In this review, I’ll outline the best MT4 brokers traders should be choosing.
When it comes to online trading platforms, MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is hard to beat.
With its powerful suite of analytical technologies and sophisticated trading tools, it’s easy to see why it’s consistently named the world’s most popular trading platform – and why it’s offered by so many CFD and forex brokers.
Here’s my view on the top-rated UK MT4 brokers.
Best Overall
Capital at risk. T&Cs apply.
1,200+ instruments
- Ultra-tight forex spreads
- CFD trading
- Spread betting
Up to £250 extra on your first investment
Capital at risk. T&Cs apply.
Established since 1974
- Compatible with MetaTrader
- Approachable customer support
- Well-regulated in multiple markets
Best for Experienced Traders
Capital at risk. T&Cs apply.
Active and Advanced Traders
- Enhanced Features
- Execution Speed
- Customer Support
My Best MT4 Brokers UK, July 2025
- Pepperstone – Best overall MT4 broker
- IG – Best value MT4 broker
- Admiral Markets – Best MT4 broker for Advanced traders
- FX Pro – Best MT4 broker for fast execution
- Tickmill – Best MT4 broker for high volume traders
Pepperstone is an online broker offering CFD trading. The brokerage is chosen by 400,000 traders globally and is regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Pepperstone was voted Broker of the Year 2022 in the TradingView Broker Awards and Best MetaTrader 4 Broker in the Good Money Guide Awards 2023.
Key features
- Excellent choice of trading platforms: Access to MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, TradingView, and cTrader
- 1,200+ financial instruments: Including forex, commodities, indices, and equity
- Offers copy trading: Through a third party system
- Extensive education and research: Pepperstone delivers specialised education, insights and powerful research tools
- No minimum deposit
Who should use Pepperstone?
Pepperstone is ideal for forex and CFD traders of all levels. It’s not an option for those looking to trade real stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), however.
Final Thoughts
Pepperstone takes the top spot on my MT4 brokers list. It combines a comprehensive trading experience with competitive fees and excellent customer service. However, if you want to use the MT4 trading platform to trade real stocks or ETFs, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Pros:
- Low trading costs
- Wide range of markets to trade on MT4
- Good selection of educational materials, including articles, videos, and webinars
Cons:
- Only forex trading and CFDs offered
- Demo account available for just 30 days
Fees:
- Ultra-tight forex spreads with spreads as low as 0 pips in the EUR/USD currency pair
- On a Standard account: Zero commissions with a spread
- On a Razor account: Raw spread with a commission
- No inactivity or trading account fees
- No withdrawal fees charged by Pepperstone (certain banks may charge an intermediary fee)
- For high-volume traders, the low spreads and commissions make Pepperstone an attractive, cost-effective option.
Products:
- Forex
- Trading CFDs on indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies (professional traders only), ETFs, currency indices
- Social trading
- Spread betting
Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75.3% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
IG is a highly trusted investment platform that is both regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and listed on the London Stock Exchange. IG is one of the largest Forex and CFD brokers in the world, with an excellent range of education materials and free CFD trading courses on the IG Academy to help you develop your understanding of the financial markets.
With IG, traders can choose to trade on over 18,000 financial markets with IG’s own platform, or alternatively MetaTrader 4 or ProRealTime, making this platform the best overall CFD stock broker in the UK.
IG were the 2020 winner for Best CFD Provider at the Online Personal Wealth Awards.
What I like about trading CFDs on IG
IG provide CFD traders with negative balance protection as well as the ability to open a position for a fraction of the cost with their competitive margin rates. Custom price alerts allow traders to react immediately to changes on either the web-based platform or from the mobile trading app.
Pros
- Free withdrawals and deposits
- Extensive range of financial markets
- Excellent customer support
- Traders can choose from three platforms
Cons
- High stock CFD fees
- High minimum first deposit
IG Fees
| Shares: | EU and UK Shares 0.10% US Shares 2 cents |
| Forex: | 0.6 minimum spread |
| Indices: | 0.1 minimum spread |
| Commodities: | 0.3 minimum spread |
| Inactivity fee: | £12 per month after 2 years of inactivity |
| ProRealTime Charts: | £30 a month |
| Currency conversion: | 0.5% |
Assets available from IG
- Forex
- Indices
- Shares
- Commodities
- Other financial markets including options, interest rates, bonds, sectors and more
Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Admiral Markets’ MT4 offering is best suited for experienced traders who prioritize advanced tools, diverse trading options, and reliable execution. Here’s a breakdown of who would benefit most:
Key Features:
- Supreme Edition Add-On: Admirals extends MT4’s functionality with the Supreme Edition, adding tools like:
- Advanced trading terminals.
- Sentiment analysis.
- Trade simulators.
- Enhanced indicators.
- News feeds and analysis from Trading Central.
- Wide Asset Range:
- Over 8,000 instruments, including forex, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs, and bond CFDs, all accessible through MT4.
- Fractional Shares: Allows trading smaller portions of stocks, making it easier for traders with smaller budgets.
- Regulation and Security: Admirals is regulated by top-tier authorities like the UK FCA and ASIC, ensuring a secure trading environment.
- Education and Support: Admirals provides webinars, market analysis, and trading calculators to support traders.
Pros
- Enhanced Features
- Execution Speed
- Excellent customer support
- Diverse Instruments
Cons
- No ISAs or Pensions
- Complex for beginners
- Inactivity Fee
Admiral Markets Fees
| Shares: | EU and UK Shares 0.10% – 0.15% US Shares USD 0.02 per share |
| Forex: | 0.3% fee |
| Indices: | 0.6 minimum spread |
| Commodities: | 0.6 minimum spread |
| Inactivity fee: | €10 per month after 2 years of inactivity |
Assets available from Admiral Markets
- Forex
- Indices
- Shares
- Commodities
- Other financial markets including options, interest rates, bonds, sectors and more
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
FxPro is a leading MT4 broker providing access to trading in forex, commodities, stocks, indices, futures, and cryptocurrencies. FxPro UK Limited has been authorised and regulated by the FCA since 2010 and now has clients in over 170 countries.
Key features
- Excellent choice of trading platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and FXPro trading platform
- 2,100+ financial instruments: Including trading CFDs on futures and cryptocurrencies, forex, shares and spot indices
- Help to learn: Free forex trading courses available for beginner and advanced users. Entry-level education for CFD trading beginners, and a demo account
- Minimum deposit: $100
- Five-star customer service:Live chat, telephone call back and 24/7 email
- Offers copy trading: Through the FXProCopyTrade service
- Speed: Average execution speed for market orders is less than 11 milliseconds
Who should use FXPro?
FxPro provides something for traders of all levels of experience. Advanced traders will appreciate the choice of excellent platforms and tools, and tight spreads. Professional money managers can use FxPro thanks to the availability of multi-account management tools in MetaTrader. And less experienced traders will appreciate the commitment to excellent customer service, the demo account that is available for 180 days, and the trading courses this MT4 broker provides.
Final Thoughts
FxPro shines on its range of platforms, fast order execution and wide choice of trading instruments. It also offers reliable and responsive customer service, making it a superb platform for those who want a first-class experience.
Pros:
- Competitive spreads
- Fast MT4 order execution
- Full support for all MT4 auto-trading features
Cons:
- Narrow product portfolio
- Inactivity fees charged
- Limited content for forex trading beginners
Fees:
- Traders using the FXPro MT4 Raw Spread account will pay a $3.50 commission per lot for opening and closing positions.
- All other MT4 and MT5 FxPro accounts are commission-free on any available instrument. The only charge is the bid/ask spread, on which FxPro applies a small mark-up.
- Spreads on forex pairs and spot metals are exceptionally small with no mark-up.
- Zero deposit and withdrawal fees.
- An inactivity fee of $15 is applied to forex and CFD traders who leave their account inactive for 6 months, plus $5 for every subsequent month.
Products:
- Trade CFDs on forex, stocks, spot indices, futures, spot metals and spot energy.
Capital at risk.
What’s my methodology?
To put this list together, I comprehensively compared a list of key factors and asked each MT4 broker the following questions:
- How does the pricing structure work and is it competitive?
- How quick and easy is it to open an account?
- What are the lead times for depositing and withdrawing money?
- What is the minimum deposit?
- What trading platforms are on offer and what are the tools and features like?
- What markets and products are available?
- What research is available to aid your decision-making?
- How responsive and knowledgeable is customer service?
- How robust is the educational offering?
- And lastly, I always check that the platform in question is fully regulated and meets minimum standards of safety.
This is a basic summary of my method. For a more detailed version of how I review the platforms, please refer to this page.
How to decide which CFD and forex broker is best for you
There are plenty of brokers offering MT4. If you are weighing up which broker to choose, here are a few factors to consider:
Trading costs
You will, of course, want to compare the relative trading costs across different trading platforms. If you are planning on making high volumes of trades, you will want to consider using a forex broker that has low trading fees. Otherwise, you could end up spending a lot of money on charges.
Some providers build trading fees and commissions on trades into the spreads, which could result in a tighter overall spread. However, some brokers list a flat fee for every trade instead of building them into the spreads.
Before opening an account with a broker, you should double-check their charges and commissions – tighter spreads could potentially result in less profit on forex trades.
Regulation
When it comes to regulation, most of the brokers listed above are regulated in the UK by the FCA.
When a broker is regulated within the UK, you can typically expect to see stricter limitations on leverage. These brokers are also audited regularly and must provide ‘negative balance protection’ to all traders, which means you can’t lose more money than there originally was in your account. This is a brilliant facet of UK-regulated brokers, as it can prevent you from getting into excessive debt.
Of course, there are brokers out there that aren’t regulated within the UK. For example, some may be offshore brokers, such as in Seychelles, Mauritius, or the British Virgin Islands.
When a broker isn’t regulated in the UK, you can typically expect to receive higher leverage on trades. Though, you should keep in mind that there will likely be fewer protections, thus making them a riskier option.
Educational materials and customer support
Some brokers provide free educational material to their users. This can be of varying quality and quantity, though, so it’s worth sampling some of the resources before selecting a platform.
You may also find that certain brokers have far more attentive and responsive customer service than others, which can be a deal breaker for some users.
Something else that may be worth keeping an eye out for is copy trading. This is a social trading feature that allows you to mimic how other more experienced and successful investors are trading. MT4 is a popular platform for social trading thanks to its large user base and many online user forums.
The MT4 trading platform can be complex and tricky to understand, especially for newer or more casual investors. So, a broker that offers educational materials and has a helpful customer support service should be something you take into consideration.
Analysis and trading tools
Some brokers offer plugins for the MT4 platform that provide pattern recognition, which could make it easier to stay on top of ever-changing markets.
Of course, analysis and trading tools aren’t essential when it comes to trading forex or CFDs, but they could go a long way in assisting you, especially if you are still a newcomer to trading.
What is MT4?
MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is an external trading platform that allows you to trade several financial instruments, such as foreign currencies (forex) or CFDs (contracts for difference).
The MT4 platform offers automated trading and advanced charting tools for the technical analysis of forex or CFD markets, which allows you to better keep track of typically complicated markets.
This is the beauty of MT4 – the platform aims to help users spot trends in currency markets.
MT4 itself doesn’t host trades though – this is where MT4 brokers come in. MT4 brokers host the MT4 platform, and all trades will be conducted by the brokers.
So, even though you’re making trades on the MT4 platform, you’re technically trading with the broker you signed up with.
Trading forex on MT4
The foreign exchange market, which is more commonly referred to as the ‘forex’ or ‘FX’, is the global marketplace that deals with exchanging currencies. You’ll need to look for forex brokers who also act as MT4 brokers if you want to make use of the automated trading and algorithmic trading that MT4 provides.
When you trade on the forex market, you will see that currencies are listed together. For example, GBP/USD, USD/EUR and USD/JPY. These are called ‘currency pairs’, and they are typically split into major currency pairs, like the examples listed above, or minor currency pairs, which are typically between two less commonly traded currencies. These minor currency pairs include GBP/CAD or GBP/JPY.
Trading on the forex market involves speculating on currencies, with the aim of selling your positions when the value, also known as the spread, has increased. This is how investors typically turn a profit when investing in forex.
Unlike the regular stock market, the forex market is open at all hours of the day, seven days a week. Also, since there isn’t a central marketplace for foreign currencies, all forex trades are conducted ‘over the counter’ (OTC) and take place electronically on computers.
Forex trading can be slightly more complicated than regular trading on the stock market and there is even some technical jargon commonly thrown around.
If you want to find forex brokers that also act as MT4 brokers, you’ll need to understand some of the jargon below:
Leverage
Leverage, like that seen in derivative trading, is also present in forex trading.
Leverage allows you to borrow money so that you can trade in forex for larger amounts of money than you have initially paid in.
You will commonly see leverage presented as a ratio – for example, 30:1, 50:1, or even 200:1.
Say, for example, you were to trade one lot of GBP/USD for £100,000. If your broker offered you a leverage of 100:1, you would be required to pay £1,000 to make the above trade. This initial investment amount is called the ‘margin’.
Of course, while leverage may allow you to make larger trades with less money, this can also work against you, as you could end up losing far more money than you initially paid in.
This is why leverage is such a double-edged sword, and why you should only use higher leverage if you’re confident that the advantage is on your side.
Still, it can be very difficult to precisely predict whether your trade is advantageous, which is why casual or beginner investors typically don’t need high leverage.
Spreads
‘Spreads’ are the difference between the bidding price and the asking price of a particular currency pair. These spreads are often measured in ‘points’, or ‘pips’, as they are sometimes referred to.
When you trade on major currency pairs, such as GBP/USD or USD/EUR, you will typically see tighter spreads. This is because they are usually traded in higher volumes.
On the flip side, minor currency pairs may have much wider spreads since they aren’t as commonly traded. This can come with its own set of issues though, like increased market volatility.
As previously mentioned, you can sometimes expect trading costs to be built into spreads. This is quite common – even some of the best forex brokers will do this.
Spreads are subject to change frequently and can sometimes be tricky to keep track of. That’s why platforms such as MT4 are ideal for forex trading – it gives you the tools to properly track spreads, so you know when the perfect time to close your position comes.
Before opening a brokerage account, you should first check the typical spreads prospective forex brokers offer on certain currency pairs. – Many brokers offer live spread updates on their websites, which could give you a rough idea of the spreads they offer.
Also consider: My guide on Forex Trading for beginners
Trading derivatives on MT4
Another popular method of trading on the MT4 platform is derivatives, though this is where things tend to get slightly more complicated.
Derivative trading is often done by either spread betting or using CFDs, and essentially involves you placing a ‘bet’ on how a currency’s value will change.
It is vital to keep in mind that spread betting and CFDs are complex instruments. In fact, more than half of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs, so you should ensure you’ve done adequate research before you decide to invest this way.
Spread betting
As mentioned, spread betting is a method of investing that involves placing a ‘bet’ on how you predict a currency’s value will move.
When you do this, you aren’t purchasing any currency whatsoever and don’t own any of the underlying assets you’re betting on. You are instead speculating on the movement.
One of the advantages of spread betting is that you can take full advantage of leverage without needing to place a trade.
While this leverage does allow you to ‘borrow’ money to meet the margin requirement to finance the bet, this does mean you could end up losing far more money than you originally put in.
This works both ways though – you could end up earning more money than you originally invested if the bet goes your way.
Read more: My Guide to Spread Betting
CFDs
‘Contracts for Difference’, or CFDs as they are more commonly known, are another way of trading derivatives.
Trading CFDs is similar to spread betting, with a few key differences.
You are still ‘betting’ on how the value of a currency pair will move when you trade CFDs, though, unlike spread betting, you will instead receive the difference in price from when you opened the position.
Also consider: My CFD Trading for beginners guide
Best MT4 Brokers UK FAQs
What is MT4?
MetaTrader 4, or MT4, is a popular trading platform that specialises in forex trading, CFDs, and spread betting.
The MT4 platform offers advanced technical analysis tools for you to use – in fact, the platform is highly customisable, so you can edit it to meet your individual needs and take the complexity out of forex or derivative trading.
MT4 also gives you the option to automate your trades, or opening and closing positions according to the information you input.
Can I use MT4 in the UK?
Please note
CFDs are complex financial instruments and more than half of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. Please make sure that you know these risks before you start trading and that you’re aware there’s a high chance of losing money rapidly on your investment.
The value of your investments (and any income from them) can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Investments should be considered over the longer term and should fit in with your overall attitude to risk and financial circumstances.
