FXTM, also trading as ForexTime, is a CFD and forex broker founded in 2011 and owned by the Exinity Group. We opened a live Advantage account with $500, placed more than 60 trades across major pairs, gold and oil, ran two withdrawals end to end and tested support on three channels. The trading conditions were genuinely competitive and both withdrawals cleared without friction. The regulatory picture, however, has deteriorated materially since we first published — the most important thing to understand before funding an account.
Disclosure: this review is independent and was not commissioned or paid for by FXTM, and the broker had no sight of it before publication. We do earn revenue from some broker relationships, and we explain how that works and how it is kept away from our scoring in how we make money.
| Overall rating | 7.1/10 |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 |
| Headquarters | Limassol, Cyprus (group operations) |
| Main licences | FSC Mauritius (Investment Dealer C113012295); FSCA South Africa (FSP 50320); CMA Kenya; UAE SCA Category 5. The UK FCA licence (FRN 777911) is being surrendered. |
| Minimum deposit | $200 |
| Spread from | 0.0 pips (Advantage account, plus commission) |
| Maximum leverage | Up to 1:3000 on the Mauritius entity |
| Instruments | 700+ |
| Swap-free accounts | Available on all account types, by request |
| Retail loss rate | Not verified at the time of publication; 88% was disclosed when we tested in early 2026 |
Pros and cons
After a month of testing across January and February 2026, plus re-verification of the regulatory position in July 2026, FXTM reads as a broker with strong execution economics sitting on a weakening compliance base. That gap drives everything below.
What works
- Low all-in cost on Advantage: EUR/USD ran 0.0 to 0.2 pips during active hours, and the $4 round-turn commission undercuts the $7 IC Markets and Exness charge on raw-spread accounts.
- Both withdrawals cleared cleanly: a $200 Skrill request on 15 February 2026 landed in one business day, a $150 bank transfer in four. No document-chasing, no retention calls, no unexplained holds.
- More than 90% of our 60-plus orders filled in under one second, with zero requotes.
- Gold is a standout: XAU/USD sat at or near 0.0 pips far more often than we expected at this tier.
- Research and education are real, not decorative: two to three analysis pieces daily, weekly video, monthly outlooks and live webinars.
- Negative balance protection and segregated client money at tier-one banks, backed by Lloyd’s insurance up to $1m above a $20,000 threshold.
What does not
- FXTM is giving up its UK FCA licence. With the CySEC exit completed in 2024, this leaves retail clients with no tier-one regulator and no statutory compensation scheme anywhere in the group.
- Advantage Plus is poor value: advertised from 1.5 pips on EUR/USD, measured at roughly 1.9, against an industry norm nearer 1.2.
- Maximum leverage has risen to 1:3000 — a hazard, not a feature, and it sits on the entity most retail clients are onboarded to.
- A $5 monthly inactivity fee after six months without a trade, and 3% on card withdrawals of $30 or less.
- No proprietary desktop platform: MetaTrader 4 and 5 or nothing, with the cut-down MetaQuotes WebTrader for browser use.
- No weekend support, and technical questions visibly stretched the first-line agents we spoke to.
Company information
ForexTime was founded in 2011 by Andrey Dashin, already known in the sector as the founder of Alpari, and now sits inside the Exinity Group. We re-confirmed ownership in July 2026 and found no change: Exinity remains privately held by its founder, with no acquisition, merger or stake sale on record. The 4 million client figure it advertises is unaudited, so treat it as marketing rather than fact.
The more useful signal is the direction of travel. Exinity has spent several years withdrawing from heavily regulated Western markets and concentrating on Africa, Asia and the Gulf: it exited CySEC regulation in 2024, secured a UAE SCA Category 5 licence in July 2025, and in April 2026 announced it would give up its UK FCA authorisation. Management frames this as strategic realignment rather than a response to enforcement pressure, and we found no regulatory action contradicting that.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Legal entities | Exinity Limited (Mauritius, global); Exinity UK Ltd (UK, licence being surrendered) |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder | Andrey Dashin |
| Parent group | Exinity Group |
| Stated client base | 4 million+ (broker’s own figure, unaudited) |
| Countries served | 180+ |
| Offices | Cyprus, London, Dubai, Hong Kong, Nairobi, Johannesburg |
Who this broker suits (and who it does not)
FXTM fits active traders who care primarily about cost per trade and are clear-eyed about what offshore regulation does and does not give them. If you run frequent intraday positions on majors or gold, Advantage’s near-zero spreads plus $4 round-turn commission are hard to beat at this tier. It also rewards traders who will actually use the research and live webinar programme.
It does not suit anyone whose first requirement is regulatory protection. With the FCA licence going and CySEC already gone, retail clients have no access to a statutory compensation scheme, and competitive pricing does not change that calculation. HFM offers a comparable MetaTrader-based product with an FCA entity that still onboards retail clients. It is also a poor match for traders needing wide market coverage, anyone wanting a modern proprietary platform rather than MetaTrader, and inexperienced traders drawn to the 1:3000 leverage headline, which can erase an account in a single adverse move.
Licensing and regulation
This section has changed substantially since our original testing, and it is why the overall score moved down. When we tested in early 2026, FXTM’s strongest asset was an active UK FCA authorisation held by Exinity UK Limited under firm reference number 777911, bringing Financial Services Compensation Scheme cover up to £85,000 for eligible clients. We verified it on the FCA register at the time and it was active.
In April 2026, FXTM announced it was giving up that licence, describing the UK retail market as no longer a core growth area and pointing to an expanded UAE presence instead. Re-checking in July 2026, FXTM’s own licensing page no longer lists Exinity UK Limited or the FCA. We could not confirm the final register status of FRN 777911 at publication, so we are not stating the entry has been formally cancelled. What is confirmed is that the broker has publicly committed to withdrawing and has stopped presenting the UK licence as a client-facing protection. Anyone relying on FCA cover should check the FCA Financial Services Register before depositing.
The Cyprus exit is complete: Forextime Ltd renounced CIF authorisation 185/12 effective 31 December 2023, and CySEC formally withdrew it on 20 May 2024. FXTM has not been licensed to serve EU retail clients since.
What remains is a set of active licences in emerging and offshore jurisdictions, listed below. The principal one, and the entity most clients are onboarded to, is Exinity Limited under an FSC Mauritius Investment Dealer licence. The South African position has also changed: FSP 46614, which we recorded originally, belonged to ForexTime Ltd, the Cyprus entity that has since exited; the current authorisation is FSP 50320. The UAE licence is easy to misread — Category 5 permits promotion and client introduction, not local brokerage, so clients introduced under it are still onboarded to Mauritius.
On warnings: we found no enforcement action or regulator warning against FXTM or Exinity. Two FCA warnings do surface in searches for the name, against “FXTM Investment Option Ltd” and “FXTM GLOBAL EXCHANGE”, but neither concerns this broker — they are unauthorised firms trading on the name from unrelated addresses in Chicago, Carlisle and New York.
| Regulator | Licence | Entity | Status (July 2026) | Client protection |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FSC Mauritius | C113012295 | Exinity Limited | Active | Lloyd’s insurance to $1m above $20k |
| FSCA (South Africa) | FSP 50320 | Exinity Limited | Active | Moderate |
| CMA (Kenya) | — | Exinity Capital East Africa Ltd | Active | Limited |
| SCA (UAE) | Category 5 | Exinity (UAE) | Active, upgrade sought | Introduction only, not brokerage |
| FCA (UK) | 777911 | Exinity UK Limited | Being surrendered; not verified at publication | FSCS cover withdrawing |
| CySEC (Cyprus) | 185/12 | Forextime Ltd | Withdrawn 20 May 2024 | None |
Opening an account and verification
When we opened our account in January 2026, registration took under 10 minutes: name, email, phone, country and password, then account type, then an appropriateness questionnaire on trading experience, financial position and risk tolerance. That questionnaire is a regulatory requirement, not a formality, and answering it honestly is in your interest.
We uploaded a passport scan and a recent utility bill; FXTM approved both in under 24 hours, though some applicants report up to three business days depending on document quality. Accepted ID is a passport, national ID card or driving licence; for address, utility bills, bank statements or a tenancy agreement no more than three months old. The process is entirely online.
One thing to know in advance: swap-free status is not a checkbox at signup. You open the account first, then contact support to convert it. Our request was approved within one business day.
Account types
FXTM has consolidated six account types into three. The old Standard, Cent, Shares, ECN, ECN Zero and ECN Pro structure is gone, and with it the $10 Cent account that once gave very small accounts a way in. Everything now starts at $200.
Advantage is the one we tested and the one that justifies the broker on cost. Note that the published commission schedule is volume-tiered, so the rate varies with account equity and volume; the $4 below is what we paid at our tested volume, not a universal figure.
Advantage Plus removes the commission and widens the spread. We measured EUR/USD closer to 1.9 pips during normal hours against the advertised 1.5. Versus a sector average near 1.2 that is expensive, and commission-free simplicity does not compensate. We would steer most traders away from it.
Advantage Stocks covers real US equities rather than CFDs, giving access to more than 500 shares.
You cannot convert between account types; moving from Advantage Plus to Advantage means opening a second account, though holding several at once is permitted.
Swap-free accounts
FXTM offers swap-free status on both Advantage and Advantage Plus, with overnight interest neither charged nor credited. This matters to traders observing Islamic finance principles, but also to anyone holding through wide interest-rate differentials, where swap charges can quietly become the largest line in a trade’s cost.
The mechanism is a grace period followed by an administration fee. Major forex pairs get seven days free; after that a flat fee, structured as a fee rather than interest, applies to positions still open, ranging when we checked from $1.50 to $20 per standard lot per day depending on instrument.
That seven-day window beats competitors who charge from day one, but post-grace fees on exotic pairs and metals are steep enough to make long-horizon positions costly. Coverage extends across forex, metals, commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies, with grace periods and fees varying by instrument. Read the contract specifications for what you actually trade before assuming swap-free is cheaper for your strategy.
| Feature | Advantage | Advantage Plus | Advantage Stocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spread from | 0.0 pips | 1.5 pips | — |
| Commission | $4 per lot round turn (volume-tiered) | None | From $0.01 per share, $1 minimum |
| Minimum deposit | $200 | $200 | $200 |
| Maximum leverage | Up to 1:3000 | Up to 1:3000 | 1:1 (real shares) |
| Platforms | MT4, MT5 | MT4, MT5 | MT5 |
| Swap-free option | Available | Available | Available |
| Minimum trade size | 0.01 lot | 0.01 lot | 1 share |
Fees and trading costs
We analysed FXTM’s costs through February 2026 against XM, Exness and IC Markets. The verdict splits cleanly: Advantage is one of the better-priced accounts in its class, Advantage Plus is not.
Spreads
Sampling EUR/USD across the day, we found Advantage spreads genuinely at or near zero during London and New York liquidity; adding the $4 round-turn commission puts all-in cost at roughly 0.4 pips. Spreads widened in thin conditions, particularly the Asian session and around scheduled data: during one US employment release EUR/USD widened past 3 pips for a few seconds before normalising. That is standard industry behaviour, but worth knowing if your strategy places orders into news. The table shows February 2026 sampling, excluding commission.
| Instrument | FXTM (Advantage) | XM (Ultra Low) | Exness (Raw Spread) | IC Markets (Raw) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EUR/USD | 0.0 – 0.2 | 0.6 – 0.8 | 0.0 – 0.1 | 0.0 – 0.1 |
| GBP/USD | 0.2 – 0.6 | 0.6 – 1.0 | 0.1 – 0.4 | 0.1 – 0.3 |
| USD/JPY | 0.0 – 0.3 | 0.6 – 0.8 | 0.0 – 0.2 | 0.0 – 0.2 |
| AUD/USD | 0.2 – 0.5 | 0.6 – 0.9 | 0.2 – 0.4 | 0.1 – 0.3 |
| USD/CHF | 0.3 – 0.7 | 0.8 – 1.2 | 0.2 – 0.5 | 0.2 – 0.5 |
| Gold (XAU/USD) | 0.0 – 0.5 | 0.1 – 0.3 | 0.5 – 1.5 | 0.1 – 0.5 |
| Oil (WTI) | 0.03 – 0.05 | 0.03 – 0.04 | 0.03 – 0.06 | 0.02 – 0.04 |
Round-turn commission per standard lot: FXTM $4, XM $0 on Ultra Low, Exness $7 on Raw Spread, IC Markets $7 on Raw. Spread alone is a misleading comparison; the commission has to be added to get real cost.
Overnight and account fees
Swap rates float with interbank differentials. In February 2026, a one standard lot long EUR/USD position carried roughly -$6.50 per night while the short side paid approximately +$2.30, with Wednesday triple swap covering the weekend. These move constantly, so check current contract specifications rather than relying on ours.
Deposits are free in most cases, as are e-wallet and crypto withdrawals, though network fees apply. Card withdrawals of $30 or less attract a 3% fee. An inactivity fee of $5 per month starts after six months without a trade, with two sensible carve-outs: nothing accrues on a zero balance, and dormant accounts are not charged if you hold at least one active account.
Desktop platforms
FXTM runs MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 and nothing else, which puts it behind brokers who have invested in their own software.
The MT4 build is standard MetaQuotes with six add-ons for extra indicators. It was stable throughout testing and supports Expert Advisors. MT5 is the stronger option: better depth of market, 21 timeframes against MT4’s nine, an integrated economic calendar and a multi-currency strategy tester, and it handled multiple open charts without degradation.
The gap is browser trading. With no proprietary web platform, traders who prefer not to install software fall back to MetaTrader WebTrader, a stripped-down build with limited analysis tooling. Exness and others have put more work in here.
Mobile apps
We tested the FXTM Trader app on Android through February 2026 alongside the official MT4 and MT5 apps. It sets up easily, supports biometric login, and presents a clean interface suiting anyone who finds MetaTrader’s mobile layout dense. On Google Play it held 3.9 out of 5 across more than 5,000 reviews; its App Store rating was 5.0, but from only four reviews, which is not statistically meaningful either way.
Over two weeks, price updates were prompt, order placement smooth and push notifications for fills and price alerts reliable. The limitation is analysis: FXTM Trader’s charting is considerably thinner than MT4 or MT5 on mobile. If technical analysis drives your decisions, use the MT5 app and keep FXTM Trader for account management.
Trading tools
FXTM offers more than 700 instruments, mid-to-upper range among comparable brokers but well behind the broadest offerings. Equities are the strength, combining share CFDs with real US shares through Advantage Stocks. Forex is the weak spot: 47 pairs is sufficient for most strategies but thin against IC Markets and Exness.
Notable absences: no ETFs and no bonds as separately tradable instruments — a meaningful gap for a broker positioning partly around long-term investing in real shares.
| Category | FXTM | XM | Exness | IC Markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forex pairs | 47 | 55+ | 95+ | 61 |
| Share CFDs | 600+ | 1,300+ | 100+ | 2,000+ |
| Indices | 18 | 29 | 10 | 25 |
| Commodities | 13 | 15 | 8 | 22 |
| Cryptocurrencies | 17 | 30+ | 35+ | 20+ |
| Total | 700+ | 1,400+ | 250+ | 2,100+ |
Order execution
We placed more than 60 trades on the live account to assess execution. FXTM runs a No Dealing Desk model, routing orders without dealer intervention, which structurally reduces requote risk.
More than 90% of orders filled in under one second, and we recorded no requotes at all across the test period. Slippage appeared on roughly 15% of trades, almost all under one pip, widening to 2 to 3 pips on some fills around significant economic releases — normal market behaviour rather than a broker-specific problem.
Order types cover market, limit, stop, trailing stop and OCO. Advantage Plus imposes no minimum distance for stop-loss or take-profit levels, allowing tighter risk placement. This is solid execution, competitive with the better brokers we have tested.
Deposits
We funded the account with $500 by Visa; it took under a minute and the balance appeared immediately. FXTM lists more than 15 deposit methods. Cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro) are instant and free from FXTM’s side in USD, EUR or GBP, as are e-wallets covering Skrill, Neteller and Perfect Money. Bank transfers take three to five business days; FXTM charges nothing, but your bank may. Crypto carries no FXTM fee beyond network costs. Local transfer options exist in some countries.
FXTM enforces same-method return strictly: deposit by Visa and the original amount returns to that card, with anything above it withdrawable by another route. Standard anti-money-laundering practice, but it catches people out, so plan your funding method with your intended withdrawal method in mind.
Withdrawals
Withdrawals were the strongest part of our test. We requested $200 via Skrill on 15 February 2026 and the funds arrived in one business day; a second request of $150 by bank transfer took four. Neither triggered additional document requests, retention calls or unexplained delays, which is not something we can say about every broker we assess.
| Method | Processing time | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| E-wallets (Skrill, Neteller) | 1 business day | Free |
| Cards (Visa, Mastercard) | 3 to 10 business days | 3% on amounts of $30 or less |
| Bank transfer | 3 to 5 business days | Free (receiving bank fees may apply) |
| Cryptocurrency | 1 business day | Free (network fees apply) |
One caveat we will not paper over: some third-party reviews report friction on larger withdrawals or with positions still open. Our tests were modest, on a fully verified account with no open trades — the smoothest possible case. Complete verification and close positions before requesting a full balance withdrawal.
Customer support
We tested support across three channels in February 2026; FXTM serves more than 19 languages. Live chat, tested four times across different days and hours, averaged about a three-minute wait. Answers on account types and funding were good; technical questions were weaker, with one query on variable leverage taking around 10 minutes as the agent went away to verify. Email replies came in 6 and 14 hours, both detailed and professional.
Support runs 24 hours a day, five days a week, Sunday through Friday, with no weekend coverage. For a broker offering cryptocurrency trading, which does not stop at the weekend, that is a genuine gap. Response times are reasonable but not sector-leading; XM answers live chat close to instantly in our experience.
Research and education
Research and education are where FXTM clearly outperforms its price tier. The analysis desk publishes two to three pieces daily on macroeconomic and geopolitical drivers alongside technical work, supported by weekly video and monthly outlook reports.
The education library spans ebooks, tutorials, video courses, live webinars and in-person seminars, structured from beginner through advanced. The webinars are genuinely live with participant Q&A rather than recorded playback, which is less common than brokers’ marketing suggests. Research tools include an economic calendar, sentiment indicator and real-time news; useful, but most competitors offer equivalents.
One transparency concern belongs here. FXTM Invest, the copy-trading service, displays strategy manager performance with data the company describes as verified. When we reviewed the top 75 listed managers, every one showed positive returns. A ranking that surfaces only winners is a presentation choice, not a description of the population, and can leave newer users with a distorted impression of how copy trading typically goes. Past performance does not indicate future results.
Fund safety and protections
FXTM applies several protective layers, but their strength depends on which entity holds your account, and that picture has narrowed since our original review. Client money is held segregated from operating funds at tier-one banks. Negative balance protection applies across all accounts; we held a position through a volatile session specifically to confirm the account could not go below zero, and it did not.
Compensation schemes are where the change bites. UK entity clients had FSCS cover up to £85,000; with the FCA licence being surrendered that is going, and the practical position for essentially all retail clients is the Mauritius entity, which carries no statutory scheme. FXTM offsets this with private Lloyd’s insurance up to $1m above a $20,000 threshold. That is real protection, but it is not a government-backed guarantee: it depends on policy terms, insurer solvency and claim conditions rather than statute.
As an FSC and FSCA licensee, FXTM remains subject to annual independent audit and capital adequacy requirements. Verify which entity your account sits under before depositing, and size your exposure to what that entity’s protections actually cover. With no statutory scheme behind the Mauritius book, segregation and private insurance are the whole of the fund safety case here.
Verdict
FXTM scores 7.1 out of 10, down from our original assessment, and the reason is confined almost entirely to one category. That places it below most of the tier-one-regulated names in our broker reviews.
We score six weighted categories, described in full in how we rate brokers. Costs, withdrawals, platforms and execution, support and research all scored broadly as they did originally. Regulation and licensing, weighted at 25%, is what moved. A broker whose retail clients had FCA supervision and FSCS cover is not the same proposition as one whose clients sit behind an offshore licence with private insurance in place of a statutory scheme. That change alone pulls the weighted total down by roughly seven tenths of a point.
If you do open an account, Advantage is the one worth having; Advantage Plus is not competitively priced.
A plain statement of risk: CFDs and leveraged forex are high-risk products, and most retail accounts lose money trading them. When we tested in early 2026 FXTM disclosed that 88% of its retail investor accounts lost money; that figure is absent from the entity pages we checked at publication, so we cannot confirm it as current. Leverage up to 1:3000 can exhaust a balance on a small adverse move. Nothing here is investment advice or a prediction of returns, and no broker choice makes a losing strategy profitable. Do not trade with money you cannot afford to lose.
Is FXTM trustworthy?
Is FXTM a scam?
No. FXTM has operated since 2011, holds active licences we verified with the FSC of Mauritius and the FSCA in South Africa, and is subject to audit and capital adequacy requirements. We completed two withdrawals without obstruction and found no enforcement action or regulator warning against the broker. The legitimate criticism is not fraud but a steadily weakening regulatory perimeter as the group exits Western jurisdictions.
Why do FCA warnings mention FXTM?
Because unauthorised firms use the name. The FCA has warned against “FXTM Investment Option Ltd” and “FXTM GLOBAL EXCHANGE”, operating from addresses in Chicago, Carlisle and New York. Neither is connected to this broker. Confirm you are on the genuine domain and check any firm on the regulator’s register before depositing.
What happened to FXTM’s FCA and CySEC licences?
Both are going or gone. CySEC withdrew CIF licence 185/12 on 20 May 2024 after Forextime Ltd renounced it. In April 2026 FXTM announced it would give up its UK FCA licence. The company attributes both to a shift toward emerging markets rather than regulatory pressure, and we found nothing to contradict that, but the consequence for clients is the same regardless of motive: less recourse.
Can I actually get my money out?
In our testing, yes: two withdrawals, one by e-wallet and one by bank transfer, both completed without complications, extra document requests or retention pressure. Some third-party reports describe friction on larger amounts or with open positions, so complete verification and close positions before requesting a full withdrawal.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum deposit at FXTM?
$200, or equivalent in euros or pounds, across all three account types. Lower-entry options such as the old $10 Cent account were removed when FXTM consolidated its account structure.
Does FXTM offer swap-free accounts?
Yes, on all account types, activated by contacting support after opening. Major forex pairs carry a seven-day grace period, after which an administration fee of $1.50 to $20 per lot per day applies depending on instrument. Check contract specifications before holding long-term positions.
How long do FXTM withdrawals take?
When we tested in February 2026, e-wallet withdrawals cleared in one business day and bank transfer took four. FXTM quotes 3 to 10 business days for cards and 3 to 5 for bank transfers. Crypto is typically one business day.
What is the difference between Advantage and Advantage Plus?
Cost structure. Advantage has spreads from 0.0 pips plus a $4 round-turn commission per standard lot. Advantage Plus is commission-free with spreads from 1.5 pips, which we measured averaging closer to 1.9. Minimum deposit, leverage, platforms and swap-free availability are identical. On measured cost, Advantage is materially better for most traders.
Is FXTM suitable for beginners?
The education and research are strong for beginners and the FXTM Trader app is easy to use, but two cautions weigh against it: leverage up to 1:3000 is dangerous for inexperienced traders, and retail clients no longer have statutory compensation cover. Beginners who proceed should use minimal leverage and treat the deposit as capital they can afford to lose entirely.
Which entity will my FXTM account be under?
For most clients worldwide, Exinity Limited, regulated by the FSC of Mauritius under Investment Dealer licence C113012295. It has no statutory compensation scheme, relying on private Lloyd’s insurance up to $1m above a $20,000 threshold. Confirm your entity in your account documentation before depositing.
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