Best Forex Brokers for Beginners in 2022

Taken from our forex broker comparison tool, here's a comparison of the education features for the best forex brokers for beginners.

Forex trading can be complex and may not be suitable for everyone. Whether forex is good for you will depend on your financial condition, your goals, and how much investing experience you already have as a beginner.

Overall, beginners must exercise caution, especially as the majority of forex traders lose money. Also, leveraged forex trading — whether as a CFD or otherwise — is traded from a margin account, which means it is possible for you to incur a negative balance and lose more than you invest.

Note: If you're a beginner, start by learning the risks associated with forex trading. Read all the educational materials that online forex brokers provide before trading with live funds.

A free demo account allows you to learn the software. Many beginners start with a small amount of money they can afford to lose, with the goal of establishing a consistent trading record.

Yes, and the best forex brokers offer a variety of educational materials, such as articles and videos, that make it possible to teach yourself forex trading. While studying up doesn't guarantee success, it's an important first step.

Plus500's simple platform design makes it a good one for learning the fundamentals. Some brokers, like IG, even offer progress tracking and quizzes at the end of each course to test your knowledge as you move through the material.

Before depositing real money, open a free demo account that lets you use the trading platform and learn how it works. After you learn the software and practice using the virtual account, you can open a live forex trading account and begin with an amount of capital that you can afford to lose.

1. Choose only regulated brokers to open a live account.
2. Study free educational material.
3. Open a free demo account and practice.
4. Learn to use the trading software.
5. Develop a trading strategy.
6. Deposit a small amount of risk capital.
7. Focus on managing percentage returns.
8. Only scale when you have a consistent track record.

The majority of traders lose money. Therefore, to beat the odds and make money trading forex, you must have a trading strategy that focuses not only on identifying trading opportunities (i.e., signals when to buy or sell) but also calculates the optimum trade size relative to your balance. In addition, the target risk and profit levels should be determined in advance using a stop-loss order and limit.

This way, you have a plan on when to exit a trade, whether at a loss or profit. Because, to be successful in trading, you just need to keep your average losses smaller than your average profit. That's harder than it sounds, but is the secret to making money trading forex.

It's crucial to use a forex broker that holds the necessary licenses. Choosing a regulated broker that is permitted to offer services in your country helps you avoid potential scams. Also, by selecting a trusted forex broker that is well-capitalized, you reduce the risk of the broker going bankrupt and losing your deposit.

To select a forex broker, start by looking for brokers that are regulated in your country and any available consumer compensation funds provided as protection against bankruptcy. Next, read full-length forex reviews. Finally, compare your top two choices side by side to decide on a winner.

Pro tip: In addition to trust, other factors to consider include trading costs, range of markets, available platforms, mobile trading apps (see our top picks for forex trading apps), market research and news sources, educational articles, and the quality of customer service that the forex broker provides.

If you're a beginner looking for a thorough selection of educational materials, then IG is the best choice among forex brokers. We've also written an extensive guide for the best forex brokers in the U.S. for beginners, in addition to the brokers that support international traders.

Also noteworthy is Plus500 for its trading platform, which is great for beginners thanks to a simple layout that is easy to learn.

The amount of money you will need to trade forex depends on several factors, including your expected trade sizes, risk threshold per trade, the available margin requirements from the broker (i.e., leverage), and any minimum deposit requirement to open your account.

For example: If you plan to trade one mini lot (10,000 units) worth of the euro currency at a time, and the forex broker offers a maximum of 20:1 leverage, that means you will need at least 5% of the trade value just for the margin, and another 1 euro for every pip you plan on risking when the market moves against your position. (Note: In this case 1 pip is 0.0001 euro worth of currency.)

So in the above example, one standard lot of 10,000 EUR/USD would require at least 500 euros in margin, and if you wanted to risk no more than 200 pips per trade, another 200 euros would need to be available. That means you would need a starting balance of 700 euros to trade forex.

Generally no, because even with the ability to trade micro-lots at most forex brokers, $10 would barely be enough for the margin requirement alone, even if you had access to the highest leverage. The best forex broker for small accounts will offer micro contracts, as well as a low minimum deposit. That said, you still need to consider having enough margin available to open each trade.

For example, with at least $300, a trader could open one micro lot at a time and still have enough available for higher margin requirements, such as in Europe or the U.S. With a single micro-lot, each pip is worth around 10 cents for every $1,000 of currency you trade.

There are several forex brokers, such as CMC Markets (which is also our pick for the best forex trading platform technology), that advertise a $0.00 minimum deposit, which means you can open a live account and deposit whatever amount you like to start trading.

Note: When deciding how much to start with, keep extra costs in mind, such as wire transfer fees and other transfer-related costs that will depend on your chosen payment method — as well as the collateral (margin) you plan to use for your expected trade sizes.

The most heavily traded currency pairs by volume all include the U.S. dollar (USD), followed by the euro (EUR), Japanese yen (JPY), Great British Pound (GBP), Australian dollar (AUD), Canadian dollar (CAD), and Swiss Franc (CHF). This is according to the latest Triennial Survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which found that approximately 88% of all forex trades include the U.S. dollar.

Note: The resulting pairs from these popular currencies are known as the "major pairs" and include the EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, CAD/USD, CHF/USD, and followed by the Chinese renminbi (CNY), which is the eighth most traded currency, but seventh most traded currency pair when combined with the U.S. dollar (CNY/USD).

While possible, getting rich by trading forex is rare. Practice and skill are required to make money trading forex. Successful traders strive to make trades that, on average, return larger profits (winners) than losses (losers) over time. Historically speaking, several hedge fund managers have been able to get rich trading forex. For example, George Soros made over £1 billion in profit by short selling the British pound in 1992, in what can be described, if one is prone to understatement, as a large bet.

Forex brokers who hold regulatory status in the U.S. can accept U.S.-based clients. Meanwhile, forex brokers who accept non-U.S. clients will usually need to hold licenses in the countries where their clients reside.

For example, if you reside within the European Union, you will be able to open an account with an EU-regulated broker. If you live in a U.S. state, you will need to open an account with a U.S.-regulated broker. If you're interested specifically in stock trading, read our guide to best U.S. trading platforms for beginners.

• IG - IG web platform
• AvaTrade - AvaTrade WebTrader
• Capital.com - Capital.com web platform
• eToro - eToro CopyTrader
• Plus500 - WebTrader
• CMC Markets - Next Generation
• TMGM - MetaTrader 4