How We Rate Brokers
Every broker on this site carries a score out of 10 and one of four verdicts. The verdict is not a judgement call. It falls out of the score, the score comes from six weighted checks, and all of it is published below so you can disagree with a rating and see exactly which input you would have to change.
The four verdicts
Three bands would force a bad choice. A licensed broker with slow withdrawals is not a scam, but calling it neutral understates the problem. The fourth band exists so we can be critical without being wrong.
| Verdict | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Scam / Avoid | 0.0 to 3.9 | Unlicensed, operating on a cloned or lapsed licence, subject to a regulator warning, or documented refusal to return client funds. |
| High Risk | 4.0 to 5.9 | Licensed, but on a tier-3 regulator with no compensation scheme, or carrying opaque ownership, punitive bonus terms, or a pattern of withdrawal complaints. |
| Neutral | 6.0 to 7.4 | Legitimate and unremarkable, or not enough verifiable evidence to rate it either way. |
| Trusted | 7.5 to 10.0 | Tier-1 regulated, segregated client money, clean complaint record, costs disclosed without digging. |
The six pillars
Each pillar is scored 0 to 10 and weighted. Regulation and fund safety carry more than half the total between them, because everything else stops mattering if you cannot get your money back.
| Pillar | Weight | What we measure |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation and licence tier | 30% | Which regulator, which licence category, and whether the entity holding it is the entity taking your deposit. |
| Fund safety and withdrawals | 25% | Segregation, negative balance protection, compensation scheme, and documented withdrawal times and refusals. |
| Cost and execution | 15% | Spreads, commissions, swaps, inactivity and withdrawal fees, and reported slippage or requotes. |
| Transparency | 15% | Named ownership, registered address, readable terms, and bonus or leverage conditions that are not traps. |
| Complaint record | 10% | Volume and severity of verified complaints, and whether the broker resolves them. |
| Platform and support | 5% | Platform quality, funding methods, and how support behaves when something goes wrong. |
How we score regulation
Regulation is the heaviest pillar, so the tiers matter. They are not about a regulator’s reputation. They are about what actually happens to your money if the broker fails.
Tier 1
The FCA in the UK, ASIC in Australia, BaFin in Germany, the CFTC and NFA in the United States. Retail leverage is capped at 30:1 on major currency pairs and 20:1 on non-majors, client money must be segregated, negative balance protection is mandatory, and there is a statutory compensation scheme behind the firm. The UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers eligible investment claims up to £85,000 per person per firm.
Tier 2
CySEC in Cyprus and comparable EU and EEA regulators. The same MiFID leverage caps apply. Cyprus has an Investor Compensation Fund, but it pays a maximum of €20,000 per covered client, which is real protection and a long way short of the UK figure. That gap is the whole reason tier 2 is not tier 1.
Tier 3
The FSC in Mauritius, the FSA in Seychelles, the VFSC in Vanuatu. There is a public register and there are conduct rules, which is meaningfully better than nothing. There is no compensation scheme. Leverage runs to 100:1 in Mauritius and carries no statutory cap in Seychelles. A tier-3 licence does not make a broker a scam, and it does mean nobody stands behind your balance if the firm goes under.
Unlicensed
No register entry in any jurisdiction, or a registration that does not cover dealing in foreign exchange, or a licence held by a different legal entity than the one accepting deposits. That last case is the most common thing we find behind a Scam verdict, and it is the easiest one to miss.
What we check before a review is published
- The regulator’s own register, matched against the legal entity named on the deposit page. We link the entry so you can repeat the check.
- The client agreement in full, including the bonus and withdrawal clauses that are rarely on the promotion page.
- Documented withdrawal reports, with dates, rather than sentiment.
- Corporate filings, to establish who actually owns the firm.
- Published regulator warning lists across every jurisdiction the broker claims to serve.
How often ratings are re-checked
Every review shows the date it was last verified and the date it is next due. Trusted and Neutral brokers are re-checked every six months. High Risk and Scam brokers are re-checked every three months, and immediately whenever a regulator publishes a warning naming them.
What changes a verdict
New evidence, and nothing else. A broker that obtains a genuine licence gains regulation points. A broker that removes a punitive bonus clause gains transparency points. A pattern of unresolved withdrawal refusals costs fund-safety points and can move a rating down two bands at once.
Every change is recorded in a dated changelog at the bottom of the review, with the evidence behind it. Nothing is edited quietly. If we get something wrong and correct it, the correction is in that log too.
What we do not do
- We do not sell verdicts. No broker can pay to change a rating, remove a review, or move up a ranking. See our disclosure policy.
- We do not publish user star ratings. We collect no votes, so we publish no aggregate rating. Unverifiable review counts are trivial to manipulate and we would rather have none.
- We do not rate what we cannot evidence. A broker we cannot find a register entry for, or a documented absence of one, is not rated at all until we can.
- We do not give advice. A Trusted verdict describes a broker’s regulatory standing and conduct. It says nothing about whether you will make money.
Corrections and right of reply
Any broker we rate can send a response and we publish it unedited beneath the review, whether or not we agree with it. If you can show that something on this site is factually wrong, send the evidence through our contact page. Corrections are made quickly and logged publicly.