How to Trade Forex in New Zealand (2026)

What is forex trading in New Zealand?

Forex trading is, in the Financial Markets Authority’s words, “the buying and selling of foreign currencies”. The FMA classes forex trading using contracts linked to the exchange rate between two currencies as trading a derivative, and such contracts include CFDs and margin FX contracts. The licence a provider of those contracts must hold is a derivatives issuer licence from the FMA, and offering these contracts to retail investors in New Zealand is regulated activity.

People trade forex either to try to make a quick profit by betting on a changing currency value, or to lock in certainty about the cost of future foreign currency payments, which the FMA calls hedging. The FMA sets out the other side of that: “For every person who gains a dollar from forex trading, someone else loses a dollar”, and it says that forex trading for profit is very risky, and that it regularly receives complaints and enquiries from consumers who have lost money in online forex trading. I cover the licence itself on our CFD Trading in New Zealand (2026) page. In my opinion a beginner should read the FMA’s risk warning before anything else and work through the steps below before opening an account.

How to trade forex in New Zealand

The procedure has six steps: choose an FMA-licensed derivatives issuer, check the licence on the FMA register, read the product disclosure statement, apply and verify identity, practise on a demo and then fund the account, and place a small trade with a plan for margin. Work through them in that order.

1. Choose an FMA-licensed derivatives issuer. Start by choosing from the 11 FMA-licensed derivatives issuers that offer retail forex or CFD accounts, because a licensed issuer must follow the FMA's disclosure and client funds rules. The FMA recommends New Zealanders avoid overseas forex trading services not licensed by the FMA, even if they appear to be regulated by an overseas authority. If you deal with a provider that holds no licence you miss out on important protections and may have no recourse if things go wrong.
2. Check the licence on the FMA register. Once you have a name, check it on the FMA's licensed providers page, which lists the businesses and people granted a licence or authorised by the FMA and can be filtered to the Derivative Issuer category. I would check the legal entity before the brand: BlackBull Markets' licensed entity is Black Bull Group Limited, CMC Markets' is CMC Markets NZ Limited, IG's is IG Australia Pty Ltd, and ThinkMarkets' is TF Global Markets (Aust) Ltd. Also search the Financial Service Providers Register, run by the Companies Office, where a company's licence status and its dispute resolution scheme can be seen, but know that FSPR registration alone is not a licence, and no more checks are done beyond limited criminal checks.
3. Read the product disclosure statement. Before you fund anything, read the issuer's product disclosure statement, because a licensed derivatives provider must provide it before trading begins. The FMA says information about regulated offers must be disclosed in a PDS and on the Disclose register, and it classes contracts for difference, margin contracts and rolling spot contracts as derivatives. The issuer's PDS can therefore be found on the Disclose register, which anyone can search without an account, by offer or issuer name, number, or NZBN. IG Australia Pty Ltd's New Zealand PDS, dated 3 February 2025, sits there under the offer Margin Trading, offer number OFR13249, and the FMA lists "information about leverage" among the things to look for.
4. Apply and verify your identity. Apply through the issuer's process, and expect identity verification, because under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 a reporting entity must verify your identity before establishing a business relationship, or as soon as practicable after. EC Markets Financial Limited's PDS says applicants qualify through a questionnaire assessing financial capacity, knowledge and experience, and ThinkMarkets' PDS says it cannot accept an applicant as a client if it is not satisfied the applicant understands the derivatives and their risks. Answer those questions honestly.
5. Practise on a demo, then fund the account. Practise on a demo account first, so a new trader can learn the platform without money at risk. When the real account is funded, expect deposit rules: Black Bull Group Limited's PDS allows deposits only by electronic transfer from a verified New Zealand bank account in the same name as your trading account, ACE Markets Limited's only by electronic transfer from a New Zealand bank account, with no minimum deposit to become a client, and EC Markets Financial Limited activates the trading account with a minimum deposit of NZ$250. My advice is to check the funding method before applying, so the account holder knows in advance what the issuer will accept.
6. Place a small trade with a plan for margin. Place your first trade small, with a plan for what happens if the margin moves against the position. Leverage means only a small portion of the trade's value is paid up front, but the full amount borrowed plus the loss must still be repaid. The FMA says this could include having to deposit more money to maintain the position, and that the issuer may have the ability to automatically close all of the positions without getting the client's approval beforehand. A stop loss order would not be guaranteed, as stop orders may not work at all during extreme market moves, and additional fees may apply to have one in place. EC Markets Financial Limited's PDS sets close-out when the margin level falls to or below 50% of the margin required to support open positions, so know that number before opening the position.

I recommend comparing the licensed issuers on our Best Forex Brokers in New Zealand (2026) page before committing. I also suggest practising on the accounts listed in Best Forex Demo Accounts in New Zealand (2026). Once a new trader has chosen an issuer and funded an account, leverage is the next thing to work through, which the next section explains.

How much leverage can you use in New Zealand?

There is no FMA cap on leverage for retail traders in New Zealand, so the ceiling is whatever the issuer’s product disclosure statement sets. The FMA confirmed in a June 2024 media release that “Currently, there is no limit to the amount of leverage a licensed DI can offer to retail investors in New Zealand”, and noted that some FMA-licensed derivatives issuers offer leverage up to 500:1, the ceiling Black Bull Group Limited’s PDS sets for every account type. The FMA has consulted on using its power under regulation 201(1)(h) of the Financial Markets Conduct Regulations 2014 to impose leverage limits, but it has not imposed a cap, so real differences show up between issuers: ACE Markets Limited’s Standard Account uses 100:1, and Jarden Securities Limited typically sets margin for margin FX at 3%.

The FMA’s own worked example is a CFD where an initial margin of NZ$1,000 exposes you to NZ$100,000 of the underlying asset, so a 1% adverse move wipes out your margin. You would then face the issuer’s right to close positions or demand more money, which is why the FMA warns that derivatives trading is very high risk even for experienced investors. In my opinion a beginner should start at the lowest leverage the account allows and request any increase only after building screen time. These risks are set out in full on the FMA’s foreign exchange trading page.

Leverage is only one column of the PDS, though. My recommendation is to read the rest of the document before funding, and I set out what else to check in the next section.

What to Read in the PDS Before You Fund

I would read the margin call terms first, because they decide when a position closes. Black Bull Group Limited’s PDS states on page 12 that “We will not make Margin Calls” and that monitoring additional margin is the client’s responsibility, and ACE Markets Limited’s PDS says on page 12 that it will not make margin calls either. Zero Markets (NZ) Limited’s PDS states on page 12 that there is no minimum time to meet a margin call and no limit to how often they can be made, while Jarden Securities Limited’s FX derivatives PDS requires a margin call to be met within 24 hours, or up to 48 hours for a client resident overseas. Where the issuer makes no margin calls, no call warns you before a close-out, so the client has to track the margin without a prompt; where it does, the deadline is whatever the PDS sets.

Check the account currency next, because it decides what gains and losses are denominated in. Plus500AU Pty Ltd’s PDS states on page 30 that a New Zealand resident’s account balance is denominated in New Zealand dollars, ACE Markets Limited’s PDS keeps the trading account in NZD or USD, which you nominate, and Black Bull Group Limited’s base currencies include NZD, USD, EUR, GBP and CAD among others. Also find the dispute scheme the issuer names: CMC Markets NZ Limited and IG Australia Pty Ltd name Financial Services Complaints Limited, AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd, Pacific Financial Derivatives Limited and Zero Markets (NZ) Limited name the Financial Dispute Resolution Service, and TF Global Markets (Aust) Ltd names the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme.

Read the client money section with care, because the FMA warns that if the provider became insolvent you may be an unsecured creditor and have difficulty getting your money back. Once the account holder knows the margin terms and the dispute scheme, the next thing to work through is tax, which I cover in the next section.

Do you pay tax on forex trading in New Zealand?

Yes, under Inland Revenue’s rules a forex trading profit is income when it comes from a business or from carrying on a profit-making scheme, and a trader does not have to be in business for the profit to be income. As a New Zealand tax resident you will generally pay tax on your worldwide income. Inland Revenue’s financial arrangements rules apply to New Zealand tax residents with financial arrangements, and IRD gives a foreign currency bank account as an example; those rules disregard distinctions between capital and revenue amounts, and when an arrangement ends the taxpayer must do a wash-up calculation called a base price adjustment, where a positive result is income. If the result is negative, the deductibility depends on the normal rules. Inland Revenue notes that large currency fluctuations, or smaller fluctuations on large amounts, may give rise to unexpected income where the arrangement is not in New Zealand dollars.

I quote Inland Revenue’s own wording on each rule below. From the 2025-26 income year, IRD treats a person as a cash basis person if they either have income and expenditure from all financial arrangements on an accrual basis under NZ$200,000, or have total financial assets and liabilities less than NZ$2 million, with “total” meaning items added together ignoring signs. Inland Revenue’s pages do not say whether a forex contract or a CFD is a financial arrangement, and no IRD page we read addresses forex or CFD trading by an individual, so whether a person’s trading falls under the financial arrangements rules or under the business or profit-making rules is a question for a tax professional, which is what IRD itself recommends. A New Zealand tax resident also has to convert overseas currency to New Zealand dollars to work out income tax, and IRD says it is important to use the same exchange rate sources and methods consistently over time.

You must complete an individual income tax return, the IR3, at the end of the tax year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March, if income IRD has not been told about came to more than NZ$200 before tax, with the completed return due by 7 July unless a tax agent or an extension of time applies. The taxpayer must keep records of all cash and electronic sales and purchases for 7 years. For the rules themselves, read Inland Revenue’s financial arrangements rules, the source I rely on here. Whether a new trader files once a year or trades every day is the next question, because day trading changes both the time commitment and how the tax rules read.

Can you day trade forex from New Zealand?

Yes, the forex market runs from Monday morning to Saturday morning New Zealand time, so a new trader can open and close positions within the day. It opens with Sydney on Monday at 09:00 in both NZST and NZDT, except in the single week between the New Zealand and Sydney spring clock changes, and closes with New York on Saturday morning. The London and New York overlap, when both centres are open, runs 00:00 to 04:00 NZST, and 02:00 to 06:00 NZDT from 1 November 2026 to 14 March 2027. I point to our Forex Market Hours in New Zealand (NZST/NZDT) page for the full schedule and the shoulder weeks.

Day trading means opening and closing positions within the same day, and the FMA’s warnings bite harder on that schedule: you will need plenty of spare money to cover losses caused when exchange rates move against the position, and even small movements in currency values can have a big impact on gains or losses. With no FMA leverage cap and margin terms set by each issuer’s PDS, frequent trading multiplies both the cost and the margin risk on every position opened through the day.

In deciding whether an activity is a business, IRD looks at factors including the intent to make a profit, the time, money and effort put in, whether records are kept to monitor the activity’s financial status, “the scale of operations, the volume of transactions, and the pattern of activity”, and how much time is spent on it, so a dense day trading routine reads differently from an occasional trade. If you claim a loss in a return and are not in business, IRD will reassess the return and may issue a bill for tax to pay. In my opinion day trading does not suit a beginner, because it stacks the leverage risk the FMA warns about onto a schedule that demands fast decisions, and I would learn on a demo account at a slower pace.