Best Canadian Forex Brokers

We like OANDA because the broker gives you access to a vast range of markets and trading products, including 69 Forex pairs. OANDA has no minimum deposit, and competitive spreads, with no commissions. Moreover, you can access OANDA from three outstanding trading platforms.

If you’re new to Forex trading, OANDA gives you access to a comprehensive education suite and access to trading support 24/5.

At CompareForexBrokers, we use a strict methodology to rate brokers, and we rank OANDA in the top ten brokers worldwide and the best broker overall in Canada. Based on this methodology, OANDA earned an overall score of 71/100.

We rated OANDA as the best Canadian forex broker overall for several reasons including a choice of 3 excellent trading platforms, a solid range of trading products (including 69 Forex pairs) and competitive no-commission spreads.

Lastly, OANDA also offers a range of technical analysis tools and an expansive education suite, making the broker particularly suitable for beginners.

Three Excellent Trading Platforms

We gave OANDA a solid score of 7/10 for its trading platforms, each sufficiently different from the other making them suitable for different types of traders.

First up, OANDA Trade is the broker’s flagship platform. If, like us, you find the MetaTrader 4 user interface (UI) a bit dated, then you will appreciate the more modern UI OANDA Trade has to offer.

When we tested the platform, we found the UI was well designed, presenting extensive charts and 100+ trading indicators without appearing cluttered. This is especially important given that OANDA Trade has charting powered by TradingView and AutoChartist, making it a good choice for traders who like analytics.

We also like the fact that you can control the unit size to a single unit (0.0001 lot), instead of being fixed to the lowest micro-lot.

As an added bonus, you can use TRADINGVIEW as a standalone platform with OANDA, which is the only broker to offer it to Canadian traders, incidentally.

TRADINGVIEW is one of the world’s top charting platforms with 15 chart types, over 100 pre-built technical indicators and 90+ smart drawing tools. Given charting is such an important aspect of trading from our experience, having the option of TradingView enhanced our platform experience with OANDA.

Lastly, OANDA offers the ever-popular METATRADER 4. What makes the broker’s MT4 offering stand out is OANDA’s bespoke MT4 plugins. We found the trade orders feature useful to identify when the price crosses support and resistance levels as it helped us find trading opportunities.

You should also choose MT4 if you prefer automated trading as this is available by using Expert Advisers, which we use extensively when testing trading strategies.

Competitive Commission-Free Spreads

The Standard Account you get at OANDA is spread-based, with competitive spreads for an account of its type, starting at 0.6 pips.

In fact, when we looked at published spread results against other brokers, OANDA had the most competitive spreads for a Standard account. OANDA averaged 0.7 pips against the industry average of 1.52 pips for the top 5 most traded currency pairs.

Standard Account Spreads	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD
	0.62	0.77	1.27	0.83	0.74
	1.10	1.20	1.30	1.30	1.30
	0.90	1.10	1.50	1.50	1.00
	1.20	1.40	1.50	1.60	1.50
	1.10	1.20	1.40	1.50	1.20
	1.00	1.11	N/A	1.32	1.09
	1.00	1.20	1.00	1.00	1.10
	0.93	0.92	0.98	1.08	1.02
	1.12	1.64	1.30	1.30	1.38

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 04/01/2024

Spread Rebates with the Elite Trader Program

By joining the Elite Trader Program you can earn spread rebates from your trading costs. Rebates range from $5 to $17 depending on the volume you trade. If you are a high-volume trading, this feature does give OANDA a point of difference over its competitors.

View OANDA ReviewVisit OANDA

By our strict standards, we identified FP Markets as the best ECN broker, with competitive spreads (average 1.1 pips for EUR/USD) and some of the swiftest market execution speeds (96 ms for market orders) we’ve assessed so far. All these are available with MT4, MT5 and cTrader trading platforms.

This ideal combination of FP Markets’ economical fees and fast execution speeds cuts your trading costs, especially for scalp trading.

We rated FP Markets as the best ECN broker, providing low trading fees and one of the fastest market execution speeds we have tested. FP Markets’ low fees and fast execution speeds reduce your trading costs, which will be a good match if you are a scalper. With FP Markets, you can enjoy all the benefits of ECN pricing with a solid choice of trading platforms.

Fastest Trade Execution Speeds in Canada

We tested 20 brokers to determine which has the fastest execution speeds and found that FP Markets ranked the highest in Canada. Our tests are done with an average execution speed recorded over 20 trades on the MT4 platform. FP Markets scored an average market order speed of 96ms, which is one of the fastest execution speeds we recorded.

In our table below, we have shown how FP Markets compares with other brokers in Canada for their execution speeds:

Lowest ECN/RAW Account Spreads in Canada

FP Markets offers both a commission-based (Standard) and spread-based (RAW) account. When we tested spreads on both accounts, FP Markets was fairly competitive against the industry average.

FP Markets’ RAW account had some of the tightest spreads we measured, averaging 0.22 pips for the top 5 most traded currency pairs. The industry average was 0.45 pips for the RAW/ECN accounts we tested. For the Standard account, the broker had an average of 1.30 pips vs the industry average of 1.52 pips for the top 5 most traded currency pairs.

FP Markets’ competitive spreads along with its fast execution speeds is why we rated the broker as the best ECN Forex broker for Canadian traders.

In all our research so far, only FOREX.COM offers up to 91. Besides that, FOREX.COM also has its native trading platform, but it also supports MetaTrader 4 and 5.

All these platforms are available on your PC, Android and Apple devices.

Besides that, FOREX. COM also offers comprehensive education materials to new and intermediate traders and responsive customer support.

Of all of the brokers offering trading services in Canada, FOREX.com offers the most currency pairs we’ve seen, with 84. We also scored FOREX.com highly in its trading platform offering (8/10), education (9/10) and trust (7/10).

Huge Range of Tradable Currency Pairs

Take it from us, FOREX.com has the largest range of over 80 currency pairs for a Canadian-regulated broker, in addition to over 2200+ stock CFDs. For a Canadian broker, this is one of the better product ranges we’ve come across.

To trade this extensive product range as a Canadian forex trader, you can open either a zero commission (Standard or MetaTrader account) or a commission-based trading account (RAW Pricing account).

From our analysis, FOREX.com’s trading costs are more expensive than other Canadian brokers. For its Standard account, published spreads are slightly higher than the industry average at 1.66 pips compared to 1.52 for the top 5 most traded currency pairs.

FOREX.com’s RAW pricing account is similarly expensive. While you can obtain spreads as low as 0.0 pips, commissions are steep at $7 per side ($14 round-turn), compared to the industry average of $3.50 per side.

Excellent Platform Experience

FOREX.com has a great range of platforms, including the popular MetaTrader 4, its upgrade, MetaTrader 5 and its own, excellent proprietary platform.

While we are avid users of MT4 at CompareForexBrokers, FOREX.com’s proprietary app is where the value add is.

What stands out to us is the combination of an intuitive user interface with advanced charting, which is not an easy mix to achieve. You can either access 80, 100 or 200 charting indicators depending on whether you use the mobile app, web trader or desktop platform. As such, we recommend the platform for all levels of trading.

From our extensive tests, we’ve established that Fusion Markets offers the lowest spreads when trading currency pairs.

As such, Fusion Markets makes your access to the market affordable by maintaining industry-low commission fees, low spreads and cutting additional charges.

Canadian traders looking for the lowest-cost broker should choose Fusion Markets. From our extensive analysis, the broker achieves low costs through industry-low commission costs, tight spreads, and low ancillary fees.

Lowest Commissions in Canada

Fusion Markets offers low commissions of CAD 3 per side for its ‘Zero’ Trading account. With the industry average being CAD 3.50, this is lower than the industry average in Canada. If you trade with USD, however, you will only pay $2.25 per side ($4.50 round turn) which are some of the lowest commission costs in the market.

Whether you are a high-volume trader or a casual trader, these low commission costs will help you reduce your overall trading costs.

Tight Spreads

Fusion Markets has the tightest RAW/ECN account spreads in the market based on our testing. The averaged spreads of 0.22 for the six major currency pairs. The next lowest, City Index, averaged spreads of 0.25 pips.

While the Standard account has no commission costs, you will pay higher average spreads of 1.19 pips across the USD majors.

Using EURUSD as an example, you will pay $7.70 with the Zero Account if the round trip cost is $3.20 spread cost is ($1.60 each way) + commission of US $4.50 round-turn. From our testing, Fusion Market’s Standard account average cost for EUR/USD is $10.14 in trading costs.

As such, we recommend trading with the Fusion Markets Zero Account rather than the Standard Account, as this will save you on costs.

Fusion Markets Has Tight Spreads Based on our Testing

CMC Markets has good education for beginners.

CMC Markets is the best Canadian forex broker for beginner traders who want access to great educational resources. In addition, the broker also offers some of the most competitive spreads we’ve tested, along with a huge range of forex and CFD products to trade.

CMC Markets is the best Canadian forex broker for beginner traders that want access to great educational resources. In addition, the broker also offers some of the most competitive spreads we’ve tested, along with a huge range of forex and CFD products to trade.

Excellent Educational Resources

CMC Markets offers Canadian traders outstanding educational resources and an excellent trading experience thanks to its learning center.

Highlights for us include 8 well-structured eBooks to download in PDF format, the easy-to-use trading guides, some of which are provided in video format and the engaging webinars which are hosted by an experienced team of market analysts led by Michael Hewson.

We particularly found the webinars useful, which you can register and join for free. The webinars cover a wide range of topics like trading strategies, trading tips and tricks, news breakdowns and live coverage of the most important economic data.

Ultra Competitive Commission-Free Spreads

CMC Markets offers the second-most competitive Standard account spreads we’ve tested, with average spreads of 1.11 pips across the 6 major currency pairs. Only IC Markets, at 1.01 pips, had tighter average spreads.

As a Canadian trader, you can also open an FX Active account, which is commission-based. The USD $5 commissions you pay per round turn are highly competitive from what we’ve observed, compared to the industry average of US $7 round-turn.

In addition, you can access these low spreads across +331 currency pairs – one of the most diverse lists of FX offerings by a Canadian forex broker – and over 9,500 CFDs.

Excellent Next Generation Platform

You can trade this extensive product range on the all-popular MetaTrader 4 trading platform, as well as the broker’s excellent Next Generation platform.

From our testing, we found CMC’s Next Generation platform to be fast, reliable on any device (mobile, web trader or desktop) and packed with features, including rich charting with up to 80 technical indicators.

Eightcap has 86 crypto pairs to trade with.

Eightcap offers the best range of cryptocurrency products for Canadian clients that we’ve encountered. This is because a lot of brokers regulated by CIRO don’t offer crypto products. Eightcap, on the other hand, is not regulated by the Canadian regulator, instead, by an offshore regulator, SCB in the Bahamas.

We also scored Eightcap highly for its diverse range of platforms (8/10), good range of products (7/10) and useful educational resources (9/10).

Eightcap offers the best range of cryptocurrency products for Canadian clients that we’ve encountered. This is because a lot of brokers regulated by CIRO don’t offer crypto products. Eightcap, on the other hand, is not regulated by the Canadian regulator, instead, by an offshore regulator, SCB in the Bahamas.

We also scored Eightcap highly for its diverse range of platforms (8/10), good range of products (7/10) and useful educational resources (9/10).

Competitive Published Spreads

Both of Eightcap’s account types offer mid-range spreads from our testing, with average spreads of 1.51 pips for its Standard account and 0.5 pips for its RAW account. When looking at published spreads, however, Eightcap beats the industry average for both Standard (1.06 pips Vs 1.52 pips) and RAW (0.30 pips Vs 0.45 pips) accounts.

All this means is Eightcap’s spreads can vary wildly depending on the trading conditions: very competitive at their best, average at their worst.

You can also fund your account using Tether (USDT) or BitCoin (BTC) cryptocurrency, giving Eightcap a point of difference as the top crypto broker.

Wide Range of Cryptos

In terms of products, Eightcap really stands out in its crypto offering, with over 95 cryptocurrencies available to trade. With Eightcap’s crypto range, you can trade 20 cross-currency products against USD, AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP and MXN, easily the biggest range for Canadian traders. You can even cross-pair these 20 cryptos against Bitcoin.

It’s worth noting, however, that to trade Eightcap’s full range of products, you must use MetaTrader 5.

Interactive Brokers Have Low ECN Trading Costs.

Interactive Brokers is the only ‘true ECN’ broker on our list, offering low ECN trading costs. The broker does this through direct access to interbank quotes, with spreads as low as 0.1 pips. IB particularly caters to both professional and institutional traders with a huge range of asset classes and derivatives as well as its own advanced forex trading platforms.

Interactive Brokers (IB) is the only ‘true ECN’ broker on our list, offering low ECN trading costs. We found the broker does this through direct access to interbank quotes, with spreads as low as 0.1 pips. IB particularly caters to both professional and institutional traders with a huge range of asset classes and derivatives as well as its own advanced forex trading platforms.

Low-cost Stock Trading

Interactive Brokers gives Canadian citizens access to a range of small-cap, mid-cap and large-cap domestic and international stocks from a single retail investor account at low brokerage fees.

With three different pricing plans, we recommend IB’s Tiered Pricing plan for professional traders, which features volume-based commission discounts. Please note, however, that this plan also includes exchange, regulatory, and clearing fees.

For beginners, the IBKR Lite pricing plan allows for unlimited trading of US-listed stocks and ETFs with no commissions charged.

Advanced Trading Platforms

IB allows for direct market access (DMA) trading to the financial markets through a range of 5 proprietary platforms (Client Portal, Desktop Trader Workstation, IBKR Mobile, IBKR WebTrader and IBKR Application Programming Interface).

If you prefer to trade on the go, we found the IBKR mobile app is robust with rich charting (including 127 indicators), but involved a steep learning curve.

For desktop or web traders, we found the desktop platform challenging to use and difficult to customize, whereas the web-based platforms were geared towards everyday retail traders.

As such, in terms of user experience, we recommend the web-based platforms for all levels of traders.

Friedberg Direct powered by AvaTrade has spreads from 0.6 pips.

Canadian traders looking to use fixed spreads for their trading should turn to Friedberg Direct, powered by AvaTrade. AvaTrade is a reputable forex and CFD broker running the Friedberg Direct trading platform technology. Friedberg Direct was founded in 1971 and forms one of the largest independent brokers in Canada.

From our broker testing, we found Friedberg Direct with AvaTrade offered stable, fixed spreads, a great range of trading platforms and good risk management tools. For these reasons, we think the broker is suited for beginner traders.

Stable Fixed Spreads

Friedberg Direct stands out by offering you the ability to trade forex using fixed spreads (with zero commissions).

From our spreads analysis, Friedberg Direct, through AvaTrade, offers competitive average spreads of 0.9 pips for EUR/USD, which is better than the industry average of 1 pip for a market maker broker.

The broker also had the lowest average spreads compared to any other fixed-spread broker, averaging 1.4 pips across the major currency pairs. easyMarkets was the next best at 1.7 pips.

Having fixed spreads has advantages over floating spreads, which fluctuate when economic conditions become unfavorable, thus leading to large losses.

Excellent Proprietary Platforms

While you won’t be able to trade AvaTrade’s full range of platforms through Friedberg Direct, the broker does still offer the full MetaTrader suite and its own excellent proprietary platforms including AvaOptions, a dedicated options trading platform.

From our extensive analysis, few Forex and CFD brokers offer a dedicated options platform like AvaTrade does.

To us, TMGM stood out based on the high leverage of 1:500 the broker offers to Canadian traders. We also liked TMGM’s competitive spreads, fast execution speeds, and particularly the broker’s trading tools, including Trading Central and Hubx, the latter designed for fund managers. Saying all this, TMGM competently satisfies both beginners and experienced traders in our opinion.

High Leverage of 500:1

Due to the more relaxed trading restrictions by its offshore regulator, VFSC in Vanuatu, TMGM is able offer a high leverage of 500:1 for Canadian traders. You can trade 61 forex pairs with this leverage, in addition to a decent range of over 1200 CFDs.

While high leverage increases your purchasing power with less initial investment giving you a higher profit potential, be mindful that you are also risking more so it’s important to only trade what you are prepared to lose.

Low Trading Costs

Based on our testing, TMGM offers competitive spreads across both its Classic (Standard) and Edge (RAW/ECN-style) accounts.

For its Classic (no commissions) account, TMGM offered an average spread of 1.21 pips, while for its Edge (commission-based) account, the broker averaged spreads of 0.32 pips across the 6 major currency pairs. These spreads were both top-4 of the cheapest brokers we tested, out of a list of 15.

Additionally, TMGM also offers fast execution speeds which lowered the latency at the point of trade execution, meaning more accurate fills with less slippage. Based on our speed testing, the broker achieved speeds of 94ms for limit orders and 129ms for market orders, putting it in the top-5 fastest brokers overall.

The combination of competitive spreads and fast execution speeds kept our trading costs low, adding to the appeal of TMGM.