Best forex brokers in Portugal

• 29 forex brokers with a verified licence serve residents of Portugal: 1 holds a local licence (CMVM) and 28 serve under an EU passport.
• Top pick by Coinish Score: IG (78/100, Editor Rating 4.2/5).
• Lowest advertised EUR/USD all-in cost: 0.1 pips (Deriv), across 16 brokers that publish one.
• No minimum deposit: Deriv.

Ranked by Coinish Score: half the Editor Rating for the entity that serves residents of Portugal, half Market Signal. Brokers without enough verified data for a rating are placed by Market Signal and labelled; brokers with neither are listed last. How we rate

Of the 29 forex brokers on this list, 22 serve Portugal from a CySEC licence in Cyprus (FxPro, FOREX.com, Capital.com and 19 more), 2 serve Portugal from a CBI licence in Ireland (Interactive Brokers and AvaTrade), 1 serves Portugal from a BaFin licence in Germany (IG) and 1 serves Portugal from a KNF licence in Poland (XTB); 3 more are licensed by Bank of Latvia, MFSA and CMVM.

ESMA's product intervention measures cap retail CFD leverage at 30:1 on major currency pairs, down to 2:1 on cryptocurrencies. In Portugal, CMVM applies them through its own product-intervention rules. The 4 that publish the regulator-required loss figure report that 55% (Swissquote) to 75% (XM) of retail CFD accounts lose money; the median is 73%.

Advertised all-in EUR/USD costs on this list run from 0.1 pips (Deriv) to 1.5 pips (Orbex) across the 16 that publish one.

• Search the company name on the CMVM register (web3.cmvm.pt); for a firm licensed elsewhere, on its home regulator's register too (CySEC, CBI and BaFin for most of this list).
• Check which company your contract is with. IG, for example, onboards residents of Portugal through IG Europe GmbH (BaFin licence 148759), and the name on the account-opening documents should match the list.
• Look for the percentage-of-accounts-that-lose-money warning on the broker's site. A firm marketing CFDs to residents of Portugal without it is probably not using its regulated entity.

Yes, with a licensed provider. Brokers need MiFID II authorisation from an EEA regulator; firms authorised elsewhere in the EEA may serve residents under the European passport. Retail forex is offered as CFDs, which the CMVM restricts for retail investors in Portugal (CMVM Regulation 5/2019).

Sources: cmvm.pt, bafin.de

By Coinish Score, IG (78/100, Editor Rating 4.2/5), through IG Europe GmbH (BaFin licence 148759). FxPro (72) and FOREX.com (70) follow. The score rates the company that would serve you in Portugal, so the same brand can rank differently in another country.

Only Trade Nation is licensed by the CMVM, Portugal's own regulator. The other 28 brokers here serve Portugal under licences from other EU countries. Either way, CMVM Regulation 5/2019 limits how CFDs can be marketed and sold to you, and most retail forex is traded as CFDs.

The CMVM has flagged a specific worry about pricing. Many CFD providers make clients agree that the reference price behind a CFD may differ from the underlying market price, which makes it hard to check whether a quote is fair. It's worth reading the broker's pricing and execution policy before you trade.

Source: cmvm.pt

Yes. A firm authorised under MiFID II in one EEA country can serve residents of the others once its home regulator has notified them. 28 of the 29 on this list reach Portugal that way, most from Cyprus (22), Ireland (2) and Germany (1).

The home regulator supervises the firm and its compensation scheme applies, while CMVM can still set conduct rules for clients in Portugal.

Source: bafin.de

If a broker fails, the compensation scheme of the regulator that licenses it applies, not one chosen by where you live. For this list: Sistema de Indemnização aos Investidores (SII): up to €25,000 per investor for clients of CMVM-licensed investment firms (1 on this list); Investor Compensation Fund (Cyprus): 90% of covered claims, up to €20,000 for clients of CySEC-licensed investment firms (22 on this list); Investor Compensation Company (ICCL): 90% of the loss, up to €20,000 per investor for clients of CBI-licensed investment firms (2 on this list); Entschädigungseinrichtung der Wertpapierhandelsunternehmen (EdW): 90% of the claim, up to €20,000 per investor for clients of BaFin-licensed investment firms (1 on this list). Compensation covers missing client money and assets after a firm's failure, never trading losses.

Sources: web.archive.org, cysec.gov.cy, investorcompensation.ie, e-d-w.de