All 14 providers we track are authorised by the FCA, and between them they hold 15 authorisations, because one of them operates two entities. The name on the register is frequently not the name on the website.
All 14 spread betting brokers we rank are authorised by the FCA, each under the entity and firm reference number below, read on 3 Sep 2026.
Pepperstone: Pepperstone Limited, FRN 684312, authorised since 5 Aug 2015
Spreadex: Spreadex Limited, FRN 190941, authorised since 1 Dec 2001
OANDA: OANDA Europe Limited, FRN 542574, authorised since 17 May 2011
Capital.com: Capital Com (UK) Limited, FRN 793714, authorised since 26 Oct 2018
IG: IG Index Limited, FRN 114059, authorised since 1 Dec 2001 and IG Markets Limited, FRN 195355, authorised since 1 Dec 2001
ThinkMarkets: TF Global Markets (UK) Limited, FRN 629628, authorised since 23 Jan 2015
City Index: StoneX Financial Ltd, FRN 446717, authorised since 24 Mar 2006
Trade Nation: TRADE NATION FINANCIAL UK LTD, FRN 525164, authorised since 9 May 2011
FXCM: Stratos Markets Limited, FRN 217689, authorised since 27 May 2003
CMC Markets: CMC Markets UK plc, FRN 173730, authorised since 1 Dec 2001
FxPro: FXPRO UK Limited, FRN 509956, authorised since 10 Sep 2010
ActivTrades: Activtrades Plc, FRN 434413, authorised since 27 Oct 2005
Spread Co: Spread Co Limited, FRN 446677, authorised since 6 Oct 2006
Vantage: Vantage Global Prime LLP, FRN 590299, authorised since 1 Jul 2013
Five of those rows will not return the firm you expect if you search the register for the brand:
IG:two entities are authorised and IG’s own footer cites both: IG Markets Ltd under FRN 195355 and IG Index Ltd under FRN 114059. They are not interchangeable. Spread bets are placed with IG Index Ltd under FRN 114059, and the CFD account sits with the other one. Which entity your terms name depends on which product you opened.
FXCM:the brand is FXCM and the authorised name is Stratos Markets Limited, under FRN 217689. It was renamed from Forex Capital Markets Ltd in September 2023, so an older article citing the previous name is citing the same firm.
City Index:City Index is a trading name rather than an authorised entity: the firm on the register is StoneX Financial Ltd under FRN 446717.
FxPro:two regulators hold a record, and only one of them is the FCA. The UK firm is FxPro UK Limited under FRN 509956. FxPro Financial Services Ltd is a separate company on the CySEC register in Cyprus under licence 078/07. That Cypriot entry lists the fxpro.co.uk domain among its approved domains. Checking the UK web address against the Cypriot register therefore returns a firm that cannot take UK retail clients. Match the regulator as well as the name.
ThinkMarkets:the brand appears nowhere in the authorised name. The firm on the register is TF Global Markets (UK) Limited under FRN 629628, and a register search for the brand returns nothing that looks like it. The name in your account terms is the one to match.
The general rule behind all five is the same. A group can hold authorisations in more than one country and under more than one company. Only the entity named in your account terms is the one you are contracting with. Match the entity, not the logo. Our spread betting broker reviews directory records the same entity details per provider, including the six brands that are no longer offering UK spread bets. Authorisation is the first filter we apply, so every one of the UK spread betting brokers in our ranking holds it.
Who Regulates Spread Betting In The UK
Financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, not by the Gambling Commission. Section 10 of the Gambling Act 2005 excludes a bet whose making or accepting is a regulated activity under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Spread betting is one. In practice that means your leverage is capped, your account cannot go below zero, and your money is held apart from the firm’s own.
How To Check A Broker On The FCA Register
The register is free, public and authoritative, and checking a firm on it takes about five minutes. Do it before you fund an account rather than after.
Find the authorised entity name. It is in the firm’s website footer and in its terms of business, alongside a six-digit Firm Reference Number. Both are in the table above for the 14 providers we track.
Search by reference number, not by brand. Go to register.fca.org.uk and search the FRN. A number returns exactly one firm; a brand name returns several, or none, or the wrong one.
Match the entity name exactly. The name on the register must be the name in the firm’s terms. Trading names are listed separately on a firm’s register entry and are not authorisations in themselves.
Check the status and the permissions. The entry must read Authorised, and the permissions must include dealing in investments as principal. A firm authorised only to arrange or advise cannot take your bet.
Contact the firm using the register’s details. A clone firm copies a real firm’s name and number and substitutes its own website and phone number. Using the details on the register is what breaks that.
What FCA Regulation Gives You
The rules that matter to a spread bettor are in COBS 22.5 of the FCA Handbook, in force for spread bets since 1 August 2019 under policy statement PS19/18. Five of them apply to every retail account.
Capped leverage. The FCA sets a minimum initial margin per asset class, which is a leverage cap stated the other way round. Read on 26 Aug 2026 from COBS 22.5.11R:
What you are betting on
Minimum initial margin
Maximum leverage
Major currency pairs, and relevant sovereign debt
3.33%
30:1
Major stock indices, minor currency pairs and gold
5%
20:1
Minor stock indices and commodities other than gold
10%
10:1
Individual shares and other unlisted assets
20%
5:1
Negative balance protection. You cannot lose more than the money in your account. Before 2019 a gap could leave a retail client owing the firm.
Margin close-out at 50%. The firm must close your positions when your funds fall to half the margin needed to keep them open.
A standardised risk warning. Every promotion must state the percentage of that firm’s own retail accounts that lose money. Those figures are on our statistics page for all 14 firms.
No inducements to trade. Cash bonuses and similar incentives to open or fund an account are banned for retail clients.
The five retail protections in one column and the professional column beside them. Electing professional status lifts the leverage caps and removes the other four in the same step, which is the trade the Professional Client Status section sets out.
One further restriction removes a market rather than limiting it. Since 6 January 2021, under policy statement PS20/10, derivatives referencing unregulated cryptoassets may not be sold to UK retail consumers at any leverage. How that works in practice is on our spread betting markets page.
Your Money, And What The FSCS Covers
Client money must be held in segregated accounts, separate from the firm’s own money, under the FCA’s client assets rules, the CASS sourcebook. The purpose is narrow and worth stating precisely. Your balance is not part of the firm’s assets if the firm fails, so it is not available to the firm’s creditors.
Behind that sits the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. For investment claims the FSCS covers up to £85,000 per eligible person per firm, where the firm failed after 1 April 2019. That cover was read from the scheme’s own published figure on 26 Aug 2026. The scheme pays out when an authorised firm fails and cannot meet claims against it. It states plainly that it does not cover poor investment performance, and a losing bet is not a claim.
If you have a complaint short of the firm failing, the Financial Ombudsman Service takes it after the firm’s own complaints process has run, at no cost to you.
What Regulation Does Not Protect You From
This is the half most pages on this subject leave out, and it is the half that decides outcomes.
Losing money. No rule caps a loss inside your own balance. Across the 14 firms we compare, between 61% and 76.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with the providers we compare. Every one of those firms is fully authorised.
The spread widening. Prices are the firm’s own and it may widen them around news and outside main hours. Nothing in the rules fixes a spread.
A market gapping through your stop. An ordinary stop is an instruction to close at the next available price, not at your price. Only a guaranteed stop holds its level, and it carries a premium. Our stop-loss guide sets out which providers offer one.
Nobody checking whether the bet suits you. A spread betting firm executes; it does not advise. There is no adviser in the chain to be responsible for the position you chose.
Your own categorisation. Every protection above is a retail protection. Elect out of retail status and they go with it, which is the next section.
Professional Client Status, And Why Most Should Not Elect It
A professional client is a category under the FCA’s conduct rules, not a level of skill and not a job. Firms offer it because it lifts the leverage caps, and that is almost always the reason a retail client asks about it.
To be reclassified as an elective professional client you must pass a qualitative assessment by the firm. You must also meet at least two of the three tests in COBS 3.5.3R, read on 26 Aug 2026:
You have carried out transactions in significant size on the relevant market at an average of ten per quarter over the previous four quarters.
Your portfolio of financial instruments, including cash deposits, exceeds EUR 500,000.
You have worked in the financial sector for at least one year in a professional position requiring knowledge of the transactions concerned.
What you gain is leverage. One of the 14 providers we track publishes the figure: ActivTrades offers up to 1:400 on its professional account, read on 25 Aug 2026. What you lose is every retail protection in the section above. That means the leverage caps themselves, negative balance protection, the 50% margin close-out, the standardised risk warning, the ban on inducements, and normally access to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Whether FSCS eligibility survives depends on the firm and on your circumstances, so read the client categorisation notice the firm asks you to sign rather than assuming either way.
The trade is therefore more leverage in exchange for the protection that stops leverage bankrupting you. For most retail traders that is the wrong side of the trade, and the ten-transactions-a-quarter test means most would not qualify in any case. If what you want is a larger position rather than a different category, the honest route is a larger balance.
Spread Betting Regulation: FAQs
Is Spread Betting Legal In The UK?
Yes. Financial spread betting is legal in the UK, and it is legal as a regulated investment rather than as a licensed gambling product. Section 10 of the Gambling Act 2005 excludes a bet whose making or accepting is a regulated activity under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and a financial spread bet is exactly that. Every one of the 14 firms we rank holds an FCA authorisation and a Firm Reference Number, each read against the FCA Register and shown on that firm’s review. Trading with a firm that holds neither is what is not legal, which is the check worth making before you deposit.
Is Spread Betting Regulated By The FCA Or The Gambling Commission?
By the FCA. Section 10 of the Gambling Act 2005 excludes a bet whose making or accepting is a regulated activity under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Financial spread betting is exactly that. The product is taxed like a wager and supervised like an investment, so every firm on this page holds an FCA authorisation and none holds a Gambling Commission licence.
Is My Money Protected If A Spread Betting Firm Fails?
Client money must be held in segregated accounts separate from the firm’s own under the FCA’s client assets rules. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers eligible investment claims up to £85,000 per person per firm, where the firm failed after 1 April 2019. That covers the firm failing. It does not cover losing money on a bet, which the scheme excludes explicitly.
What Leverage Can A UK Retail Client Use?
Between 30:1 and 5:1, depending on what you are betting on. The FCA sets it as a minimum initial margin in COBS 22.5.11R. The floors are 3.33% on major currency pairs, 5% on major indices, minor pairs and gold, 10% on minor indices and other commodities, and 20% on individual shares. Cryptoasset derivatives are not available to UK retail clients at any leverage.
Should I Become A Professional Client To Get Higher Leverage?
For most retail traders, no. Electing professional status removes the leverage limits, and it removes the protections that come with them in the same step. Those are negative balance protection, the 50% margin close-out, the standardised risk warning and normally access to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The leverage is the reason people ask and the protections are the reason the answer is usually no.
Sources
The leverage limits and the retail protections are COBS 22.5 of the FCA Handbook, given effect for spread bets by policy statement PS19/18 from 1 August 2019. The elective professional tests are COBS 3.5.3R. The cryptoasset derivative ban is policy statement PS20/10, in force from 6 January 2021. The compensation limit is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme’s own published cover for investment claims. The reason none of this sits with the Gambling Commission is section 10 of the Gambling Act 2005 on legislation.gov.uk. Each was read on 26 Aug 2026.
The entity names, reference numbers, register statuses and authorisation dates in the table come from each firm’s own register entry. The read date beside them, 3 Sep 2026, is the day every entry was read. We are not a regulator and this page is not legal advice: the register at register.fca.org.uk is the authoritative record and it is the one to check.
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.
