Forex Broker Comparison Chart: What to Compare and Verify

A forex broker comparison chart is only as good as its columns and its sources. Ready-made rankings rarely explain how they scored brokers, and broker conditions change. This guide gives you the columns that matter, shows how to put costs on one common unit, and lists the official registers and rules we checked on 17 October 2026 so you can verify each entry yourself. We do not rank or recommend individual brokers.

What a forex broker comparison chart should contain

Start from the questions your own trading raises. A useful chart has one row per legal entity rather than per brand, because a brand may operate through more than one company, and these columns:

• legal entity, regulator and licence or register number;
• client protections that apply to your account type;
• all-in cost per lot on the pairs you trade, plus swap;
• execution model, order types, margin call and stop-out levels;
• platforms (MT4, MT5, cTrader or others) and whether automated trading is allowed;
• deposit and withdrawal methods, fees and processing times;
• account currency and conversion costs.

Regulation: check the licence, not the logo

Look up the exact entity that will hold your money in the regulator's own register, not on the broker's website:

• United Kingdom. The FCA Financial Services Register is a public record of firms and individuals that are, or have been, authorised by the FCA or the PRA. The FCA also lists unauthorised firms and clones of genuine firms, and publishes a Warning List.
• United States. NFA BASIC is a free tool for researching the background of derivatives industry firms and professionals, searchable by firm, NFA ID, individual or pool.
• European Union. ESMA's 2018 measures for retail CFD clients set leverage limits of 30:1 on major currency pairs; 20:1 on non-major pairs, gold and major indices; 10:1 on other commodities and non-major equity indices; 5:1 on individual equities; and 2:1 on cryptocurrencies. They also require margin close-out at 50% of the required margin, negative balance protection per account and a risk warning with the provider's percentage of losing retail accounts (ESMA). National regulators then adopted their own measures; the Dutch AFM, for example, applied the same restrictions for an indefinite period from 19 April 2019 (AFM decision).

Put the losing-accounts percentage from each broker's risk warning in your chart. When ESMA announced the measures it cited national analyses showing that 74 to 89% of retail CFD accounts typically lose money. If a broker offers leverage or protections that differ from the rules where you live, find out which entity you are dealing with and why.

Trading costs on one common unit

Brokers quote costs in different ways: spread only, raw spread plus commission, or commission per side. Convert everything to dollars per standard lot, round turn, on the pairs you trade. On EURUSD, one pip on a standard lot of 100,000 units is 100,000 × 0.0001 = $10.

Fictional example. Account A has an average spread of 0.2 pips plus $7 commission per lot round turn: 0.2 × $10 + $7 = $9 per lot. Account B has an average spread of 1.0 pip and no commission: 1.0 × $10 = $10 per lot. At 100 lots a month that is $900 against $1,000. Then add swap for positions held overnight, and measure slippage on your own fills, which can outweigh the difference.

Use average spreads from the hours you actually trade, not the minimum spread in an advert. How to measure fills is covered in measuring slippage and execution.

Execution, platforms and EA requirements

• Platform and automation. MetaTrader 5, for example, includes an Expert Advisor development environment using MQL5 and a Strategy Tester with optimisation, and MetaQuotes offers a VPS service for running robots around the clock (MetaTrader 5 automated trading). Confirm that the broker's server allows EAs and the order types your EA sends.
• Symbol specification. Contract size, digits, minimum stop distance, swap and trading hours can differ between brokers for the same pair.
• Margin and stop-out. Record margin call and stop-out levels for each account type; for EU retail CFD accounts the rules require close-out at 50% of the required margin.
• Latency. If your EA trades short timeframes, measure the round trip from your terminal or VPS to the broker's server instead of relying on marketing claims.

Costs and position sizing for automated strategies are worked through in automated forex trading.

If you also trade a prop firm account

On a prop firm account, the firm decides the trading server and the conditions, so your broker chart does not apply there. What carries over is the method: read the firm's symbol specifications and loss rules as carefully as a broker's terms. FTMO's 2-Step programme, for example, sets a maximum daily loss of 5% of initial capital, subtracted from the balance recorded at 00:00 CE(S)T, and measures it against equity, which includes open positions (FTMO Trading Objectives). Spreads and commissions on that account therefore eat into a fixed loss budget. Our prop firm cost ledger shows how to track them.

Build and score your own chart

Treat regulation and protections as pass or fail: a broker that fails either one is not scored. Score the other criteria from 1 to 5, multiply by the weight and add up. Fictional example: scores of 4, 3, 5 and 4 give 4 × 0.30 + 3 × 0.25 + 5 × 0.25 + 4 × 0.20 = 1.20 + 0.75 + 1.25 + 0.80 = 4.00 out of 5. Date every entry and check again before you move money.

Where JPTradingCapital fits

JPTradingCapital builds trading software and has no broker ranking in this article. The EA Hub offers MT4 and MT5 software with setfiles that you run yourself in your own MetaTrader environment, on your own terminal or VPS, so the broker conditions in your chart apply directly to how it executes. JPTC Algo is hosted by JPTradingCapital and connected to your own MT4 or MT5 broker account; you install nothing and need no VPS. It is not offered for prop firm evaluations. Company-published monthly figures from the broker statement are on /results; they are not independently audited.