6 Best Futures Trading Forex Brokers for 2025

List of Top Futures Trading Brokers and Platforms

Best Brokers for US Traders

Best Brokers for International Traders

What is Futures Trading?

Futures trading involves buying and selling contracts that obligate the parties to transact an asset at a predetermined future date and price. These contracts, known as futures, specify the quality and quantity of the underlying asset; they can be based on commodities (like grain, oil, or gold), financial instruments (like government bonds), or even indices.

In futures trading, the buyer of the contract agrees to purchase and receive the asset when the futures contract expires, while the seller agrees to provide and deliver the asset at expiration. However, most futures contracts are traded on exchanges and are settled before expiration, meaning actual physical delivery of the commodity is rare. Instead, traders often close their positions before the contract expires, realizing a profit or loss based on the difference between the purchase price of the contract and its market price at sale.

How Did FXEmpire Select the Best Futures Trading Brokers?

• Regulation. We only considered tightly regulated brokers that adhere to the industry’s main safety standards.
• Wide variety of futures contracts. Our choices for each category offer a selection of indices, commodities, and/or bond futures contracts.
• Trading costs for futures contracts. We compared the spread and commission (when not built into the spread) charges for trading futures CFDs with each broker. We then compared our findings to the industry average.
• Speed of execution. We looked for brokers that can guarantee average execution speed of under 50 milliseconds.
• Margin on futures. Trading futures CFDs involves a significant risk of losing money, which is why we only considered brokers with tight margin requirements.
• Suitable account types. We assessed brokers’ execution models and selected those with the most suitable account types for longer-term swing and day trading via futures CFDs.
• Generally low fees. We also evaluated the competitiveness of brokers’ trading costs for other instruments and compared them to the industry average.
• User-friendly and versatile platforms. Finally, we selected brokers with platforms that accommodate sophisticated trading strategies, which usually involve some form of speculation or hedging using futures contracts.

Our team of experts has identified each broker’s strengths and weaknesses using FXEmpire’s comprehensive methodology. You can read more about it and how we conduct our tests here.

Now, let’s dive into the selected brokers.

How to Choose a Forex Broker for Futures Trading?

Now that I have covered our top picks for each category, it is time to outline the specific considerations traders need to make when looking for a trustworthy partner:

How to Find a Safe Broker?

To make sure you are dealing with a trustworthy partner, you need to make sure that the broker entity you choose is tightly regulated and complies with all industry safety requirements.

I have broken down the most important safety mechanisms to look for in a broker below:

• Segregation of client funds: Ensures client money is held separately from the broker’s corporate accounts to reduce risk.
• Negative balance protection: Prevents losses from exceeding the account balance, crucial for high-risk instruments like CFDs.
• Limited market exposure: Caps on leverage (e.g., 1:30 under top-tier regulators) minimize risks from price fluctuations.
• Compensation scheme: Protect clients against broker insolvency. For example, CySEC’s ICF covers up to €20,000, and the UK FCA’s FSCS protects up to £85,000.

Generally, offshore regulators offer higher leverage but weaker overall protections. In contrast, top-tier regulators seek to limit the maximum market exposure afforded to traders via leverage by capping it.

Check out our guides on Best CySEC-regulated forex brokers and Best FCA-regulated forex brokers.

How to Verify if a Broker is Regulated?

• Check the Broker’s Website: Legitimate, regulated brokers typically display their license number and the name of their regulator on their website, often in the footer or “About Us” section.
• Visit the Regulator’s Website: Every country’s financial regulator has a website where they list all the brokers they regulate. Search for the broker’s name to see if they’re listed.
• Contact the Regulator: If you can’t find the information you’re looking for, you can directly contact the regulator with the broker’s name and any other identifying information you have.
• Check for Memberships: Regulated brokers often belong to compensation schemes or organizations that protect clients’ funds. Check if the broker mentions such memberships on their website.

Read more about Best regulated forex brokers.

How to Check if a Broker’s Fees are Competitive?

Brokers often offer multiple account types with different pricing structures, such as STP and ECN accounts. STP accounts usually provide commission-free trading with floating spreads, while ECN accounts feature raw spreads (starting from 0.1 pips) with fixed commissions. At first glance, STP accounts may seem more cost-effective since you only pay the spread.

Discover Best STP forex brokers and Best ECN forex brokers.

However, some brokers raise spreads on STP accounts, making them less competitive. To evaluate a broker’s pricing, you can calculate trade costs using a formula: trade value = spread x pip value + commission.

For example, with EURUSD, if the STP spread is 0.9 pips and the ECN spread is 0.1 pips plus a $6 commission for 1 lot (100,000 units), the calculation reveals the true cost of each account type.

This is just a hypothetical example, but hopefully, it illustrates how more can be less in trading. So, it’s worthwhile evaluating the costs of a broker you consider opening an account with for yourself before doing so.

Check out our list of Best lowest spread forex brokers.

How to Choose a Trading Platform?

A trading platform is your gateway to the market, providing tools to analyze price action, identify opportunities, and execute orders. The best platforms combine versatility with efficiency, offering technical indicators, drawing tools, and features like one-click trading, algorithmic support, and multi-order types.

Explore our guide on Best forex trading platforms.

MetaTrader 4 & 5 remain industry benchmarks for simplicity and reliability, ideal for beginners. However, their dated design may lack the sophistication of newer proprietary platforms, which often offer enhanced usability, better customization, and advanced features like seamless price scaling and complex order execution. Ultimately, the choice depends on your preference for simplicity versus practicality.

Read more about the platforms in our detailed guides on the best MT4 and best MT5 forex brokers.

What to Avoid When Choosing a Forex Broker?

Here is a quick rundown of what traders must avoid:

• Unregulated brokers. Trading with an unregulated broker exposes you to a higher risk of fraud or unethical business practices, as they are not bound by any regulatory standards or rules. Additionally, in case of any disputes or if the broker goes bankrupt, there might be no legal recourse or compensation schemes available to recover your funds.
• Lack of client protection. Avoid brokers that cannot ensure more than two of the following: segregated funds, negative balance protection, compensation scheme, and maximum leverage for retail traders no bigger than 1:100
• Low execution quality. Try to avoid brokers that cannot ensure more than two of the following: best execution policy, regular quality execution statements, and average execution speed under 50 milliseconds.
• High spreads and commissions. Sidestep brokers with floating spreads from 1.8 pips or above on STP accounts and with round-turn commissions above $7 on ECN accounts.

And if you are still uncertain, you can always check out our database of reviews to find the most reliable brokers.

How to Avoid Forex and CFD Scams?

Scammers rely on the gullibility of traders. A common tactic fraudsters employ is to promise quick and easy profits at no risk to the trader. Often scammers would use labels that closely resemble the brands of real and legitimate companies. That is why regulators like the FCA have registers where traders can read about such fraudulent companies pretending to be others.

The best and easiest way to protect yourself is to make sure you work with a trustworthy and transparent broker. You can find a comprehensive list of reliable brokers by jurisdiction here.

Another important consideration is online safety. Be cautious about where you leave your personal information. Registering your details on suspicious pop-ups that promise enormous profits could lead to your contact information landing on a scammer’s dialing list. Remember, no licensed broker would make unsolicited cold calls.

The next time you get contacted out of the blue with promises of becoming the next Warren Buffet, you must remember that you are most likely speaking to a scammer. I think that nowhere is the “if something sounds too good to be true…” saying more accurate than in the world of trading. That is why you should do your due diligence before opening an account with any broker.

Our Methodology

Here at FXEmpire, we have pioneered a unique methodology for evaluating Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives brokers worldwide. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive picture of a broker’s pros and cons so that our readers can make informed decisions. We understand their need to choose the best partner for their particular goals and needs.

Our team of dedicated professionals is working continuously to improve our system and keep it up-to-date with current market trends. We test each broker systematically by employing over 250 variables across nine categories:

• Trust
• Fees
• Account Types
• Tradable Instruments
• Platforms and Tools
• Deposits and Withdrawals
• Customer Support
• Research
• Education

We strive to be as objective as possible, which is why our rigorous examinations are devoid of any personal bias as much as possible. We review the licenses of all the subsidiaries of a broker and check the fine print in the Client Agreement. The reliability of a broker is further determined based on the website’s regulations, fees, and general transparency.

We collect essential information by opening a live account with a broker entity and testing its services in real time. We measure the spreads, swaps, and commissions on its most popular account type and compare our findings to the industry average.

We also test the functionality of the available platforms, the number and types of tradable instruments, the reliability of customer support, and the quality of the research and educational materials.

For this guide, we only considered brokers that offer futures CFDs and futures derivatives contracts. We took into consideration the number and type of futures assets offered, the costs, margin requirements, and the speed of order execution.

We scrutinized each broker’s regulatory adherence and safety measures for maximum client protection. We measured spreads and commissions, comparing them to the industry average and selecting the brokers with the most competitive pricing. Also, we assessed the usability of brokers’ platforms and confirmed whether they are integrated for implementing longer-term strategies, such as swing and day trading.

We abide by our strict guidelines for editorial integrity based on the objective standards we have set for our reviews. You can read more about our review process here.

Meet Our Writers

The team of forex and CFD writers and editors at FX Empire is composed of trading industry professionals and seasoned financial journalists. Our writers have been published on leading financial websites such as Investopedia and Forbes. In addition, they all have extensive trading experience.

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