Forex trading

When trading forex, you speculate on whether the price of one currency will rise or fall against another. For example, if you believe that the value of the British pound will rise, relative to the value of the US dollar, you would trade the GBP/USD pair.

To open a position you first need to deposit an amount of money known as a margin. The margin required reflects a percentage of the full value of the position. Trading on margin means you place an initial deposit, rather than the full value of the trade upfront.

The margin requirement for forex starts at 3.34%, which means you only have to put up 3.34% of the full trade value. This gives you greater exposure to your chosen financial instrument. It's very important to remember that your profits and losses will be magnified, as they're based on the full value of your trade and not just your initial margin.

One of the features of spread betting and CFD trading is that you only need to deposit a percentage of the full value of your position – the initial margin requirement – to open a trade, known as trading on leverage. Trading on leverage amplifies your profits and losses equally, so it's important to manage your risk.

There are many reasons to spread bet with us, including our:

• Powerful platforms: choose from a range of leading platforms, including our award-winning, proprietary web-based platform and mobile app. We also offer MetaTrader 4 and TradingView. Discover our trading platforms

• Competitive costs: we offer competitive and reliable pricing, with tight spreads across our product range, from 0.0 pips on six major pairs with our FX Active account, or 0.5 pips with our standard account, 1 point on major indices, and 0.2 points on Gold. Margin rates start from 3.34% for forex, 5% for indices and commodities, and 20% for shares and ETFs. View our trading costs

• Dedicated customer service: our dedicated customer service team is available to provide comprehensive support whenever the markets are open, from Sunday night through to Friday night. Contact us

• Award-winning pedigree: we're proud to have received many awards over the years, in recognition of our trading platform, products, overall service and educational offering. Recent awards include: No.1 Most Currency Pairs & Best-in-class for Overall Excellence, MetaTrader, Mobile Trading App, Professional Trading, Research & TradingView, ForexBrokers.com Awards 2026; Best Broker for Active Traders, Professional Trader Awards 2025; Best Mobile Trading Platform and Best Spread Betting & CFD Education Tools, ADVFN International Financial Awards 2025; No.1 for Commissions & Fees, ForexBrokers.com Awards 2025.

There's no cost to open a live trading account with us. You can also view prices and use tools such as charts, Reuters news, or Morningstar quantitative research equity reports, free of charge. You'll need to deposit funds in your account to place a trade.

Yes, CMC Markets UK plc (registration number 173730) is fully authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. Retail client money is held in segregated client bank accounts and money held on behalf of clients is distributed across a range of major banks, which are regularly assessed against our risk criteria.

Under the FCA's Client Money rules, we're required to segregate client money (unless you agree with us otherwise) from CMC's own funds. The funds held in segregated bank accounts do not belong to CMC, and will be held in a way that enables it to be identified as client money. Learn more about client money regulations

Our income primarily comes from our spreads, while other fees, such as overnight holding costs, also make a contribution to our overall revenue.