Best MetaTrader 5 (MT5) Brokers of 2023

In today’s swiftly moving financial markets, having a quick, dependable, and secure trading platform is essential to keep pace with any market movements. The MetaTrader 5 (MT5) trading platform is among the most popular worldwide for forex trading.

There is a wide range of brokers that offer the ability to trade from the MT5 platform, but the products, services, and levels of security they provide differ significantly.

Our team of experts has been able to identify the best MT5 forex brokers using our proprietary 250-point checking system across nine core categories. I’ve summarized these findings below and will also share my personal experience trading with MT5 over the past several years.

List of Top MT5 Forex Brokers

• FP Markets – Best Overall
  Low fees. Great range of markets. Excellent trading tools for both beginners and advanced traders.
• BDSwiss – Best for Beginners
  250+ CFDs to trade on. Trading Academy. Commission-free trading accounts.
• IC Markets – Best Low Spreads
  Tight spreads. Autochartist MT5 plugin. Level II pricing through MT5 market depth.
• Swissquote – Best Trading Tools
  Copy trading and automated trading features. Autochartist and Trading Central plugins. MT Master Edition.
• Errante – Best for Account Offering
  Multiple account types for beginners and advanced. Competitive fees. MT5 web trader.
• Multibank – Best for Professional Traders
  ECN accounts for raw pricing. MAM and PAMM accounts for professionals. 80+ indicators through MT5.
• Flowbank – Best for Tradable Instruments
  4,000+ instruments in MT5. 50,000+ instruments in proprietary platform. Access MT5 rebates.
• Exness – Best for Cryptocurrency Trading
  Leveraged crypto trading on 35 coins. Zero overnight swap fees. Copy trading is available.

How did FX Empire choose the best MT5 brokers?

• We checked that each broker offers the MT5 trading platform.
• We analyzed the MT5 brokers offering such as additional plugins, third-party applications like AutoChartist, an extra indicator package, and access to social trading options.
• We ensured the broker is trustworthy by having the right licenses and being regulated by a government financial body.
• We opened a live account to test the whole process and check the broker offers low fees from the MT5 platform.
• We reviewed the number of instruments the broker provides to ensure there is a decent range of tradable instruments.
• We checked for additional features like account types, trading tools, and customer service to ensure the broker provides a comprehensive trading experience.
• We checked the broker allows the use of Expert Advisors for algorithmic trading from MT5.
• We selected brokers that achieved a high overall score from over 200-point rating check system.
• We compared each broker in relation to standard offerings in the industry to help us identify the top performers.

Our team of experts has identified each broker’s strengths and weaknesses using FX Empire’s comprehensive methodology. Here’s how we test.

Now let’s delve into the selected brokers.

How to choose the best broker with MT5 platform?

When choosing the best MT5 broker to trade with, it is important to consider the points detailed below.

Why is it important to choose a regulated MT5 forex broker?

When trading the financial markets, it is your broker who holds your funds in your account until you are ready to execute a trade which they then process for you. Therefore, it is important to choose an MT5 forex broker that is regulated by a government financial body.

Regulated brokers must adhere to strict data laws, execution rules and management of client funds. If they break these rules, they are usually fined or lose their licence to operate. Unfortunately, not all financial regulators are equal in their standards.

There are several tiers to categorise a financial regulator:

• Tier 1 financial regulators are located in more well-known financial centres and include bodies such as the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and others.
• Tier 2 regulators are located in well-known but smaller financial centres. This includes bodies such as the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the Financial Markets Authority of New Zealand (FMA) and others.
• Tier 3 regulators are typically based in offshore countries. Examples include the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC), the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) and others.
• Unregulated. These are brokers that base their company offshore where there is no requirement to have a licence to operate or to be regulated such as entities based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

A broker may operate various entities that are licensed by any one of the regulated tiers, and possibly even an unregulated entity. Therefore, it is always wise to do your due diligence and check the terms and conditions when you open a trading account to identify what – if any – protections are available to you.

For example, in the 2018 MiFiD II European market directive act brokers regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission were legally required to offer a negative balance protection policy for retail traders and to hold client funds in segregated accounts – not all regulated brokers in other tiers have to offer this.

Tier 1 regulators such as the FCA and CySEC also offer a compensation scheme in the event of the broker going bust. But not all regulators make this a legal requirement. When in doubt check with the broker and then double-check the licensing and protections on the regulator’s website.

From my own personal experience, you should try and avoid unregulated brokers as there is not much you can do if they take your funds.

What fees should you be aware of when choosing an MT5 broker?

There is a range of fees to take into consideration when trading foreign exchange from the MetaTrader 5 trading platform. Trading fees are charged for opening, closing, and holding a trade and include:

• Spreads. This is the difference between the buy price and the sell price and needs to be as low as possible so you can keep more of your profit on a trade.

In our broker rating reviews, we conduct a live spread test on a range of different asset classes by opening real trading accounts. The benchmark spread for EUR/USD should be less than 1 pip. We rate brokers according to a scale between 0 and 3 pips to ascertain who provides the best spreads.

• Commission. This is the cost of opening a trade and closing a trade and should also be as low as possible.

In our broker rating reviews, we also check the commissions between different brokers. While most brokers offer commission-free trading accounts, any commission-based account should average around $3 per 100,000 units of currency traded, per side, but of course the lower the better.

• Swaps. This is a fee charged if you hold any leveraged positions overnight as you are effectively borrowing funds from the broker to leverage your trades and control a large position with a small deposit.

In our broker rating reviews, we also check the swap rates to make sure they are around the industry average. However, the average does change as swap fees are usually based on a combination of interest rates and a broker markup.

Nowadays forex brokers offer a range of account types with different combinations.

• Accounts that offer spreads from 0.0 pips will often charge a commission to open and close a trade.
• Accounts that offer zero commission to open and close a trade will usually have a higher spread.

There are also some non-trading fees to take into consideration such as:

• Account management fees. Not a typical fee but there are few institutional brokers that will charge this.
• Inactivity fee. A more common fee is charged if you have not performed any activity on your trading account over a fixed period of time such as 12 months.
• Deposit and withdrawal fees. These are fees to deposit and withdraw funds and usually vary depending on the method used.

What is the best type of forex brokerage account for MT5?

Across the spectrum of forex brokers using the MetaTrader 5 trading platform, there will be a range of different account types offered. These are usually separated by how the trade is executed and may include:

• Dealing desk. This is where your broker takes the other side of your trade.
• STP. Straight Through Processing accounts route client orders directly to the broker’s liquidity provider.
• ECN. Electronic Communications Network accounts match client orders to prices from a wide range of liquidity providers in an anonymous network.
• DMA. Direct Market Access accounts allow clients to trade directly with interbank market participants.

Another consideration is your starting capital. Most account types will have different minimum deposits. Generally speaking, the higher the minimum deposit, the better trading terms and features you will receive.

It’s worthwhile researching all the different options available so you can identify what terms and products are best suited for you. You may also be able to open a demo trading account and actually test the products and services in a virtual environment before you open a live account.

What is the best leverage when choosing an MT5 forex broker?

Foreign exchange trading has boomed in recent years due to the effect of leverage when using CFD (contracts for difference) trading accounts. These types of accounts allow you to leverage your positions by borrowing funds from the broker to control a large position using a small deposit.

For example, if a broker offers 30:1 leverage this means you can open and control a position 30 times larger than the capital you use to open it. So, with just $1,000 in your account, you can control a $30,000 position in the market.

The amount of leverage offered to traders depends on where the broker is located and who they are regulated by and then your categorisation as a client.

Generally speaking, the tier 1 regulators will do the most to protect the interests of retail traders. In the 2018 MiFiD II European market directive act, brokers had to limit the amount of leverage offered to traders as many people were using too high leverage and wiping out their trading accounts.

• Retail trading accounts from tier 1 regulated brokers generally offer more protection than professional trading accounts including a negative balance protection policy and lower leverage (maximum 30:1 on forex).
• Professional trading accounts from tier 1 regulated brokers generally offer high leverage (sometimes up to 200:1 on forex) but without the regulatory need to offer a negative balance protection policy (but some brokers will still offer this to professionals).

While you may see adverts for 1,000:1 leverage, these will be coming from brokers that are either unregulated or based offshore with lower regulatory requirements. Trading the financial markets involves winning and losing so risk management and safety should always be the top priority.

How you can use MT5 platform?

The MetaTrader 5 trading platform can be accessed in several ways:

• Desktop version for Windows computers.
• The desktop version for a Mac computer can only be used by downloading another program to run Windows programs on Apple Mac computers.
• The Web Trader platform can be accessed from any web browser such as Chrome, Safari, etc.
• A mobile trading app for iOS and Android users.

You should decide how you are most likely going to identify and execute your trades so you can check if the broker offers the right medium to do so. Most Mac users would simply use the MT5 Web Trader or the broker’s own web platform.

However, algorithmic traders can only use the MT5 desktop version as customised indicators and algorithmic trading strategies cannot be used on the web version. Many of the brokers listed above will also offer extra plugins and tools for the MetaTrader 5 platform. These are only available on the desktop version but will provide a lot of value for more active traders.

What to look for in MetaTrader 5 platform offering?

The MetaTrader 5 platform itself is the same across the different brokers. This is because the platform is provided by a company independent of the broker called Metaquotes. There are several things to look out for when considering a broker’s MT5 offering.

Many brokers will offer additional plugins and research tools for free to upgrade your MT5 platform. These are usually provided by third parties. For example, some brokers will offer you access to the Autochartist plugin for MT5 which provides automated technical analysis ideas which may prove to be useful for you.

On top of additional tools, you also want to check the broker has its own mobile trading app for iOS users. This is because the MT5 mobile trading app has been removed from the Apple App Store. If you want mobile trading from an iOS device you either need to use the broker’s own mobile app or the MT5 web trader from a browser.

Some brokers may also offer other tools to support your MT5 trading such as a VPS where you can run algorithmic trading systems 24 hours a day. However, automated trading on MT5 is only available on the Windows desktop version so Mac users may need to use another service to run Windows applications.

Our Methodology

As a pioneer in the reviews of brokers, our rating system has changed over time to keep up to date with regulatory and technological changes. Each review and rating system is used to evaluate broker tests for more than 250 data points across nine key categories.

These categories include trust, fees, platform and tools, tradable instruments, customer service, account types, research and education, and deposits and withdrawals. To do this, we open a live trading account to test the overall user experience.

To select the best MT5 brokers, I have used the findings from our research team and have also further refined the brokers according to the following factors:

• Overall score of 4+ from our 250-point rating review
• Lowest spreads possible compared to the industry average
• Spreads without high mark-ups with access to raw spread pricing
• Low fees and commissions per lot (100,000 units of currency traded)
• The broker’s minimum deposit, and whether it is high or low
• The overall quality of the broker, its regulation, and reputation
• The trading platforms offered and additional trading tools available
• The variety of tradable instruments

These data points then allow me to compare each broker in relation to what is offered in the industry to help meprovide you with a detailed list of the best MT5 brokers. I then further categorised these brokers into the best for beginners, professionals, crypto traders, fees, tradable instruments, trading tools, and account offerings.

Meet Our Writers

The team of forex and CFD writers and editors at FX Empire is composed of trading industry professionals and seasoned financial journalists. Our writers have been published on leading financial websites such as Investopedia and Forbes. In addition, they all have extensive trading experience.

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