IC Markets Review 2026

What to know before you choose IC Markets

If you are reading this IC Markets review from the UK, the most important fact to get straight is which legal entity you contract with and under which rules. IC Markets is a well known raw-spread brokerage founded in 2007, with group-level Tier A supervision from ASIC in Australia (AFSL 335692) and CySEC in Cyprus (362/18). That is a genuine strength at corporate level. The practical issue for you is that ic.com does not route UK retail visitors to either of those regulated entities.

UK clients are onboarded by Raw Trading Ltd, a Seychelles company registered under number 8419879-1 and licensed by the FSA Seychelles under Securities Dealer licence SD018. That sits outside the FCA perimeter. In plain terms, if you open an account from the UK you have no FSCS protection up to £85,000, no access to the UK Financial Ombudsman Service for dispute resolution, and the FCA retail leverage caps do not apply to your account.

The FCA has also published a clone-firm warning against icmarkets on its public Warning List on 01/10/2024. That warning targets impersonators, and it also confirms that no FCA-authorised IC Markets entity serves UK retail clients. Treat this as the single most important input into your decision, ahead of any discussion of spreads or platforms.

Regulation and Safety

Regulatory Licences

At group level, IC Markets presents a credible regulatory footprint. The holding structure includes entities supervised by:

• ASIC (AFSL 335692), recognised internationally as a Tier 1 regulator.
• CySEC (362/18), recognised internationally as a Tier 2 regulator.
• SCB in the Bahamas, held by a separate group entity.
• CMA in Kenya, held by a separate group entity.
• DFSA in Dubai, held by a separate group entity.

ic.com itself foregrounds only the Seychelles licence on its regulation page.

For you as a UK retail client, the relevant legal counterparty is Raw Trading Ltd, registered in Seychelles under company number 8419879-1 and licensed by the FSA Seychelles under SD018, which is a Tier 3 offshore licence. In terms of client-facing retail protections, that level of supervision falls well short of what the FCA, ASIC or CySEC provide, and you should assume no UK-style conduct rules apply to your account.

Client Fund Protection

Raw Trading Ltd states that client funds are held in segregated accounts at top-tier banks. Segregation is a useful operational control, since it means your balance is not commingled with the firm's operating capital, although it serves a different purpose from a compensation scheme. If the offshore entity failed, you would not benefit from the FSCS payout of up to £85,000 that applies to clients of FCA-authorised firms, and you would not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service to escalate a complaint.

The practical consequences go further, because FCA retail rules do not govern your account. The FCA leverage caps for UK retail clients (1:30 on major forex, 1:20 on indices and 1:5 on equities) do not apply here. The UK ban on CFDs on cryptocurrencies for retail clients also does not apply under the Seychelles licence, so you can access crypto CFDs with leverage that would not be permitted under an FCA entity.

Company History and Reputation

The group has operated since 2007, giving it close to two decades of trading history, and it maintains a Trustpilot score around 4.8 according to user reviews. Reputation and longevity are useful context, although they do not substitute for the regulatory framework that governs your contract.

Two recurring themes appear in user feedback and industry commentary: confusion between the group's offshore and regulated arms, and marketing of very high leverage that can attract inexperienced retail clients. Before you fund an account, cross-check the legal name Raw Trading Ltd, the licence number SD018 and the company number 8419879-1 against your onboarding paperwork. The FCA clone-firm warning dated 01/10/2024 is a reminder that impersonation does occur in this part of the market.

Account Types and Fees

IC Markets gives you several live account options. The main live choices are:

• Raw Spread on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, with a $0 minimum deposit
• cTrader Raw Spread, with a $0 minimum deposit
• Standard account on MetaTrader, with a $0 minimum deposit
• Raw Pro, from $5,000
• Raw Pro+, from $100,000
• Swap-Free (Islamic) option on Raw Spread and Standard accounts
• Demo account

On Raw Spread accounts the pricing combines very tight spreads with a commission per lot, while the Standard account bundles the cost into a wider spread with no separate commission. The Raw Pro and Raw Pro+ tiers reduce commission in exchange for higher minimum balances, and both are flagged as early-access offerings on the account overview, so check current availability before relying on them. The Swap-Free option removes ordinary swap and interest adjustments while still applying a flat overnight holding fee on positions carried past rollover, so overnight charges still apply. Full numeric detail sits in the Trading Costs and Conditions section below.

You can select from 10 base currencies, including:

• GBP
• USD
• EUR
• AUD
• SGD
• NZD
• JPY
• CHF
• HKD
• CAD

If you fund in pounds, setting your base currency to GBP is the simplest way to limit conversion costs on deposits, withdrawals and commissions. The minimum trade size is 0.01 lots across all account types, and the stop-out level is 50% on MetaTrader Raw Spread and Standard accounts.

Whichever account tier you choose, your contract is with Raw Trading Ltd under FSA Seychelles. Account features and margin settings are governed by that licence, not by the FCA.

Trading Platforms and Tools

The platform lineup is one of the broker's clear operational strengths. You can trade through:

• MetaTrader 4 on Windows, Web, iOS, Android and Mac
• MetaTrader 5 on Windows, Web, iOS, Android and Mac
• cTrader on Windows, Web, iOS, Android and Mac, with cAlgo for automated strategies
• TradingView charting integrated with the cTrader Raw account

Expert Advisors, scalping and hedging are permitted across platforms with no documented restrictions, which is useful if you run automated strategies. According to IC Markets, approximately 60% of all trades on the platform are algorithmic.

Execution infrastructure is co-located for latency. MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 servers sit at Equinix NY4 in New York, while the cTrader server is at Equinix LD5 in London. The broker publishes an average order execution speed under 40ms and aggregates pricing from up to 25 institutional liquidity providers.

A free, co-located VPS is available on a conditional basis. Volume or balance thresholds apply, and you should check the current terms with the broker before you assume eligibility. Third-party analytics include:

• Trading Central via the client portal
• Autochartist via the client portal
• cTrader Copy for copy trading
• ZuluTrade for copy trading
• Signal Start on MetaTrader

Platform choice does not change your regulatory status. Whether you trade through MT5 or TradingView, your counterparty remains Raw Trading Ltd, and FCA protections still do not apply.

Markets and Instruments

IC Markets advertises a wide product range of more than 2,850 tradable instruments, spanning:

• Approximately 60 forex pairs, majors, minors and exotics
• 16 index CFDs covering major global benchmarks
• Stock CFDs across NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, Xetra and JPX
• Commodity CFDs, including metals and energies
• Bond CFDs
• Futures CFDs
• More than 90 cryptocurrency CFDs

Two points deserve particular attention if you are a UK retail trader. First, the FCA prohibits the sale of CFDs on cryptocurrencies to UK retail clients. Those products remain accessible when you are onboarded through Raw Trading Ltd in Seychelles. Treat that availability as a material risk flag, because the UK ban exists precisely because of the volatility and leverage risks of crypto CFDs for retail clients.

Second, stock CFDs listed on the LSE and other exchanges are derivatives. They do not confer shareholder rights, dividends attract adjustments in place of direct payment, and your exposure is governed by the CFD terms, with the underlying equity market rules not applying.

Product availability and leverage are governed by the Seychelles licence. The scope you see on ic.com reflects what Raw Trading Ltd can offer under its own regime, which is broader than what an FCA entity would be permitted to provide to UK retail clients.

Trading Costs and Conditions

IC Markets runs two parallel pricing tracks. Raw Spread accounts combine very tight spreads with a commission per lot, while the Standard account bundles the full cost into a wider spread. Which one works out cheaper depends on your style, with active intraday and algorithmic traders tending to pay less on Raw and lower-frequency position traders sometimes preferring the simplicity of the Standard account.

The published commissions on Raw accounts are:

• MetaTrader Raw Spread: $3.50 per lot per side, giving $7.00 round turn
• cTrader Raw Spread: $3.00 per $100,000 notional
• Raw Pro: $1.50 per lot per side ($3.00 round turn)
• Raw Pro+: $1.00 per lot per side ($2.00 round turn)
• Standard: $0 commission, with a wider spread of around 0.8 pips average on EUR/USD

If your base currency is GBP, remember to convert the dollar-denominated commission when you cost a trade.

Spread Comparison Table

Averages are informative, although you should test the live spread yourself during the hours you actually trade. The London and New York overlap tends to be tightest. Spreads can widen materially around major data releases, overnight and in illiquid pairs. Overnight swap charges apply to leveraged positions held past the daily rollover, which can be significant if you carry trades for days or weeks.

Leverage settings under the FSA Seychelles licence are high. The broker publishes maximum leverage up to:

• 1:5000 on major forex pairs for tier 1 volume
• 1:3000 on exotics
• 1:2000 on gold
• 1:500 on energies
• 1:500 on crypto CFDs
• 1:200 on indices
• 1:20 on single-stock CFDs during core session
• 1:1000 on the cTrader Raw Spread account

These levels sit well above the FCA retail caps that would apply if you were onboarded by an FCA-authorised firm, where the ceilings are 1:30 on major forex, 1:20 on indices and 1:5 on equities, with CFDs on crypto prohibited for UK retail entirely. Because high leverage magnifies gains and losses symmetrically, a trader new to leveraged markets is usually best served by the lowest setting their strategy actually requires. When the ceiling is this high, a 50% stop-out combined with a conservative position-sizing policy becomes all the more important.

Consider a hypothetical trade of one standard lot on EUR/USD on the Raw Spread account. If you opened and closed that position, you would pay $3.50 per lot per side on entry and $3.50 on exit, giving $7.00 in round-turn commission, plus the raw spread of the moment and any applicable swap if you held the position overnight.

Deposits and Withdrawals

UK-relevant funding methods under Raw Trading Ltd include:

• Credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard), GBP accepted
• PayPal, GBP accepted
• Neteller, GBP accepted
• Skrill, GBP accepted
• Bank wire transfer, GBP accepted
• Rapidpay, GBP accepted
• Klarna, GBP accepted
• Broker-to-broker transfer, GBP accepted
• Cryptocurrency transfers (BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT)

IC Markets does not charge internal deposit or withdrawal fees. Third-party costs may still apply, especially on international bank wires where intermediary and beneficiary banks can deduct charges along the chain. A processing fee can also be applied on withdrawals where the deposited funds have not been used for trading, so plan withdrawals after your trading activity rather than straight after a deposit.

Processing times published by the broker are:

• Credit and debit card withdrawals: 3 to 5 business days
• Bank wire withdrawals: up to 14 business days
• E-wallet withdrawals (Neteller, Skrill, PayPal): subject to provider timeline
• Cryptocurrency withdrawals: near-instant on-chain once approved

Same-day processing requires your request to arrive before the 12:00 AEST/AEDT cut-off, which is Sydney time. Outside that window, your withdrawal queues to the next business day.

Two practical points are worth keeping in mind. Your balance sits with the Seychelles entity, so there is no FSCS cover on those funds if the entity fails. You should also keep the account name on your payment method aligned with your trading account name, both to meet anti-money-laundering checks and to help your withdrawals clear without delays.

Customer Support and Education

Support is available 24/7, Monday to Sunday, through:

• Live chat and email.
• A UK toll-free phone line on +44 800 014 8775.
• An international phone number on +248 467 19 76.

Email contact points include:

• clientrelations@ic.com
• support@ic.com
• accounts@ic.com

English support is confirmed on the contact page, and the broker's internal records also list Spanish.

Education is thinner, as the broker runs weekly webinars and maintains a blog, with no structured curriculum, no progress tracking and no beginner certification pathway. If you are starting out and want a guided learning path, you will likely need to supplement with external resources.

When you contact support, verify the legal entity in writing before you act on any instruction, particularly if you receive an unsolicited approach. The FCA clone-firm warning against icmarkets dated 01/10/2024 is a reminder that fraudulent impersonators do target this brand.

IC Markets vs The Competition

For a UK retail trader comparing options, the critical question is regulatory coverage ahead of price.

• Pepperstone: a similar raw-spread and execution model, with an FCA-authorised entity that can onboard UK retail clients. FSCS protection up to £85,000, FCA leverage caps and Financial Ombudsman access apply to your account.
• FP Markets: comparable ASIC-regulated ECN pricing, with spreads and commissions broadly in the same range as IC Markets Raw.

Pricing parity is common among top ECN-style brokers, and the meaningful divergence for you lies in which licence governs your account. An FCA-authorised competitor applies the UK conduct rulebook to your contract, whereas IC Markets via Seychelles sits outside that framework.

If FCA safeguards are must-haves for you, an FCA-authorised broker is the better fit even where headline spreads are a fraction wider. If you prioritise very high leverage, access to crypto CFDs and offshore flexibility, you should understand what you are giving up on the regulatory side before choosing IC Markets via Raw Trading Ltd.

Fees Snapshot

Clearing Up the Misinformation

Two recurring claims deserve correction, as set out below.

The first claim says that IC Markets operates in the UK under the Temporary Permissions Regime, or complies with FCA rules by extension of its ASIC and CySEC licences, which is inaccurate. Holding ASIC and CySEC licences at group level does not extend FCA retail protections to you. Your rights follow the licence that applies to your account, which for UK clients onboarded on ic.com is FSA Seychelles under Raw Trading Ltd. The FCA has placed IC Markets Global on its public Warning List dated 01/10/2024 as an unauthorised firm targeting UK residents.

The second claim says that UK traders can access very high leverage via the Seychelles entity while retaining UK consumer protections. Both halves cannot be true at the same time. The high leverage is available precisely because the FCA retail caps do not apply, and the trade-off is that no UK compensation scheme and no UK ombudsman apply either.

A simple verification checklist before you deposit:

• Confirm the legal name Raw Trading Ltd on your account-opening documents
• Confirm the licence number SD018 on your account-opening documents
• Confirm the company registration number 8419879-1 on your account-opening documents

If any of those details do not match, hold off on funding the account until the discrepancy is resolved.

Conclusion

IC Markets suits you if you are cost-sensitive or algorithmic, you want raw spreads with fast execution on MetaTrader, cTrader or TradingView, and you are comfortable operating outside the FCA perimeter with offshore risk fully understood. The pricing on the Raw Spread account is genuinely competitive, the platform lineup is strong and the execution infrastructure is well engineered.

If you are a UK beginner, or if FSCS protection, FCA leverage caps and access to the Financial Ombudsman are non-negotiable for you, look at FCA-authorised alternatives instead. The regulatory gap is the decisive factor here, ahead of any difference in the spread table.

Before you decide either way, verify the onboarding entity on your paperwork, weigh the pricing advantage against the absence of UK safeguards and only proceed if the offshore trade-off aligns with your personal risk tolerance. If FCA protection is non-negotiable for you, compare FCA-authorised brokers side by side before opening any account.