A swap-free account removes the overnight interest charge — the swap — from positions held past the daily rollover. That is the whole of what it does, and for a trader who cannot pay or receive interest, it is the single change that makes a leveraged account structurally usable at all.
What it very often does not do is make holding a position cheaper. Most brokers replace the swap with an administration fee once a position passes a grace period, and on a long-held trade that fee can cost considerably more than the swap it replaced. Across the brokers we have funded and tested, the grace period runs from two days to fourteen, the substitute charge runs from nothing at all to $100 per standard lot, and three of the highest-scoring brokers on this site offer no swap-free account under any entity.
This article compares mechanics. It does not rule on whether any account here is religiously compliant. That determination belongs to you and a qualified scholar, and it sits outside what a broker review site is competent to decide — we describe what is charged, when, and on what. Everything below is drawn from our own published broker reviews, each of which was written from a funded live account. Nothing here is investment advice, and the risk section is not decoration: most retail clients lose money trading leveraged products.
What swap-free actually removes, and what it leaves behind
On a conventional account, holding a leveraged position overnight triggers a swap calculated from the interest rate differential between the two sides of the trade. It can be a charge or a credit depending on direction, it moves when central banks move, and Wednesday is normally charged at triple rate to cover the weekend. On a swap-free account that line disappears entirely — neither charged nor credited.
Every other cost stays exactly where it was. The spread still applies. Commission still applies on raw-spread accounts. Currency conversion still applies if you fund in one currency and trade in another. Inactivity fees still apply. And on the large majority of the accounts in this article, a new charge appears that did not exist before: a fixed administration fee, applied per lot or per contract, triggered after a defined number of days.
Three things separate a well-structured swap-free account from a badly structured one, and none of them is visible on a broker’s landing page.
- The grace period. How many days a position can stay open before any substitute charge begins. Two days makes the account useful for day trading only. Fourteen days covers most swing positions.
- The substitute fee, and whether it is published. A fee you can look up before you fund is a fee you can compare. Several brokers here would not give us one in writing.
- The instrument list. Swap-free rarely covers everything. Share CFDs, cryptocurrencies and exotic pairs are the usual exclusions, and metals frequently carry a higher substitute charge than currencies.
There is a fourth condition that appears in the terms rather than the marketing: most brokers reserve the right to withdraw swap-free status where they judge it is being used to avoid financing costs rather than for its stated purpose. That clause is industry standard and usually uneventful. It has also, at one broker in this list, been the mechanism at the centre of a London court case.
Swap-free terms compared
Every figure below comes from our own testing of a funded account at that broker. Scores are out of 10 and are the overall ratings from our reviews, not swap-free-specific ratings — a broker can rate well overall and still have poor swap-free terms, and Pepperstone is the clearest example of exactly that. Grace periods and fees were the terms in force when we tested; broker fee schedules are repriced without notice, so confirm the current numbers before you fund.
| Broker | Score | How you get it | Free holding period | What replaces the swap | Instrument restrictions | Minimum deposit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XM | 8.3 | Selectable at registration | No limit | Nothing — no substitute fee | Ultra Low and Shares only; not Standard or Zero | $5 |
| Tickmill | 8.6 | On request, approved in one business day | 3 consecutive nights | Fixed daily fee per lot on some instruments | Both Classic and Raw | $100 |
| Pepperstone | 8.5 | On request; $200 balance required | 5 days | $100 per standard lot past day five | Full forex and CFD range; eligible countries only | $200 for swap-free |
| Capital.com | 8.5 | Email request; no open positions | No charge in our five-day test | No substitute charge observed | Standard account only; eligibility by country | $20 card / $50 transfer |
| Axi | 8.1 | On request, one business day | 5 calendar days | Holding fee, higher on metals | 140+ instruments; no share CFDs | $5 Standard / $500 Pro |
| HFM | 7.9 | Request conversion; one business day | Varies by instrument, unpublished | Carry charge on some instruments | All five account types | About $5 Premium / $100 Pro |
| FOREX.com | 7.9 | On request; availability by country | May apply — not published | Administrative fee — not published | Not published | $100 |
| Swissquote | 7.9 | Ask support to convert a forex account | Not documented | Administrative charges — no schedule obtained | Forex accounts | $1,000 |
| eToro | 7.8 | Request to support after a $1,000 deposit | 7 days | Daily administration fee | eToro (ME) and eToro (Seychelles) only — not UK or EU | $1,000 for swap-free |
| OANDA | 7.7 | Select when opening the account | 5 days | Fixed fee varying by instrument and direction | All three tiers; not available in every region | None on Standard |
| AvaTrade | 7.6 | On request, one business day | 5 days | Fixed administration fee | Excludes crypto and ZAR, TRY, RUB, MXN pairs | $100 |
| FxPro | 7.6 | Email request through the back office | No limit on indices, futures and shares; finite on FX and commodities | Administration fee, not published as a schedule | All three account types | $100 |
| Admirals | 7.5 | Separate application; cannot hold both | 3 days; 1 day on crypto and exotics | Fixed daily administration charge | Trade.MT5 range | $100 |
| ThinkMarkets | 7.3 | Client portal; no proof required | 6 days | $5 per lot on majors, $10 on minors, daily | All three live account types | $0 Standard |
| Plus500 | 7.2 | Requested at registration, subject to approval | Varies by instrument | Fixed administration charge | Varies by instrument | $100 |
| FXTM | 7.1 | On request after opening | 7 days | Post-grace fees, steep on exotics and metals | Advantage and Advantage Plus | $200 |
| HYCM | 7.0 | On request, one business day | 14 days | $5 per open contract per night | Forex, commodities and indices | $20 |
| FXCM | 6.9 | During or after registration; automatic in some countries | Not time-based | Spread markup from about 0.4 pips | 100+ instruments | $50 by card |
| Equiti | 6.8 | Selectable at registration | No limit while the balance is under $25,000 | Nothing under $25,000; admin fees above it | MetaTrader 5 only; majors, metals, indices | $0 Classic / $100 Standard |
| FBS | 6.5 | At sign-up or later from the client area | 2 days | Admin fee from day three; weekly commission on exotics | All five live account types | $1 Cent / $100 Standard |
| RoboForex | 6.5 | Support or client area | None stated | Fixed admin fee — schedule not published | Pro, ProCent, ECN and Prime | $10 |
| LiteFinance | 5.1 | Client cabinet; automatic in some countries | About one week | Administrative charge | All three account types | $10 Cent / $50 Classic |
| Evest | 4.2 | Single request to support | 3 days | Published schedule by instrument and size | All four tiers | $250 |
| IG · Interactive Brokers · CMC Markets | 8.7 · 8.9 · 8.4 | Not offered | — | — | No swap-free account under any entity | — |
XM: the only broker we tested with no substitute fee at all
XM scores 8.3 out of 10, and on swap-free terms specifically it is the clearest result in this article. The Ultra Low account carries no overnight swap and no administration fee in its place. There is no grace period to count down, because there is nothing waiting at the end of it. Competitors in this comparison typically levy $5 to $15 per lot after a grace period of one to seven days, and XM levies nothing.
Access is equally straightforward. Swap-free is selectable during registration with no supporting declaration and no follow-up conversation with support, where several brokers here require a separate application. Our documents were approved in roughly 18 hours. The minimum deposit is $5, which makes this the cheapest genuinely fee-free swap-free account we have found. Ultra Low prices at 0.6 pip spreads with no commission.
The catch. Swap-free is unavailable on the Standard and Zero accounts. Zero is XM’s raw-spread product at $3.50 per lot per side, and it becomes cheaper than Ultra Low on majors past roughly five lots a day — so a high-volume trader who also needs swap-free pricing has no ideal option here. You choose between the tightest cost structure and the interest-free structure; you cannot have both.
Who it suits. Traders holding positions for weeks or months, where the absence of a substitute fee compounds into a real difference, and anyone starting on a small balance. The concrete drawback: XM does not accept UK residents at all — registration redirects UK traders to a separate brand — and gold pricing sits well above specialist rivals. There is also an inactivity fee starting after only 90 days, and execution runs on a dealing desk model.
Equiti: no substitute fee below a $25,000 balance
Equiti scores 6.8 out of 10 overall, and its Swap-Free Mini account is the second structure in this article that does not simply move the cost somewhere else. On deposit balances up to $25,000 there is no overnight swap and no substitute administration fee. The threshold is measured on deposits rather than equity, so profits that push the balance past $25,000 do not trigger conversion — only further deposits do, at which point the account becomes a standard swap-free account where positions held beyond the grace period do attract admin fees.
Both the account type and the swap-free option are selectable during registration, so there is no conversion request afterwards. Our passport and utility bill were approved in four hours on a normal business day, quick against the two to three days several competitors take.
The catch. Two restrictions that are not on the account page. It runs on MetaTrader 5 only, and it covers major currencies, precious metals and indices rather than the full instrument range — no shares, no crypto CFDs, no minor pairs. The admin-fee tables that apply above the $25,000 threshold live in the terms document rather than anywhere summarised.
Who it suits. A trader whose balance genuinely sits under $25,000 and who trades majors, metals and indices on MT5. The concrete drawback, and it is a large one: the FCA and CySEC entities take professional clients and eligible counterparties only. A retail client, wherever they live, is onboarded by an offshore or regional entity with no FSCS and no Investor Compensation Fund cover. The headline licences are not the licence you get, which is why this broker scores 6.8 despite the best fee structure in its section.
Capital.com: no substitute charge appeared in our test
Capital.com scores 8.5 out of 10 and holds three tier-one licences — FCA 793714, CySEC 319/17 and ASIC AFSL 513393 — that actually cover the account a retail client opens, rather than sitting in a group entity that takes no retail business. That combination is rarer than it should be.
Swap-free here is a modification to the Standard account rather than a separate product. We requested it by email and it applied within one business day, the only precondition being no open positions at the time. We then held a long gold position for five days and saw no overnight charges of any kind. Pricing on the underlying account is genuinely low: 0.6 pips on EUR/USD with no commission, and gold at 0.30 points.
The catch. Our observation window was five days. That is long enough to prove no fee applies immediately, and not long enough to prove none applies at week three. Anyone planning multi-week holds should confirm the covered instrument list and the long-hold treatment with support in writing before relying on what we measured. Eligibility also turns on country of residence.
Who it suits. Short and medium-horizon traders who want tier-one regulation and low headline costs together. The concrete drawback: everything at Capital.com is a contract for difference. You never own the underlying share, there is no investing account to fall back on, and most retail accounts at this broker lose money.
Tickmill: the terms are published, which is rarer than it should be
Tickmill is the highest-scoring broker in this article that actually offers a swap-free account, at 8.6 out of 10. It holds FCA 717270 and CySEC 278/15, both confirmed active on the registers, and its Raw account was among the cheapest we measured anywhere: EUR/USD averaged 0.1 pips at peak hours in February 2026, about 0.7 pips all-in with the $6 round-turn commission.
Swap-free is available on both Classic and Raw. Our conversion request was approved within one business day. The important distinction from most of this list is that the administration fee schedule is published, so you can price a hold before you commit rather than after.
The catch. The grace period is three consecutive nights, which is at the short end. The charge is fixed per lot, applied at 00:00 server time, and does not vary with trade direction — meaning it applies identically whether the conventional swap would have been a debit or a credit. On a multi-week position it can quietly exceed what the swap would have cost. Tickmill also reserves the right to ask for justification before converting an account.
Who it suits. Active traders whose main cost is friction and whose holding periods are measured in days. The concrete drawback: three nights is not enough runway for a swing trader, and the terms are described in our review as acceptable but not the most generous in the sector. If you hold for weeks, price the fee against XM’s zero before choosing.
HYCM: the longest grace period we measured, and the sharpest fee after it
HYCM scores 7.0 out of 10 and offers swap-free on all three account types. Overnight interest is removed entirely, and an administration charge of $5 per open contract per night begins only once a position has been held for 14 days. We requested the conversion during testing and it was applied within one business day. The minimum deposit is $20 on every account type, among the lowest at this regulatory tier.
Fourteen days is the longest grace period in this comparison, and it covers most short and medium-term positions at no cost whatever. HYCM also runs a genuine fixed-spread account, which has become rare: through the February 2026 US employment release ours held at the advertised 1.5 pips on EUR/USD while variable spreads elsewhere stretched to between 3 and 5 pips.
The catch. At the other end of the grace period the charge is heavy and it compounds quietly. Our review works the arithmetic: a single contract held for a further month past day 14 costs $150. Coverage is forex, commodities and indices, and the instrument list varies enough that it is worth confirming with support.
Who it suits. Swing traders whose positions typically close inside two weeks, and traders who value knowing their spread before they click. The concrete drawback: the regulatory structure has shrunk. The Cyprus licence was voluntarily surrendered in June 2024 and EU clients were let go; what remains is an active FCA authorisation and a DFSA licence in Dubai, and most international clients do not sit under either. A $30 fee on a bank withdrawal below $300 is also punishing on the small accounts a $20 minimum invites.
Axi: five free days across more than 140 instruments
Axi scores 8.1 out of 10 and carries five regulated entities — FCA FRN 466201, ASIC AFSL 318232, DFSA F003742, CySEC 433/23 and FMA FSP 518226 — which is broader coverage than most brokers at its size. Swap-free is available on all three account types and was activated on our account within one business day of asking.
More than 140 instruments are eligible, covering major and minor currency pairs, precious metals, some cash indices and a handful of cryptocurrencies. Positions held under five calendar days carry no swap and no holding fee. Pro-account pricing is genuinely competitive: raw spreads sat between 0.1 and 0.3 pips on EUR/USD through our testing, putting the all-in cost near 0.65 pips with the $4.50 round-turn commission.
The catch. From the sixth day an administrative holding fee applies, and it is materially higher on metals than on major pairs — which matters, because gold is one of the instruments swap-free traders most often hold across weeks. Share CFDs are excluded entirely and still accrue swap. Axi will not let you run a standard account and a swap-free account at the same time, and it reserves the right to monitor swap-free accounts for good-faith use.
Who it suits. Traders who want breadth of eligible instruments and a strong multi-regulator structure, holding for under five days. The concrete drawback: the Pro account now requires a $500 minimum deposit where it previously required nothing, and the Standard account’s pricing is the weakest part of the offer — we measured 1.3 pips on EUR/USD against 0.8 and 1.0 at comparison brokers.
HFM: swap-free on every account type, but the carry charges are not published
HFM scores 7.9 out of 10 and offers swap-free on all five trading account types — Premium, Cent, Pro, Pro Plus and HFcopy — where several competitors restrict it to one or two. Activation is not automatic: you open a standard account, then request conversion, which took one business day in our test. Entry cost is low, at roughly $5 for Premium, Cent and Zero.
The Zero account is priced well for a swap-free trader who also cares about friction, at $3 per lot per side on currencies, undercutting Pepperstone’s Razor and XM’s Zero at $3.50 per side. Pro Plus was the standout in testing: a 0.2 pip EUR/USD spread during the London session with fills under 0.3 seconds and no commission, against a $250 entry.
The catch. HFM applies a carry charge on some instruments held open for a consecutive number of days, and the grace period varies by instrument and is not published in one consolidated table. Costing a long hold means asking support instrument by instrument, which makes the account impossible to compare against a competitor before you commit. Our review names this as a transparency gap rather than a pricing one, but the effect on a trader is the same.
Who it suits. Traders who want swap-free without being pushed onto a particular account tier, and who are willing to get the fee schedule in writing first. The concrete drawback: live chat is the weak link — on the longest of four attempts we waited 12 minutes for a first responder and two more for a handover, and detail on swap mechanics drew vaguer responses than basic questions did.
FxPro: open-ended on indices, futures and shares
FxPro scores 7.6 out of 10 and holds FCA 509956 and CySEC 078/07. Its swap-free option is available on all three account types, requested by email through the back office, and it contains one genuinely unusual provision: indices, futures and share positions are swap-free with no time limit at all. Most brokers apply a grace period across the board, so an open-ended treatment on three whole asset classes stands out.
The catch. Forex and commodities are treated conventionally and less cleanly. The grace period there is finite, and the administration fee replacing the swap is not published as a fixed schedule — you have to confirm the figure for your instruments with support. So the generous half of the offer covers the asset classes fewer swap-free traders use, and the opaque half covers currencies.
Who it suits. A position trader holding index or share CFDs for months, where the absence of any time limit is worth real money. The concrete drawback: FxPro was the widest broker on all seven instruments we benchmarked. EUR/USD ran 1.4 pips against 0.77 to 0.82 at Pepperstone and IC Markets — on ten standard lots a day that is roughly $58 to $62 in extra cost per day, before commission and regardless of whether the trades work. Gold was proportionally worse. If you open an account here, open Raw+; the minimum deposit is the same $100 and the cost difference over a year is substantial.
AvaTrade: heavy regulation, a five-day ceiling
AvaTrade scores 7.6 out of 10 and is one of the most heavily licensed retail CFD brokers available anywhere — seven regulators including the Central Bank of Ireland (C53877), ASIC (406684) and Japan’s FSA (1662). For a trader who wants a swap-free account from a firm with tier-one supervision, that is the main argument.
We requested conversion in February 2026 and it was approved within one business day of the account being verified and funded. The minimum deposit is $100 across all account types including swap-free. Spreads are fixed at 0.9 pips on EUR/USD, which is wide in calm markets and useful in violent ones: during the US employment release, variable-spread brokers in our sample widened to 3 to 5 pips while AvaTrade held near 0.9.
The catch. No swap is charged for the first five days a position is held, after which a fixed administration fee applies. AvaTrade’s own position is that this is a flat service charge unconnected to interbank rates rather than interest under another name. Whether that distinction satisfies you is a question for your own scholar or adviser — opinion among jurists is not settled, and leveraged trading itself is contested independently of any broker. Coverage excludes cryptocurrencies and pairs involving ZAR, TRY, RUB and MXN.
Who it suits. Low-to-moderate-frequency traders on short holds who want fixed costs they can calculate before entry, from a tier-one-regulated firm. The concrete drawback: execution averaged 660 milliseconds with no depth of market, which rules the broker out for scalpers entirely, and our modelling puts a high-frequency trader roughly $800 to $1,200 a month worse off here than at a raw-spread broker. UK residents cannot open an account.
OANDA: five days, then a fee that varies by direction
OANDA scores 7.7 out of 10 and holds four tier-one licences simultaneously — FCA 542574, ASIC 412981, CFTC/NFA 0325821 and CIRO in Canada — with every licence number matching the official register. Swap-free is offered on all three account tiers and, usefully, is selected when you open the account rather than requested afterwards.
Nothing is charged for the first five days. There is no minimum deposit on the Standard account, and the demo is free with no time limit, where most brokers cut demo access at 30 days.
The catch. Past the grace period, positions attract a fixed administration fee that varies by instrument and by direction. That second variable matters more than it sounds. On a conventional account a short position in a high-yielding currency can earn positive carry; on OANDA’s swap-free account that same position can attract a charge instead. Our review is explicit that past the grace period the administration fee can exceed a conventional swap, particularly on short positions. Availability is also regional rather than universal.
Who it suits. Traders who want the strongest regulatory footprint in this article combined with a genuine swap-free product, holding for under five days. The concrete drawback: the directional fee makes short-side positions structurally more expensive than they would be on a conventional account, and Core Pricing’s cost advantage only pays for its $10,000 entry above roughly 20 trades a day on majors.
Admirals: three days, one day on crypto and exotics
Admirals scores 7.5 out of 10 and holds FCA 595450, CySEC 201/13, FSCA FSP 51311 and FSA Seychelles SD073. It offers a swap-free version of Trade.MT5 that removes overnight interest and replaces it with a fixed administration charge. The charge is calculated daily between 00:00 and 00:01 EET, Monday to Friday, on positions older than three days.
Verification took one business day, at the quick end of the industry norm, and the live chat test — a deliberately technical question about how the swap-free administration charge is calculated — produced a correct and specific answer rather than a link to a help page. That is a better result than most brokers in this comparison managed on the same question.
The catch. Three days is around the market norm and shorter than XM allows on some instruments, and it drops to one day for cryptocurrencies and exotic pairs. There is a practical trap in the account structure too: a swap-free account requires a separate application after the standard account exists, and you cannot hold both. Decide before you fund rather than after. Admirals may also withdraw swap-free status where it detects the account being used to arbitrage the absence of swap charges.
Who it suits. Day traders and short swing traders who want an FCA-regulated MT5 account with FSCS cover behind it. The concrete drawback: most non-UK, non-EU clients are routed to Admirals SC Ltd in the Seychelles, where the minimum deposit is $25 and there is no statutory compensation scheme at all. The platform looks identical; the protection behind it is not.
ThinkMarkets: reasonable terms, and a clause with a court case attached
ThinkMarkets scores 7.3 out of 10 and holds licences from four tier-one regulators — FCA 629628, ASIC 424700, CySEC 215/13 and a DFSA-regulated DIFC branch. Swap-free is available on all three live account types. We requested conversion through the client portal in February 2026 and the account was switched within one business day with email confirmation. No proof of religious affiliation was asked for, so the facility is effectively open to any client who wants overnight interest removed.
The economics are published and clear. No administration charge applies for the first six days a position is open. From day seven a daily fee applies at each rollover: $5 per lot on major pairs, $10 on minors, with different rates on commodities and indices.
The catch, and it is the most material one in this article. ThinkMarkets reserves the right to revoke swap-free status and apply swap charges retrospectively where it judges the facility is being exploited, on at least 24 hours’ notice. That clause is standard across the industry. What is not standard is that it sits at the centre of the most serious dispute in this broker’s recent history. In January 2024 the London Circuit Commercial Court granted an interim mandatory injunction requiring TF Global Markets (UK) Ltd and TF Global Markets (Aust) Pty Ltd to return $4,280,818.88 to the UK segregated client money account. A client alleged the broker had debited that sum from his account and transferred it to the Australian entity. ThinkMarkets’ position was that the client had abused a swap-free account, executing more than 90% of trades through it and holding positions beyond the permitted window.
No regulator was a party, the order was interim rather than a judgment, and the case settled before trial — so there is no finding of wrongdoing against anyone. We disclose it because the mechanism involved is the same revocation clause that applies to every swap-free client here, and because the broker’s response to a perceived breach was to debit the account and move the money offshore rather than freeze it and litigate. That sequence is a fund-access risk, and it is what moved this broker’s withdrawals score below where our original review placed it.
Who it suits. Traders who want a genuinely good proprietary platform and published swap-free economics, and who will read the client agreement before funding. The concrete drawback: a $30 monthly inactivity fee among the harshest in the industry, mid-pack Standard spreads at 1.2 pips on EUR/USD, and clients outside the UK, EU, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa are onboarded through a Bermuda company holding no financial services licence anywhere.
FXTM: a seven-day window that gets expensive on exotics
FXTM scores 7.1 out of 10 and offers swap-free on both Advantage and Advantage Plus, with overnight interest neither charged nor credited. Swap-free status is not a checkbox at signup — you open the account first, then contact support to convert it, and our request was approved within one business day. Coverage extends across forex, metals, commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies.
The seven-day window beats every broker in this comparison except HYCM and matches eToro. Advantage pricing is genuinely low: EUR/USD ran 0.0 to 0.2 pips during active hours with a $4 round-turn commission, undercutting several raw-spread rivals.
The catch. Post-grace fees on exotic pairs and metals are steep enough to make long-horizon positions costly, and grace periods and fees vary by instrument rather than following one schedule. Read the contract specifications for what you actually trade before assuming swap-free is cheaper for your strategy. Avoid Advantage Plus regardless of swap-free status: it advertises from 1.5 pips on EUR/USD and we measured roughly 1.9, against an industry norm nearer 1.2.
Who it suits. Swing traders on majors and metals whose positions close inside a week, using the Advantage account. The concrete drawback, and it is serious: FXTM is surrendering its UK FCA licence (FRN 777911), and with the CySEC exit completed in 2024 that leaves retail clients with no tier-one regulator and no statutory compensation scheme anywhere in the group. Read our fund safety guide before choosing a broker whose strongest remaining licence is offshore.
Pepperstone: the best execution here, the worst swap-free arithmetic
Pepperstone scores 8.5 out of 10 and earns it on execution and pricing. Across 50 live orders the median fill landed around 30 milliseconds, and EUR/USD on the Razor account averaged 0.09 pips before commission — close to the tightest spread available in retail CFD trading. Swap-free removes overnight interest entirely, is open to residents of eligible countries, and covers the full forex and CFD range with no instrument carve-outs.
The catch is the fee. The swap-free account charges $100 per standard lot once a position passes day five. That is the steepest substitute fee we have measured anywhere, by a wide margin — the next highest in this article is $10 per lot per day on minors at ThinkMarkets, and most brokers sit in the $5 to $15 range. Swap-free also requires a $200 balance, where the standard accounts have no technical minimum.
The positive read is that five fee-free days covers intraday and short-swing trading completely. Close inside the working week and the charge never touches you. The negative read is that the moment your strategy involves holding across a weekend and into the following week, this becomes one of the most expensive swap-free accounts available.
Who it suits. Day traders and short-swing traders who need swap-free pricing and will not hold past day five. The concrete drawback: gold pricing lags cheaper rivals, and clients outside the UK, EU and Australia are onboarded under a Bahamas entity that lost its external dispute-resolution backstop in February 2026. Email support took roughly ten hours to answer a Friday evening enquiry.
FBS: the lowest entry cost and the shortest grace period
FBS scores 6.5 out of 10. Swap-free status can be enabled on every live account type — Cent, Micro, Standard, Zero Spread and ECN — either at account creation or later from the client area, and it removes overnight interest across all instruments. The Cent account opens at $1, which is the lowest entry point in this comparison.
The catch. We held a EUR/USD position on a swap-free account for five days: nothing was charged for the first two, and on day three an administrative fee appeared. Two days is the shortest grace period in this article. FBS calculates the fee as a fixed charge based on position size and full days held, and describes it as an administrative cost rather than interest. Exotic pairs carry a weekly commission instead. The practical consequence is that FBS swap-free works well for one- to two-day positions and becomes expensive for genuine long-term holds.
Who it suits. A trader learning position sizing on cent lots who wants swap-free from the first day and closes positions inside the session. The concrete drawback: the regulation score is the weakest of any broker with an individual section here. The tier-1 entities accept retail clients only from the EU and Australia; most clients are onboarded under FSC Belize with leverage to 1:3000, which is a hazard rather than a feature. The Zero Spread account also charges $20 per lot round turn, which is not in line with industry norms.
Brokers whose swap-free terms we could not price
Three brokers in our coverage offer a swap-free account and decline to publish what it costs. In each case we asked directly, in writing, and did not get a schedule. That is not evidence of a bad deal; it is evidence that you cannot compare the deal against anything else before committing money to it, which for a cost-sensitive product is close to the same problem.
FOREX.com (7.9) offers swap-free on request after opening a standard account. Support described the mechanics to us in January 2026 as: swap charges removed, an alternative administrative fee may apply on some instruments, availability depends on country of residence, and a grace period may precede those charges. None of that is published. We found no dedicated swap-free page and the administrative fees were not disclosed to us in writing, even after a direct emailed request that took eight hours to answer. The broker’s parent, StoneX, is listed and publishes audited group financials, which makes the unpublished swap-free terms an odd gap rather than a pattern.
Swissquote (7.9) will convert an existing forex account on request, with the $1,000 minimum and all instruments unchanged. Administrative charges may replace swap on long-held positions and we could not obtain a documented fee schedule or grace period. The facility is not advertised prominently, and we found no certification from a recognised Shariah board — which is a transparency gap rather than evidence of non-compliance, and a reason to get the fee terms in writing and take your own advice before converting.
RoboForex (6.5) applies swap-free to Pro, ProCent, ECN and Prime accounts on request. It replaces overnight swap with a fixed administrative fee that depends on instrument and position size rather than interbank rates, which has the genuine advantage of predictability — the cost does not move when central banks do. But we could not find a published schedule of those fees anywhere, we found no stated grace period at all, and RoboForex reserves the right to withdraw swap-free status at any time without prior notice, at which point normal swaps resume on open positions. If you plan multi-week holds on that basis, get the current fee table from support in writing first.
Where swap-free is restricted, conditional or structured differently
eToro (7.8) restricted swap-free accounts to two entities on 30 December 2025. They are now available only under eToro (ME) Ltd or eToro (Seychelles) Ltd, and UK and EU clients lost eligibility on that date — still the position in July 2026. Qualification requires a standard account, a $1,000 deposit, completed verification, then a request to support, with approval taking one to three business days. A daily administration fee replaces swap beyond a seven-day grace period. Swap-free terms do apply to copied positions, but copying delegates trade selection, not responsibility for what gets traded.
FXCM (6.9) uses a different mechanism from everyone else here. Instead of a time-triggered administration fee, it charges an administrative markup on the spread from roughly 0.4 pips, reaching the same 100-plus instruments. That inverts the usual trade-off: duration costs you nothing extra, frequency costs you every time you trade. FXCM also grants extended swap-free status automatically to accounts opened from countries with no religious basis for the request, so it is not gated by faith or residency — more open than competitors who demand proof. The account carries no independent Sharia certification. Separately, FXCM does not publish swap rates on its website at all, which is a transparency failure in its own right.
Plus500 (7.2) offers a formal swap-free account requested during registration and subject to approval, which took one business day in our test. Overnight interest is removed and replaced by a fixed administration charge on positions held beyond a grace period that varies by instrument. Spreads, currency conversion and the inactivity fee all still apply.
LiteFinance (5.1) offers swap-free across all three account types, requested through the client cabinet and applied automatically for clients in a number of countries. Two limits are not always spelled out: positions held beyond about a week can attract an administrative charge, and the broker reserves the right to withdraw the facility where it believes it is being used to avoid financing costs rather than for its intended purpose. At 5.1 out of 10 this is the second-lowest-scoring broker in our coverage, and swap-free availability does not offset that.
Evest (4.2) has, on paper, one of the more accessible structures — swap-free across all four tiers rather than gated behind a premium deposit, activated with a single request to support, with a published fee schedule varying by instrument and position size. The grace period is three days, and the charge begins on day four. We include it for completeness and not as a recommendation: 4.2 out of 10 is the lowest score in our coverage, and a well-designed product feature at a weakly regulated broker is still a weakly regulated broker.
Three high-scoring brokers offer no swap-free account at all
This is worth stating plainly, because the three brokers concerned are among the highest-rated on this site and a reader working down a general “best broker” list would reach them first.
Interactive Brokers (8.9) has no interest-free variant of any kind, and overnight financing cannot be switched off on forex or CFD positions. We confirmed it during the original testing and again before publishing. The nearest approximation is a cash account with no margin borrowing, used to buy and hold shares outright — a fully funded purchase incurs no financing — but cash balances above $10,000 can themselves accrue interest, and the approach does not extend to forex or CFDs at all.
IG (8.7) offers none either. It previously ran one for clients in Dubai; that was withdrawn and had not returned as at July 2026. This is a structural gap rather than a temporary outage. There is a partial workaround for the cost-control case only — futures carry no overnight funding because the financing cost is priced into a wider spread up front — but that does not address a requirement to avoid interest, which needs a genuine swap-free product.
CMC Markets (8.4) has no swap-free or Islamic account under any entity, account tier or request process, confirmed during testing and re-confirmed on 27 July 2026. One development is easy to overstate: its Spectre product funds long positions at 100% margin from your own capital, so those positions carry no financing cost. It is not an Islamic account, it is not certified Sharia-compliant by anyone, it is spread betting available only to UK and Irish clients, and it does not extend to CFD accounts. It removes overnight financing from one product in one jurisdiction. It does not make CMC Markets a swap-free broker.
The administration fee trap, with the arithmetic
The claim “swap-free” is doing two different jobs. For a trader avoiding interest, it describes a structural property of the account. For everyone else, it reads as a discount. It is frequently the opposite of a discount, and the arithmetic is simple enough to do before you open an account rather than after.
The break-even question is: how many nights can I hold before the substitute fee exceeds the swap it replaced? Divide the daily substitute fee by the daily swap on the instrument you trade, then add the grace period. Below that number of nights, swap-free is cheaper. Above it, swap-free is more expensive, and it keeps getting worse every night the position stays open.
Worked example one: a fourteen-day grace period is not a free hold
HYCM charges $5 per open contract per night after 14 days. Hold one contract for 44 days: the first 14 cost nothing, and the remaining 30 nights cost $150. That is on a single contract. On five lots the same hold costs $750, and the position has to move materially in your favour before you are level.
Worked example two: when the “free” account costs more than the swap
ThinkMarkets charges $10 per lot per day on minor pairs from day seven. Hold one lot of a minor for six weeks — 42 days — and 36 of those days are charged, for $360.
For scale, when we measured a conventional overnight swap on 15 February 2026, XM’s EUR/USD long side was running at $6.42 per standard lot per night. Thirty-six nights at that rate is $231. Rates differ by broker and by pair, so this is an illustration of magnitude rather than a like-for-like comparison — but it shows the shape of the problem clearly enough. On that hold, the account with no interest charge costs roughly $129 more than a conventional account would have. Our own ThinkMarkets review states the same conclusion directly: hold a minor pair for six weeks and the accumulated administration charges exceed what the swap would have cost.
Worked example three: a one-off fee that arrives on day six
Pepperstone charges $100 per standard lot once a position passes day five. A single lot closed on day six triggers that charge in full. Against a mid-market overnight swap in the order of $6 per night, six nights of conventional financing would have been in the region of $38. The swap-free account costs roughly two and a half times as much for a hold that is barely longer than a working week.
Worked example four: the model that charges frequency instead of duration
FXCM does not use a time-based fee at all. It adds an administrative markup to the spread from roughly 0.4 pips. On EUR/USD, 0.4 pips on one standard lot is about $4 per round turn. Hold one lot for three months and the total swap-free premium is that $4. Place 100 round turns in a month and it is about $400 for the month. The same structure that makes FXCM the cheapest option in this article for a long-term holder makes it among the most expensive for an active one.
Worked example five: zero
XM’s Ultra Low account charges no substitute fee at all, and Equiti’s Swap-Free Mini charges none while the deposit balance stays under $25,000. On every hold above, the cost at those two brokers is zero. That is the entire reason both appear at the top of this article despite Equiti scoring 6.8 overall — on this one dimension, nothing else we have tested matches them.
What swap-free does not mean
Removing the swap changes one line in the cost model. It changes nothing else about the product, and several of the things it does not change are the things most likely to cost a trader money.
- It does not reduce leverage or its consequences. A swap-free account at 1:1000 amplifies a loss exactly as fast as a conventional one at 1:1000. Several brokers here offer 1:1000, 1:2000 or 1:3000 under offshore entities, against 1:30 for retail clients under the FCA, CySEC and ASIC. High leverage magnifies losses as readily as gains.
- It does not change what the instrument is. A CFD remains a contract for difference: cash-settled, with no ownership of the underlying asset at any point. Removing the overnight financing charge does not convert it into an asset purchase.
- It does not make the account cheaper. On most brokers in this comparison it makes long holds more expensive, as the arithmetic above sets out.
- It does not guarantee the facility stays. ThinkMarkets, Admirals, Axi, LiteFinance and RoboForex all reserve the right to withdraw swap-free status where they judge it is being misused. RoboForex reserves that right without prior notice.
- It is not a religious ruling, and this article is not one either. We assess product mechanics. Whether a given account structure satisfies a particular religious requirement is a question for you and a qualified scholar. Several brokers here — Swissquote and FXCM explicitly among them — carry no certification from any recognised Shariah board, and AvaTrade’s own characterisation of its administration fee as a flat service charge rather than interest is a position rather than a settled matter. The permissibility of leveraged CFD trading itself is contested independently of any broker’s account structure, and it is not a question a review site can answer for you.
One thing swap-free does not change, in the other direction: it does not weaken your protections. Client money segregation, negative balance protection and any applicable compensation scheme apply identically to a swap-free account and a conventional one at the same broker under the same entity. The difference is fee structure, not safety. What does change your protections is which entity onboards you — and at Equiti, Admirals, ThinkMarkets, FBS and several others in this article, most international clients sit under an offshore entity with materially weaker cover than the headline licence suggests.
How to check a swap-free offer before you fund
Five questions, all answerable before you deposit anything, and all of which several brokers in this article failed when we asked them.
- Ask for the administration fee schedule in writing. Not a description — the schedule, by instrument. If support will not send one, you cannot price your own strategy, and that is a reason to look elsewhere rather than a formality.
- Ask what the grace period is for the specific instruments you trade. It varies within brokers, not just between them. Admirals drops from three days to one on crypto and exotics; FXTM’s varies by instrument; HFM does not publish a consolidated table at all.
- Check whether your instruments are covered. Share CFDs are excluded at Axi. Cryptocurrencies and ZAR, TRY, RUB and MXN pairs are excluded at AvaTrade. Equiti’s covers majors, metals and indices only, on MT5 only.
- Check eligibility for your country of residence. eToro’s swap-free accounts are closed to UK and EU clients. OANDA’s are not available in every region. Pepperstone and FOREX.com both gate availability by residence.
- Read the revocation clause. Find out what conduct the broker considers abuse, what notice you get, and whether charges can be applied retrospectively. The ThinkMarkets section above explains why this is not a theoretical concern.
Before any of that, check the licence. Our guide to the FCA explains what a tier-one authorisation actually gives a client, and the negative balance protection guide covers the one protection that determines whether a bad day can leave you owing money. Both matter more than the swap-free terms of any account.
Risk: what leverage does to a swap-free account
Most retail clients lose money trading leveraged products. That is not a disclaimer bolted onto the end of an article — it is the base rate, and it is published by the brokers themselves. XM’s CySEC-entity figure was 75.33% of retail accounts losing money when we verified it. HFM’s published figure sat between 70.51% and 71.64% depending on when the number was refreshed. Equiti publishes no retail loss percentage at all for the entity its retail clients actually trade under, which is its own kind of answer.
A swap-free structure does nothing to move those numbers. It removes a financing cost. It does not remove market risk, gap risk, the effect of leverage on position sizing, or the possibility that a position moves against you faster than you can close it. If anything, the absence of a daily financing charge removes one of the small frictions that discourages traders from holding losing positions too long — and on most of the brokers here, the substitute administration fee then starts charging for exactly that behaviour.
Trade only with money you can afford to lose entirely. Nothing in this article is investment advice, a recommendation to open any account, or a prediction of any outcome. Our rating method explains how the six weighted categories produce the scores quoted throughout, and how we make money sets out our commercial arrangements in full.
Frequently asked questions
Does swap-free mean the account is free to hold positions in?
No, at most brokers. Swap-free means the interest-based overnight charge is removed. Of the 23 brokers with swap-free accounts in our coverage, only two — XM on its Ultra Low account, and Equiti below a $25,000 deposit balance — charge nothing in its place. Everywhere else a fixed administration fee begins after a grace period of two to fourteen days, and on long holds that fee can exceed the swap it replaced. Spreads, commissions, currency conversion and inactivity fees all still apply regardless.
Which broker has the longest swap-free grace period?
HYCM, at 14 days, of the brokers we have tested. FXTM and eToro allow seven days, ThinkMarkets six, and Axi, Pepperstone, AvaTrade and OANDA five. Tickmill, Admirals and Evest sit at three days, and FBS at two. XM and Equiti have no grace period because they have no substitute fee to trigger, and FxPro applies no time limit at all on indices, futures and share positions — though its forex and commodity grace period is finite and unpublished.
Do I have to prove religious affiliation to get a swap-free account?
At most brokers we tested, no. ThinkMarkets asked for no proof of religious affiliation and states the facility is open to any client. FXCM grants extended swap-free status automatically to accounts opened from countries with no religious basis for the request. XM makes it selectable at registration with no supporting declaration. Tickmill is the exception in this group: it reserves the right to ask for justification before converting an account.
Can a broker take swap-free status away after granting it?
Yes, and most reserve exactly that right. ThinkMarkets can revoke it and apply swap charges retrospectively on at least 24 hours’ notice where it judges the facility is being exploited. Admirals may withdraw it where it detects the account being used to arbitrage the absence of swap charges. Axi monitors swap-free accounts for good-faith use. LiteFinance reserves the same right. RoboForex reserves it without prior notice, at which point normal swaps resume on open positions. Read the clause before you fund, and understand what conduct triggers it.
Are swap-free accounts certified as Sharia-compliant?
None of the brokers we tested produced certification from a recognised Shariah board that we could verify. FXCM and Swissquote both state or confirm that their accounts carry no independent certification. AvaTrade’s position is that its administration fee is a flat service charge unconnected to interbank rates rather than interest under another name — that is the broker’s characterisation, and opinion among jurists on such substitute fees is not settled. We assess mechanics, not compliance. Whether any of these structures meets your requirement is a question for a qualified scholar, and the permissibility of leveraged CFD trading itself is a separate question that sits before it.
Can I hold a swap-free account and a normal account at the same time?
Not everywhere. Axi does not allow a standard and a swap-free account to run simultaneously. Admirals is the same, and its swap-free account requires a separate application after the standard account already exists — so the decision needs making before you fund rather than after. XM handles it differently: switching account type later means opening a new account rather than converting an existing one. Capital.com converts in place but requires you to have no open positions at the moment of conversion.
Is swap-free available in my country?
It depends on the broker and on which entity onboards you, and this has changed recently at more than one firm. eToro restricted swap-free to its Middle East and Seychelles entities on 30 December 2025, cutting off UK and EU clients entirely — still the position in July 2026. OANDA’s is not available in every region. Pepperstone limits it to residents of eligible countries. FOREX.com’s availability depends on country of residence. LiteFinance and FXCM apply it automatically for clients in certain countries. Confirm for your own residence before opening, not after.
Are swap-free accounts less protected than standard ones?
No. At the same broker under the same entity, a swap-free account carries identical protections to a standard account — segregated client money, negative balance protection where applicable, and any compensation scheme the entity belongs to. The difference is fee structure, not safety. What genuinely changes your protection is which entity you are onboarded by, and at several brokers in this article most international clients sit under an offshore entity with no statutory compensation scheme at all.
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