Best Forex Trading Apps US

We recommend OANDA based on its stellar global reputation, excellent customer support and collection of seven Tier-1 licenses from major global regulators. This broker scored 100/100 in the ‘Trust’ category in our independent analysis of major forex brokers, taking the top spot.
This broker offers more than just security, however. We also like OANDA for its competitive spreads and excellent selection of trading platforms. In addition to OANDA Trade, you can trade forex spot markets using MetaTrader 4 and TradingView.

We recently rated OANDA as our most trusted broker, scoring them a perfect 100/100. The main reason was the fact that OANDA is regulated globally by several tier-1 regulators, including NFA/CFTC (USA), FCA (UK), CySEC (EU), and ASIC (Australia). OANDA has also been around since 1996 and helped create today’s online trading industry. With its age, experience, and regulated status, this gave us huge trust signals, which is why we scored them so highly.

Even though OANDA offers popular platforms MetaTrader 4 and TradingView, it’s the OANDA Trade that gets our recommendation as the trading app of choice. While testing the app, we found it uses TradingView’s charting (a big plus), so you get all the same charting features from TradingView, including 100+ indicators and 50+ drawing tools.

What stood out on the OANDA Trade app was the settings you could use to set a default trade ticket. This allowed us to set up our trade size, stop-loss, and take profit levels and store them to be used by default every time we buy and sell, making the process faster. A hidden benefit is that it can also prevent mistakes by preventing you from adding extra zeroes, which are costly mistakes if you get filled.

In our live testing, we found that OANDA’s spreads were decent on the commission-free Standard account, averaging 1.4 pips on EUR/USD. These no-commission spreads are about average for US brokers.

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We recommend FOREX.com for competitive spreads for American traders. According to our tests, this broker offers spreads as low as 1.2 pips for the EUR/USD pair on the Standard Account. We appreciate that, unlike most NFA-licensed brokers, FOREX.com gives US clients a choice of two account types: Standard and RAW Spread.

FOREX.com also stands out for its selection of products to trade. You’ll have access to 83 currency pairs, as well as commodities and five indices.

In our tests, we traded with a RAW account, as they are one of the few NFA-regulated brokers offering this account type. We found that the RAW account averages 0.0 pips on EUR/USD, with a commission of $7.00 per lot traded, which is competitive for NFA-regulated brokers. This pricing structure can suit you if you trade frequently, as the tight spreads and fixed commission costs can give you stable trading costs, even during volatile markets.

FOREX.com has a decent range of trading platforms catering to different traders, such as MetaTrader 5, MetaTrader 4, and TradingView. The integration of TradingView’s charting capabilities within the Web Trader platform caught our attention.

With over 80 technical indicators and 50+ drawing tools at your disposal, you gain access to comprehensive charting resources, enabling in-depth market analysis directly from your mobile device or desktop. This excellent experience across devices ensures you never miss a trading opportunity, regardless of your location.

Although not part of the trading app, we like that Forex.com offers two decent trading tools when you open a live account: Performance Analytics and SMART Signals.

The Performance Analytics tool stands out by analyzing your trading patterns in real time, highlighting your biggest strengths and weaknesses, and then recommending areas of improvement.

Meanwhile, the SMART Signals feature is an automated chart pattern scanner that automatically finds potential trade setups across multiple markets, which can be particularly useful for active day traders seeking new opportunities.

We recommend Interactive Brokers (IBKR) for advanced traders in search of low commissions. Rather than charge a flat fee, this innovative broker bases your commission on the size of your trade with a cap of 0.8 basis points. Couple this with spreads as tight as 0.1 pips and IBKR stands out as a great choice for low trading costs.

We also appreciate IBKR’s proprietary trading platform, which includes tools and features uniquely suited to experienced traders. The customizable interface adds an extra layer of efficiency.

Compared to most brokers, Interactive Brokers has a unique pricing model that charges commissions based on basis points rather than fixed fees. In our tests, we found the broker charges 0.20 basis points per lot traded, which equates to $2 per lot traded – one of the cheapest commissions we’ve seen. However, we noticed a $2.00 minimum commission, making trades smaller than one lot relatively expensive, which will put off traders with smaller accounts.

During our testing, we were impressed by Interactive Brokers’ tight spreads, starting from 0.1 pips on the EUR/USD pair, which is about average for US brokers with commission-based accounts. In our opinion, if you frequently trade at least one lot or higher, Interactive Brokers could be a top choice, potentially saving you substantial amounts in trading costs.

While reviewing Interactive Brokers, we utilized the IBKR Mobile App, their proprietary trading platform. The charts offer over 60 indicators and three chart types, providing plenty of choices for market analysis on a mobile device.

A standout feature was the trade settings, allowing us to set default trade sizes, stop-loss, and take-profit limits (e.g., 20 pips), streamlining the trade ticket completion process with your preferred settings. After setting this up, we found executing the trades on our phone much quicker.

We recommend IG for its excellent range of trading platforms. From its award-winning proprietary web trader packed with features and an intuitive trading app to MetaTrader 4 and ProRealTime for automated trading and advanced charting, this broker has options for every trading style and experience level.

We also like IG Group for its stellar reputation. This broker has been around since 1974 and pioneered retail investing. Today, it’s one of the most well-regulated and trustworthy brokers, with licenses from the UK, US, Australia and other Tier-1 jurisdictions.

When testing IG Group’s trading platforms, we found their suite of trading apps comprehensive. MetaTrader 4, ProRealTime, and IG’s proprietary platform cater to different trader preferences. However, during our tests, we were surprised by the lack of a dedicated mobile app for IG’s Direct Market Access platform, L2 Dealer.

The IG Trading app stood out for its intuitive interface and a decent selection of over 40 technical indicators, including essentials like moving averages and MACD. Notably, it was the only app that allowed trading across IG’s entire 17,000+ product range.

One feature we were drawn to was the built-in Signal Centre on the platform, which offered chart pattern recognition tools from Autochartist and PIA First services. We set our platform up to test these signals and liked that each signal given had commentary and analysis. Plus, IG has a feature to copy the prices into an order ticket to execute the trade fast.

IG Group offers a Standard account with no commissions, where the cost is built into the spread. In our tests, we analyzed the spreads across forex markets and found them highly competitive compared to industry averages. For example, on the EUR/USD pair, IG Group averaged 1.13 pips – cheaper than the 1.24 pip industry average.

We recommend TD Ameritrade for an exceptional range of financial markets for Americans to trade – more than any other CFTC-regulated online broker. While the other brokers on this list focus primarily on forex, TD Ameritrade offers stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, futures, bonds and indices.

This broker’s proprietary platform, thinkorswim, also includes some unique features. The steep learning curve can be daunting, but we like the access to sophisticated charting tools and the high degree of customization.

TD Ameritrade is a true multi-asset broker offering everything from 70+ forex pairs to mutual funds, covering over 20,000+ markets. The broker places itself as a one-stop shop covering different investment accounts, from its standard accounts for growth and speculation to traditional retirement accounts like the Roth IRA. It allows you to consolidate all your investments into one broker.

We found TD Ameritrade to be competitive for forex trading, with spreads starting at one pip on EUR/USD with no commissions. You can leverage your forex positions at 1:50 on major pairs, but if you want more volatility through the exotic pairs, you will have a 1:20 leverage.

TD Ameritrade offers the Thinkorswim trading app, which is versatile, considering it covers such a wide range of markets. We focused on executing trades on forex and found the app to have over 400+ indicators, one of the largest we’ve seen on a mobile app—which is great if you analyze the markets on the go.

These indicators included candlestick patterns highlighting each pattern on a chart, such as hammers, dojis, and engulfing bars. This is excellent if you use price action to analyze the markets. The indicators were easy to set up. You can simply tap on the chart, and the option to add them to the current chart appears.

We appreciate MetaTrader 5’s extensive arsenal of technical indicators and analytical objects. With over 38 technical indicators, including trend-based and oscillation/momentum-based tools like Fractal Adaptive Moving Averages and Ichimoku Kinko Hyo, you have a comprehensive suite to dissect price action. The 44+ analytical objects further augment your market analysis capabilities. In our tests, we found this robust toolkit invaluable for identifying potential trade setups and refining entry/exit strategies.

The Depth of Market (DOM) tool in MetaTrader 5 caught our attention. It can give you raw information on the current order flow and valuable knowledge if you are a scalper. Its real-time insights into market liquidity and order book dynamics enable swifter execution and more informed trading decisions.

By leveraging DOM’s order flow analysis, you can better gauge market sentiment, anticipate potential price movements, and fine-tune your entry/exit points for optimal risk management. In our opinion, this feature sets MT5 apart for traders seeking a competitive edge.

Trading.com’s spreads impressed us with their competitive pricing during our live testing. We observed an average one-pip spread on EUR/USD, undercutting the industry average of 1.24 pips.

Furthermore, when we compiled the spreads from the top 5 major pairs, Trading.com averaged 1.30 pips – once again, lower than the industry standard of 1.55 pips. These tight spreads can translate into substantial cost savings over time, especially for active traders executing high trade volumes

We recommend eToro for its unique range of trading products and commitment to social and copy trading. If you’re interested in trading Bitcoin or altcoins, eToro offers the most comprehensive selection of any US broker.

It also provides a straightforward, low-stress entry point to day trading for those not yet ready for advanced charting and technical analysis. The CopyTrader feature, for example, allows account holders to mirror vetted professional investors, while SmartPortfolios distribute your trading budget across ‘baskets’ of complementary products.

eToro is a popular broker in the US after it simplified the process of capitalizing on higher-risk assets like forex and crypto markets through its CopyTrader platform. The broker has an extensive market range, covering 3,000+ traditional markets like forex and stocks, but now includes 41 crypto markets, which is excellent if you want to test the water of the crypto markets with a trusted broker.

The CopyTrader platform allows you to mirror the positions of experienced traders, which is useful if you are a beginner or do not have the time to trade manually. By leveraging the expertise of successful traders, you can gain exposure to markets like Bitcoin and potentially profit from it without learning how to trade.

During our tests, we found eToro’s CopyTrader platform easy to set up, and accessing other traders was made simple through the filter tool. This allowed us to fine-tune the copy trader selection process by filtering traders who meet our specific trading criteria. This allowed us to narrow down over 30,000,000 options to just four, giving us an easier list of traders to validate.

Another feature we appreciated was the ability to choose traders based on their market specialization. We were able to find traders who specialize in cryptocurrencies and diversify our portfolio by allocating capital across the top three performers in this market. This approach allowed us to explore the crypto markets and mitigate the risk of copying a single trader.