Ask anything about brokers and trading.

Nine of the brokers we track have an FCA-authorised UK company: ActivTrades, Axi, Darwinex, Eightcap, FxPro, Moneta Markets, Pepperstone, Plus500 and Vantage. The licence only protects you if your account is opened with that UK company, which is normally what happens when you sign up as a UK resident.

It depends on which company holds your account. With an FCA-regulated UK broker, the FSCS covers up to £85,000. With a CySEC-regulated broker in Cyprus, the Investor Compensation Fund covers up to €20,000. Australian and offshore entities usually have no compensation scheme. None of these schemes cover trading losses.

Find the licence number in the broker's footer, search it on the regulator's own register, check that the website listed there matches the one you're on, and read which company your client agreement is with. Ten minutes, and you'll know whether the licence actually covers you.

For most traders, the raw account. A typical raw account costs about $7 per lot (0.1 pips + $6 commission) against about $12 on a Standard account. The gap only stops mattering if you trade very small or very rarely.

Technically very little: many brokers accept $10–100. But a useful starting amount is whatever lets you risk around 1% per trade at sensible position sizes. For most people that's somewhere between $500 and $2,000, and only money you can afford to lose.

It's about who takes the other side of your trade. A market maker takes it itself, an STP broker passes your order to a liquidity provider and adds a markup to the spread, and an ECN account gives you raw prices plus a commission. What matters most is the all-in cost per lot.