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After more than one month of unbiased study and analysis on about 100 brokers, I finally found the best forex brokers for scalping. It’s worth saying that I did that with the help of a very useful website, two useful EAs, and of course, with the assistance of some friends of mine — you’ll hear more about them later in this post.

We conducted this study based on three main factors that are vital for scalping, the cost of trade (spread + commission), order execution speed, and the regulation of the brokers.

There are some other aspects besides those main factors that we considered such as whether the forex brokers have any problems with scalping or not, how strong is the regulation of the brokers, and their reputation throughout the net such as reviews and complaints.

You might be amazed by some information you see here.

I’ll take you through the whole process of the study step by step so that you can see exactly how we chose the best forex brokers for scalping.

To know the methodology and see how we examined and assessed brokers to find the best forex brokers for scalping and also compare them using a comparison table, you can check out the Methodology section.

But first, let’s become familiar with our scalping brokers.

By the way, you can check out the following video, which is a short form of this article, if you don’t feel like reading it.

The Best Forex Brokers For Scalping 2024

Here’s a list of the best forex brokers for scalping in 2024 according to our study:

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3- IC Markets

IC Markets is another top-notch Australian broker established in 2007. The broker is regulated by ASIC, a tier-1 regulatory body so it’s considered safe.

IC Market has three main types of accounts, 2 MT4, and 1 cTrader. The ECN one tested here is MT4 Raw Spread. The commission for MT4 raw spread is $3.5 per side while it’s $3 for cTrader Raw Spread so the cost of trade is $1 lower per lot in cTrader, however, you don’t access to a large number of EAs and scripts written for MT4.

If you don’t use automated trading, cTrader RAW is the best option in this broker for scalping.

IC Markets Information and Test Overview

Go To IC Markets Website

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4- Just2trade

Just2trade.online was established in 2006 and is regulated by a tier-2 regulatory body so it’s considered safe. It’s a partner of just2trade.com, a US company in the stock industry (not forex).

They have three types of accounts that two of them are ECN: Forex ECN and MT5 Global. The main differences between them are: platform, MT4 for Forex ECN and MT5 for Global; and commission, $3 per side for Forex ECN and $2 for MT5 global.

Myfxbook doesn’t show the correct commission for this broker so I had to double-check with their website and add the commission to the spreads.

Just2trade Information and Test Overview

Go To Just2trade Website

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5– Pepperstone

Pepperstone is an Australian broker established in 2010. It’s a highly regulated broker with having two tier-1 regulations, ASIC and FCA.

The broker has the best execution speed on our list and the spreads + commission are rather low so we put it on the list of the best brokers for scalping.

It has two types of accounts, Razer and Standard. The Razer account is the ECN one that we’ve tested the cost of trades based on that.

This broker isn’t on myfxbook and the data for its spreads were gathered from the website of the broker, so we couldn’t verify them using an unbiased source.

Pepperstone Information and Test Overview

Go To Pepperstone Website

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6- Axitrader

 Axitrader is an Australian broker established in 2007. It’s regulated by the top two tier-1 regulatory bodies, FCA and ASIC, so it’s considered safe.

It has two types of accounts: Standard and pro. The pro account is the ECN one with more than 140 forex pairs which is one of the highest ones in the industry. The Min deposit of both accounts starts from 0 which makes it attractive for the scalpers trading with small accounts considering a max leverage of 1:500.

Axitrader Information and Test Overview

 Go To Axitrader Website

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7-FXCM

Founded in 1999, FXCM is one of the long-serving brokers in the trading world. It’s highly regulated by two tier-1 regulatory bodies: FCA in the UK, ASIC in Australia; and one tier-2, FSCA in South Africa, which makes this broker one of the best regulated brokers on our list, so it’s considered safe.

What I like about this broker other than being well-regulated is its transparency. They release everything from spreads to execution speed and slippage (negative and positive), however, the execution speed on their website is far from our test, ours still good though (125ms against 35ms).

They have two main types of accounts: Standard, and Active Trader. According to the conversation I had with them, the deposit for non UK/EU clients starts from $50, and for the UK and EU clients, it starts from €300.

The spreads of this broker are not very low compared to other forex brokers on our list, however, If you trade more than 150 lots per month, you get better commission so larger accounts are equal to lower costs of trades and better conditions for scalping.

The results of spread + commission here are a combination of small and big accounts so it can be better if you trade with a bigger account as mentioned above. ($4 commission per side in general and $2.5 for 150+ lots)

FXCM Information and Test Overview

 Go To FXCM Website

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8- Alpari

Being in the forex trading world since 1998, Alpari is one of the veterans of the industry. It’s regulated by one tier-2 and one tier-3 regulatory bodies so it’s considered safe.

It has 4 types of accounts that two of them are ECN: ECN and Pro. The commission is lower than average but the spreads are higher so one makes up for the other to even up the whole cost of trades. The initial deposit and leverage are the main differences between the two accounts.

It also has a large range of local transfers for many countries which lowers the cost of trade as well.

Alpari Information and Test Overview

 Go To Alpari Website

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9- Global Prime

Global Prime is an Australian broker founded in 2010. It’s regulated by one tier-1 regulatory bodies so it’s considered safe.

They have a very simple approach to service, just one type of ECN account with the min deposit of AUD $200 and AUD $7 as commission (3.5 per side) — I like this simplicity, no hocus pocus.

They claim that they use state of the art technology to reduce slippage and order execution speed which are two main factors in scalping, and our test shows that they are true to some extent and they have rather fast execution speed.

Global Prime Information and Test Overview

 Go To Global Prime Website

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11- FBS

FBS was founded in 2009 and regulated by one tier-2 and one tier-3 regulatory bodies so it’s considered safe.

They have several types of accounts including one ECN account. The commission for this account is $3 per side or $6 round turn. The best performance of this broker was the cost of trade on EUR/USD with 0.71 pips on average.

FBS Information and Test Overview

 Go To FBS Website

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12– Admiral Markets

Admiral market was founded in 2001 and is highly regulated. It’s regulated by two tier-1 and one tier-2 regulatory bodies.

It has 2 types of MT4 and 2 types of MT5 accounts. The MT4 accounts are: Trade MT4 and Zero MT4. The ECN one is Zero MT4.

Their spreads + commission are better compared to the first time that we tested and examined this broker, however, they have a combination of low spreads on some pairs and higher on others.

Admiral Markets Information and Test Overview

 Go To Admiral Markets

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Methodology

The data from this study comes from Myfxbook website. The major focus of this website is providing analytic tools for traders who want to have a track record of their strategies especially those that are based on automated trading or EAs.

It’s also a useful hub for profitable strategies to find and attract investors by depicting all the necessary information about their strategies.

Anyway, we are not going to talk about different features of the website here but there is a section on the website that is very helpful for analyzing and finding the best forex brokers for scalping.

On the brokers’ spread page, there are more than 100 forex brokers. You can sort them based on the minimum or maximum spreads regarding different currency pairs — for example, from the lowest to the highest spread on EUR/USD

You can also select between regulated, unregulated, and all brokers, however, this feature doesn’t work completely properly.

There are a few regulated forex brokers that when you set the regulated feature, the tool doesn’t show them. That’s why I had to double-check some brokers to see if they are regulated.

Before we got to the regulation part, we had to sort the brokers based on the initial factor that has to be considered when picking a forex broker for scalping, cost of trades.

We found more brokers but we thought not all of them would accept scalping so we started asking them one by one.

Checking Brokers for Scalping Strategy Permission

We started asking them via chat and email. That way we could also assess their customer service.

Actually, there were a few forex brokers in our selection that were removed from the list for that reason as well as a few other reasons.

For example, there was a broker called Vipro Markets but we couldn’t find its website. It seems they are somehow out of business.

There were also others that we crossed them out for reasons such as ambiguity of regulation or poor customer service.

Turned out two of the good ones, Swiss market and BD Swiss, don’t allow scalping — actually, they are both under BD organization so technically they are from the same company.

We also added two good forex brokers that weren’t on myfxbook but we know them to some extent, so after initial testing, we are convinced that they can be on our list of the best forex brokers for scalping. They are Hotforex, and Pepperstone.

Finally, we got to our top 14 forex brokers for scalping. Now it was time to analyze the cost of trade (spread + commission) for a reliable time period.

Forex Broker Selection Based on the Cost of Trade

As you know, the cost of trade is not just spread when you have an ECN or zero account. Aside from whatever the name is, nowadays, most forex brokers offer such an account with a very tight spread, mostly starting from 0, but with a commission as well.

The commission for major and minor currency pairs is typically 3 to 4 dollars per lot for each side of trade. Each side of trade means opening and closing a trade. In simple words, the commission for a one-lot trade is double that amount which means 6 to 8 dollars.

For example, if you open a trade with 1 lot on EUR/USD, you have to pay $6 as a commission. Since one lot of EUR/USD is equal to $10 so every pip is worth $10. In other words, you have to pay 0.6 pips as commission.

Assuming the average spread on EUR/USD for the ECN account in your broker is 0.3, the cost of a one lot trade on EUR/USD for you is 0.9 lot or $9 on average.

As you can see the real cost here is not just spread but spread + commission and commission plays a significant role in this type of accounts, however, the cost of trade in ECN or zero spread accounts is always less than other kinds of accounts.

Analysis of the Spreads and Commissions

To have reliable data, we decided to study the spread + commission of our top forex brokers within a one-month period.

Unfortunately, the largest time period that myfxbook offers is 2 days so we needed to keep an eye on the data every other day for one month.

We gathered the data every 48 hours and at the end of the month, we calculated the average of them to reach the final results.

Luckily, we didn’t see any meaningful change in the results from week to week, especially in the rankings. The spreads + commissions fluctuated sporadically but the rankings of the brokers stayed steady during the entire period of the study.

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To start the above process, first, we had to sort the brokers not just based on spread but spread + commission. Fortunately, myfxbook has this feature so you can see the real cost of trades, however, it’s not always correct.

As far as I wasn’t sure whether this feature works correctly, I had to double-check with the commissions mentioned on the websites of the brokers too.

in some cases, they are the same but sometimes they are different to some extent.

We found a number of reasons for that.

In some cases, the results on myfxbook come from various types of accounts of a broker and the accounts have different commission structures.

For example, the higher volume or lots you trade the lower commission you pay, therefore, the costs of trades are better for you if you trade more lots and if you have more equity in your account.

I mentioned that for the brokers with this type of condition in their introductions.

In other cases, the problem doesn’t come from the different types of accounts because there’s only one type of account or myfxbook doesn’t add commission to spreads for whatever reason — it’s probably a bug or malfunction.

I stumbled upon such a problem specifically when I was examining Just2trade spreads and commissions so I had to add the commission mentioned on their website to their spreads on myfxbook.

One more thing

As I said earlier, Hotforex and Pepperstone weren’t on the spread page of myfxbook so we had to use the data from their own websites and fortunately they’ve both provided such data on their websites.

Since the data for those two brokers aren’t provided by an unbiased third party, we can’t confirm the unbiasedness of that.

Hotforex was added to the myfxbook after I wrote this article so we used the data from there.

After struggling with problems like that for a month or so, we gathered the following results on 9 currency pairs, 7 major plus gbp/jpy and eur/jpy, for our best forex brokers for scalping.

Note: Since in very low liquid times, like when the New York market closes, or roll over time, the spreads are widened dramatically, the following results will be better up to 20% if you eliminate the results of those times. For more information see the worst time for scalping below.

Scalping Forex Brokers’ spread on EUR/USD

As you can see, FXOpen is number one in this category so it’s the best broker for scalping EUR/USD with the lowest spread + commission.

All the others also have competitive spreads and commissions on this pair, less than 1 pip.

One of the reasons that FXOpen has low costs is its low commission which starts from $1.5 per side for every lot. This kind of commission is one of the lowest in the industry.

However, as I mentioned earlier, this kind of commission is when you trade larger lot size so for smaller size accounts, you’ll probably see around another 0.2 lots and pay something like 0.7 for this pair.

RoboForex is very close to FXOpen and has very low spreads on EUR/USD and better for smaller size accounts.

Forex Brokers with the Lowest Spread on GBP/USD

FXOoen is again the forex broker with the lowest spread + commission on GBP/USD and Amiral Markets is very close to that and is in the number 2 spot.

All the brokers on this pair are pretty close to each other especially in the middle of the ranking so all these forex brokers are good for scalping GBP/USD to a great extent.

Scalping Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on AUD/USD

FXOpen is again in the first place on this pair and is the best forex broker for scalping AUDUSD. Of course, don’t forget that this type of spreads in FXOpen is related to large-size accounts.

Roboforex takes second place in this category.

Scalping Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on USD/JPY

FXOpen is number one on this pair as well. There’s a close competition between some forex brokers in the middle part of the list.

Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on USD/CAD

FXOpen is in the first place on this pair so it’s the best forex broker for scalping USDCAD.

Of course, Roboforex has better spreads if we eliminate the lot size factor in FXOpen.

Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on USD/CHF

FXOpen, and Roboforex are the top two brokers in this category and have the best spreads for USD/CHF.

So the best broker for scalping USDCHF goes to FXOpen for large size accounts and Roboforex in general.

Forex Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on NZD/USD

FXOpen, and Admiral Markets have taken the first two spots in this category and have the lowest spreads + commission on NZD/USD.

The difference between the first place with others is somehow tangible here therefore, we can say that for scalping NZDUSD, FXOpen is the best forex broker.

Scalping Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on EUR/JPY

The top three forex brokers with the lowest spread + commission on EUR/JPY are RoboForex, FXOpen, and Peperstone + Just2trade.

Scalping Brokers’ Spreads and Commissions on GBP/JPY

The top 3 scalping forex brokers with the lowest spread + commission on GBP/JPY are FXOpen, RoboForex, and IC Markets.

Forex Brokers Selection for Scalping Based On Regulation

The second metric we considered for picking our best forex brokers was the regulation of them. Being regulated is always important when you want to choose a broker but it becomes even more important when you have a scalping strategy.

In our selection for the best brokers for scalping, we didn’t just pick any regulated brokers. They had to be regulated by a tire-2 regulatory body at the least.

Regulatory bodies are not the same in terms of credibility. Some have more strict rules and others just ask the brokers to follow basics and have minimum restrictions for them.

If you want to know about the brokers with different levels of importance, you can check this post that I wrote and explained about them.

The reasons we select the highly regulated brokers are:

Segregation of investors’ funds

Keeping investors funds in separate accounts than the brokers’ own accounts is something you have to pay attention to in general when you want to choose your broker, no Mather what kind of trading strategy you have.

It keeps your money safe in case your broker stumble upon some troubles such as bankruptcy. Since your investment is not merged with the brokers’ property, you’ll be refunded if things go south.

Correct order execution

As a scalper, you need to be confident that your broker executes your orders precisely as you place. No one wants to see several delays with no reason when they scalp.

Every pip is important and your orders should be placed in specific positions in order to be profitable. It’s even more important if you are a one-minute scalper because trades should be opened and closed faster than any other strategy or timeframes.

Highly regulated forex brokers are much more reliable in terms of performing your orders correctly without manipulation because their regulators hold them accountable and check them for that.

Fair Slippage

There’s no broker on earth that doesn’t give you slippage every now and then because it doesn’t matter how liquid it is, there are always situations such as very important news events when the price moves so quickly that leads to slippage.

It can also happen to you while trading less liquid currency pairs such as exotic ones or during low liquid time like after the New York session is closed.

Either way, you might receive slippage but the important subject here is how frequently you get that and whether it’s fair or not.

Well regulated brokers mostly have rich liquidity providers so they can provide better prices with less slippage.

They are also under the supervision of top credited regulatory bodies that audit them to make sure something like slippage is not a one-way road, always in brokers’ favor. If you sometimes get worse prices (negative slippage), you should receive better ones (positive slippage) other times.

With all that said, we categorize these top brokers according to the strength of their regulations.

Analysis of Order Execution Speed

Another metric that we considered for this study was checking the order execution speed based on their MT4 platform.

Order execution speed is exclusively important for automated trading version of scalping or scalping using EAs, however, it can affect the profitability of a manual scalping strategy which is based on one-minute timeframe and of course in volatile situations such as important news release when you get slippage as the result of fast price change and you need to receive your favorite price ASAP.

The time that you send orders and receive the answers by the brokers can be a determining factor on the number of slippages and requotes you get especially in more volatile situations and when you want to get a specific price as quickly as possible.

For testing the order execution speed of the brokers, we use two different EAs.

One of them is putting several limit orders and calculates the time between sending and receiving them.

The other one opens and closes several trades in a row at market price to calculate the market order execution speed of the brokers.

We conducted this test several times and in different situations of the market to reach a solid result for each broker.

As far as the servers of the brokers are in the different parts of the world, we had latencies to those serves so we subtracted the ping from the results to find the correct speed.

Note: The speed tests were conducted on the demo accounts of the brokers. Some conditions in demo accounts are different than real accounts to some extent. Since the brokers don’t transfer the orders to liquidity providers and they do that internally, you have neat responses without usual problems such as slippage or requote. The order execution speed is also faster in demo accounts so you’ll probably see slower execution in real accounts.

With that being said, you can expect something between one and a half or two times decrease in speed compared to what you see here based on my experience.

You may also see better or worse results regarding your computer or internet speed but as long as our tests for all the brokers were conducted in the same environment, your results would probably be the same as ours in terms of the rankings of the brokers.

If you want to know more about the execution speed or download the EAs used in this study, you can check out the best forex brokers execution speed post.

The results are in milliseconds. For converting to seconds, divide them by 1000

The Worst Time for Scalping

In general, the worst time for scalping is either when the market has low liquidity or it’s too volatile.

One of the things we noticed during the study was a dramatic increase in spread after the New York session or at the beginning of the Sidney session.

The reason could be the decrease in liquidity at that time. Since there are not enough buyers and sellers in that session, you receive huge spreads from the brokers; therefore, it’s one of the worst times for scalping.

As you can see the average spread + commission for this broker on EUR/USD within a specific time period of 2 days is 0.58 pips while it gets widened and becomes 6 to 8 pips on two occasions on the picture, both after the New York Session is closed.

That widened spread is not all about the New York session being closed and the very long spick is related to rollover time.

The rollover happens at the end of each day where the market is closed for a few minutes and interest rate or swap is calculated and paid to or deducted from the positions that are kept open for the next day — see here for more information.

Another time that the spreads are widened is when the volatility of the market increases dramatically. During the study, we discovered it’s not always at the time of the releasing of news events.

Sometimes the market becomes volatile at those times but in some cases, it’s before the releases as if when the news events are released they’ve lost their impacts.

Comparison Table of the Best Forex Brokers for Scalping

All the subjects we’ve talked about top forex brokers for scalping so far, from spreads and commission to regulation and order execution speed, are delineated concisely on the following comparison table.

you can choose your broker based on your priority which could be regulation, execution speed (both instant and limit orders), and spreads + commission on 9 pairs.

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Guidelines

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Click on each headline (Moes, Loes, eur/usd, etc) to sort the brokers based on them. For example, if you click on eur/usd, the table sorts the brokers based on the spreads+commission on eur/usd — from low to high and vice versa

Brokers	loes	moes	eur/usd	gbp/usd	aud/usd	nzd/usd	usd/cad	usd/jpy	usd/chf	gbp/jpy	eur/jpy
FXOpen	125	150	0.52	0.74	0.58	0.57	0.87	0.54	0.49	1.32	0.86
Roboforex	100	85	0.58	1.04	0.84	1.26	1.16	0.74	1.24	1.33	0.86
Just2trade	100	500	0.7	1.1	0.92	1.3	1.5	0.9	1.4	1.7	1.02
Admiral Markets	105	150	0.6	0.91	0.84	1	1.82	0.8	1.8	2.33	1.24
FBS	170	290	0.87	1.41	1.36	1.32	2	1.06	1.52	2.5	1.96
IC Markets	130	180	0.78	1.12	1.01	1.1	1.24	0.9	0.97	1.39	1.03
Global Prime	115	140	0.91	1.38	1.02	1.53	1.78	1.3	1.47	1.85	1.54
AxiTrader	100	130	0.84	1.17	1.15	1.32	1.37	1.06	1.11	1.79	1.17
FXCM	125	150	0.93	1.49	1.01	2	2.5	1.08	1.35	1.83	1.16
Alpari	130	150	0.84	1.35	1	1.26	1.34	0.93	1.98	2.47	1.08
Hotforex	150	145	0.95	1.21	1.26	1.48	1.6	0.96	0.89	1.7	1.7
Pepperstone	100	100	0.88	1.2	0.89	1.07	1.23	0.9	1.39	1.91	1

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