Risk warning: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. The majority of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. This page is general information, not financial advice. Advertiser disclosure.
Pepperstone is our pick of the eight FCA-regulated MT5 brokers we rank, and it is not the cheapest one. Axi is, at about £4.41 for one standard lot all in against Pepperstone’s £5.91. MetaTrader 5 adds twenty-one timeframes, depth of market and a faster strategy tester over MT4, and the platform itself is free, so the broker’s spread and commission are the whole cost.
Who is the best MT5 broker in the UK?
Pepperstone is the best MT5 broker in the UK on platform reach and published pricing, though Axi is the cheapest at about £4.41 per standard lot all in against Pepperstone’s £5.91. Eight FCA-regulated brokers have a raw account we can price. Three more carry MT5 without one and sit below the ranking with the reason on each card. One well-known name is missing entirely: CMC Markets retired MT5 in 2022.
Our eight priced picks. Pepperstone leads on platform reach and published pricing; the seven below it run cheapest first:
- Pepperstone: about £5.91 a lot, on the only raw account here carrying all four platforms.
- Axi: about £4.41 a lot, the cheapest on this page, on a UK-only MT5 within its group.
- Vantage: about £5.16 a lot, on the lowest commission here at £1.00 per side.
- HFM: about £6.08 a lot, tested 0.0 pips on EUR/USD.
- Tickmill: about £7.12 a lot, MT5 on every account type.
- FxPro: about £10.44 a lot, inside a four-platform stack.
- ThinkMarkets: about £12.58 a lot, GBP-billed, widest tested spread.
A former CMC MT5 trader looking for a raw-spread home can start with the table below or the lowest spread forex broker UK guide.
Quick comparison: top UK MT5 brokers
Each broker holds FCA authorisation and offers MT5 to UK clients. The spreads are modal figures David Levy recorded on live UK accounts in July 2026, averaged across EUR/USD, GBP/USD and EUR/GBP; the commissions are each broker’s published rate, re-verified 29 July 2026. The all-in column prices one standard lot on that basis. Where a broker publishes its commission in dollars or euros rather than pounds, the sterling figure is a conversion at the rate baked into this build and moves with it, which the currency column flags. Costs move with the market, so confirm the live numbers before trading.
| Broker | MT5 account | EUR/USD tested | Three-pair average | Commission per side, and currency | All-in per lot | FCA entity (FRN) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pepperstone | Razor (raw) | 0.1 pips | 0.17 pips | £2.25, published in GBP | £5.91 | Pepperstone Limited (684312) |
| Axi | Pro (raw) | 0.0 pips | 0.10 pips | £1.75, billed in GBP | £4.41 | Axi Financial Services (UK) Limited (466201) |
| Vantage | Raw ECN | 0.08 pips | 0.34 pips | £1.00, billed in GBP | £5.16 | Vantage Global Prime LLP (590299) |
| HFM | Zero (raw) | 0.0 pips | 0.17 pips | US$3.00, converted | £6.08 | HF Markets (UK) Ltd (801701) |
| Tickmill | Raw | 0.1 pips | 0.30 pips | US$3.00, converted | £7.12 | Tickmill UK Ltd (717270) |
| FxPro | Raw+ | 0.64 pips | 0.62 pips | US$3.50, converted | £10.44 | FxPro UK Limited (509956) |
| ThinkMarkets | ThinkZero (raw) | 0.83 pips | 0.92 pips | £2.50, published in GBP | £12.58 | TF Global Markets (UK) Limited (629628) |
Swissquote left this table on 1 August 2026 and now sits below the ranking. It charges no FX commission on any tier and runs no raw account, so the whole cost is in the spread and there is no commission line to add: the EUR 2.50 per side and the £9.24 all-in published here until that date described a fee Swissquote does not charge. Its Elite tier still tested at 0.3 pips on EUR/USD, and its card below carries the detail.
Risk warning: CFDs are leveraged products and carry a high risk of loss. The majority of retail CFD accounts lose money. Review the broker’s Key Information Document before trading.
Modal spreads recorded on live UK accounts in July 2026; commissions re-verified against each broker’s own UK pricing page on 30 July 2026. The table follows the ranked order, so it does not run cheapest first: Pepperstone leads the page on platform reach and published pricing while Axi is the cheapest, and the all-in column is there so you can see the gap rather than take our word for the order. Axi’s £1.75 per side is our own arithmetic on a £3.50 round turn, not a per-side figure Axi publishes. Raw-account spreads widen with the market, so confirm the live figure before relying on any number here.
Every FCA entity and Firm Reference Number in the table was checked against the FCA register on 29 July 2026. UK retail MT5 accounts carry negative balance protection, FCA leverage caps of 30:1 on major forex pairs, FSCS cover up to £85,000 and Financial Ombudsman Service access.
The raw-account brokers lead because MT5 traders tend to be cost-focused and active. Each card carries the FCA entity and Firm Reference Number, with pricing labelled as indicative or advertised.
What these MT5 raw accounts tested at
Every raw account on this page advertises from 0.0 pips, which tells you nothing about which is cheapest. The tested spread and the round-turn commission together do.
| Broker | Account tested | EUR/USD (tested) | GBP/USD (tested) | EUR/GBP (tested) | 3-pair average (tested) | Commission, round turn | Advertised from-rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pepperstone | Razor (CFD) | 0.10 pips | 0.20 pips | 0.20 pips | 0.17 pips | £4.50 | tested basis leads |
| Vantage | Raw ECN | 0.08 pips | 0.20 pips | 0.74 pips | 0.34 pips | £2.00 | from 0.0 (advertised) |
| ThinkMarkets | ThinkZero | 0.83 pips | 1.01 pips | 0.91 pips | 0.92 pips | £5.00 | from 0.0 (advertised) |
| FxPro | Raw+ (MT4/MT5) | 0.64 pips | 0.54 pips | 0.69 pips | 0.62 pips | £5.22, converted | from 0.0 (advertised) |
| HFM | Zero (Retail) | 0.00 pips | 0.10 pips | 0.40 pips | 0.17 pips | £4.50, converted | from 0.0 (advertised) |
Spreads are modal values, the most frequent quote across three trading days on a live UK account, recorded by David Levy in July 2026 and averaged across the three pairs shown. Commission is the round-turn figure on one standard lot. Figures marked converted come from a broker schedule published in US dollars or euros, converted at the rate recorded with the capture. A tested modal is what the spread actually was, which is not the same thing as the from-rate a broker advertises; where both appear on this page each carries its own basis. Spreads move, so confirm the live rate before you trade. Not shown: Admirals (volume-tiered commission).
1. Pepperstone: MT5 as one of four platforms on one account
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £5.91
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £10
- Regulation
- Pepperstone Limited (FRN 684312)
◎ Standout: a fixed, published £2.25 per side on MT5, on the one raw account here that also runs MT4, cTrader and TradingView.
Why we recommend Pepperstone
Pepperstone Limited (FCA FRN 684312) is our pick of the MT5 field, and it is not the cheapest one: at about £59.09 a month it comes third on the all-in figure, behind Axi and Vantage. It leads on what the cost column cannot show. It is the highest-scoring broker in our whole UK set at 90 out of 100, its MT5 sits on the only raw account here that also carries MT4, cTrader and TradingView, and its £2.25 per side is a published sterling price backed by a full currency matrix rather than a dollar rate converted at spot, which is what six of the seven brokers below it are quoting.
Be clear about the spread, because it is the one place the headline oversells it: the Razor account tested at a 0.17 pip three-pair average, which is third-tightest here rather than tightest. Axi averaged 0.10, and both Axi and HFM tested 0.0 on EUR/USD against Pepperstone's 0.1. If the all-in figure is the only thing that matters to you, Axi is the rational pick and its card is directly below.
One thing to carry across from the review: the commission is per platform, not per account. It is £2.25 on MT4 and MT5, including spot gold, but US$3.00 on cTrader FX and US$3.50 on TradingView, all on the same Razor account.
Pros & cons
- Fixed, published £2.25 per side in GBP on MT5
- Four platforms on one FCA raw account
- Tested 0.17 pip three-pair average
- Full MT5 feature set including depth of market
- The commission changes by platform on the same account
- Costs more per lot than Axi or Vantage
- Raw pricing needs the commission added to every comparison
- Standard-account pricing is less competitive
2. Axi: the lowest all-in cost on MT5
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £4.41
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5
- Minimum deposit
- None published
- Regulation
- Axi Financial Services (UK) Limited (FRN 466201)
◎ Standout: the cheapest MT5 account here at £4.41 a standard lot, and a UK-only offering within its own group.
Why higher here? MT5 Fit weights MT5 cost and platform depth, which lifts Axi above its #13 sitewide position. See the ranking method ↓
Why we recommend Axi
Axi Financial Services (UK) Limited (FCA FRN 466201) prices MT5 on the same Standard, Pro and Elite tiers as its MT4, which puts it first here at about £44.14 a month on a £3.50 round turn billed in pounds.
Axi MT5 is worth a note that goes beyond price: it is a genuine UK-only offering inside the group rather than a global page served to UK visitors. The UK MT5 and MT5 WebTrader pages both return under the FRN 466201 footer while the Australian equivalents 404, the FAQ names server UK55, and the binding UK Product Schedule sets MT5 server times and data-archiving policy, which are operational statements about a system the entity actually runs. Expert advisors must be written in MQL5: MT4 strategies do not carry across.
Pros & cons
- Lowest all-in cost per lot on this page
- £3.50 round turn billed in pounds, not converted
- A genuine UK-only MT5 within the group, on server UK55
- Depth of market included
- MT4 expert advisors are not cross-compatible with MQL5
- The Elite page scopes the free VPS to MT4 only
- The MT5 page itself advertises spreads "as low as 0.8", against 0.0 on the account tables
- No cTrader and no TradingView
3. Vantage: the lowest commission, with depth of market on MT5
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £5.16
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, TradingView, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £50
- Regulation
- Vantage Global Prime LLP (FRN 590299)
◎ Standout: £1.00 per lot per side on Raw ECN, the lowest commission we price anywhere, with depth of market included on MT5.
Why higher here? MT5 Fit weights MT5 cost and platform depth, which lifts Vantage above its #8 sitewide position. See the ranking method ↓
Why we recommend Vantage
Vantage Global Prime LLP (FCA FRN 590299) brings the same £1.00 per side to MT5 that makes it competitive on MT4, billed in the account base currency rather than converted, for about £51.59 a month. Depth of market is included, which is the feature MT5 traders usually come for.
The same caveat applies here as on the MT4 page. EUR/USD tested at 0.08 pips, the tightest single-pair capture we hold, but EUR/GBP tested at 0.74, which lifts the three-pair average to 0.34 and is what separates it from Axi at this basis. If EUR/GBP is a pair you trade, price it directly rather than from the headline.
Pros & cons
- Lowest per-side commission we price, £1.00
- Billed in the account base currency, not converted
- Depth of market included on MT5
- Four account types including spread betting
- EUR/GBP tested wide at 0.74 pips
- VPS is a rebate against a third-party invoice, not hosting
- No cTrader on the UK entity
- Its live VPS terms page is headed by an offshore entity
4. HFM: MT5 only, on a tested 0.0 pip EUR/USD
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £6.08
- Trading platforms
- MT5, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £0
- Regulation
- HF Markets (UK) Ltd (FRN 801701)
◎ Standout: it ties Axi for the tightest tested EUR/USD in our whole UK set at 0.0 pips, on a Zero account with no MT4 to distract from it.
Why higher here? MT5 Fit weights MT5 cost and platform depth, which lifts HFM above its #17 sitewide position. See the ranking method ↓
Why we recommend HFM
HF Markets (UK) Ltd (FCA FRN 801701) puts its Zero account on MT5 and nothing else, and that account tested at 0.0 pips on EUR/USD, level with Axi and the tightest capture we hold on any UK raw account. All in, it comes to about £60.81 a month.
Two things to weigh. The commission is US$3.00 per side with no GBP rate published, so the roughly £2.25 it works out at is a conversion that moves. And the market range trails Admirals badly on MT5, so HFM's case is cost and simplicity rather than breadth. Our review of it is thinner than most in this set and carries findings from a non-UK entity, so confirm the current Zero terms on the UK site before funding.
Pros & cons
- Tested 0.0 pips on EUR/USD, level with Axi for the tightest here
- MT5 is the only MetaTrader, so there is no account confusion
- Low entry point for a raw account
- Depth of market included
- Commission is US$3.00 per side with no GBP rate published
- Narrower market range than Admirals on MT5
- No MT4, no cTrader and no TradingView
- Our review carries some non-UK-entity findings
5. Tickmill: MT5 on every account type, including Islamic
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £7.12
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5
- Minimum deposit
- US$100
- Regulation
- Tickmill UK Ltd (FRN 717270)
◎ Standout: MT5 runs on every Tickmill account type rather than a single tier, Islamic accounts included.
Why we recommend Tickmill
Tickmill UK Ltd (FCA FRN 717270) states plainly that MT5 is available for all its account types, which on the UK entity means Classic, Raw and Islamic. The Raw account tested at a 0.30 pip three-pair average for about £71.23 a month.
The commission is the thing to read closely: US$3.00 per lot per side, US$6.00 round turn, described as the equivalent in your account currency with no GBP figure published anywhere. The sterling number is therefore a conversion, not a price. The same applies to the US$100 minimum deposit.
Pros & cons
- MT5 on every account type, Islamic included
- Tested 0.1 pips on EUR/USD
- Depth of market included
- MQL5 expert advisors fully permitted
- Commission published in US dollars with no GBP rate
- Minimum deposit is US$100, also with no GBP figure
- VPS is a third-party referral with no free tier
- No proprietary platform as a fallback
6. FxPro: MT5 inside a four-platform stack
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £10.44
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £0
- Regulation
- FxPro UK Limited (FRN 509956)
◎ Standout: MT5 alongside cTrader and MT4 under one FCA login, with a choice of raw or all-in pricing on each.
Why higher here? MT5 Fit weights MT5 cost and platform depth, which lifts FxPro above its #15 sitewide position. See the ranking method ↓
Why we recommend FxPro
FxPro UK Limited (FCA FRN 509956) runs MT5 on both its Standard and Raw+ accounts, so the pricing model is a choice rather than a tier. Raw+ tested at a 0.62 pip three-pair average for about £104.39 a month.
Cost is what places it here: US$3.50 per side is the highest commission of the priced accounts on this page, it is billed in dollars on a sterling account, and the tested spread is wider than the leaders. The platform breadth is real, but note the TradingView link runs only through FxPro's cTrader account types, so opening MT5 here does not get you it.
Pros & cons
- A real choice between raw and all-in pricing on MT5
- cTrader and MT4 at the same broker
- No-dealing-desk execution across the stack
- Depth of market included
- Highest per-side commission of the priced set here
- Commission quoted in US dollars on a sterling account
- TradingView is gated to the cTrader accounts, not MT5
- Tested spread wider than the leaders above
7. ThinkMarkets: GBP-billed commission, widest tested spread
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- £12.58
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £10
- Regulation
- TF Global Markets (UK) Limited (FRN 629628)
◎ Standout: a sterling-billed commission undone by the widest tested spread of any priced account on this page.
Why higher here? MT5 Fit weights MT5 cost and platform depth, which lifts ThinkMarkets above its #10 sitewide position. See the ranking method ↓
Why we recommend ThinkMarkets
TF Global Markets (UK) Limited (FCA FRN 629628) prices ThinkZero at £2.50 per lot per side in sterling, which is cheaper than three of the brokers above it. The spread is what places it last of the priced set: a 0.92 pip three-pair tested average, giving about £125.85 a month.
It is the clearest argument on this page for pricing the spread and the commission together. ThinkTrader is available as a proprietary fallback, and ThinkMarkets states the same commission as both US$2.50 and £2.50 on its own account page, so confirm the billing currency at signup.
Pros & cons
- Commission billed natively in pounds at £2.50 per side
- ThinkTrader available as a proprietary backup
- MT4 on the same account
- Depth of market included
- Widest three-pair tested average of the priced set, 0.92 pips
- Highest all-in cost on this page despite a mid-pack commission
- States the commission as both US$2.50 and £2.50
- No cTrader and no TradingView
Carrying MT5, but not ranked on cost
All four brokers below offer MT5 on their UK entity and are outside the ranked list for a stated reason rather than a shortage of interest. Three have no raw account for us to price and one prices on volume tiers that do not reduce to a per-lot figure. The reason sits on each card, and one of them holds the widest MT5 instrument range on this page.
Admirals: the widest MT5 range, on volume-tiered pricing
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- Volume-tiered, no single figure
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £250
- Regulation
- Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FRN 595450)
◎ Standout: the widest MT5 instrument range on this page, priced on a volume tier that no single per-lot figure can honestly represent.
Why we recommend Admirals
Admiral Markets UK Ltd (FCA FRN 595450) treats MT5 as its primary platform rather than an MT4 afterthought, and the range shows it: 6,000+ instruments across 14+ exchanges, with share and bond CFDs trading alongside FX on one login. That is the widest MT5 offer on this page by a distance, and it is the reason to read this card rather than skip it.
What keeps it unranked is the commission shape. Admirals prices between US$1.80 and US$3.00 per lot per side depending on monthly volume, with no native GBP rate, so the cost comparator declines to average a tier structure into a figure no trader actually pays. Its Zero.MT5 tested at a 0.37 pip three-pair average, which is competitive, so if your monthly volume is known and steady, price it directly against the ranked accounts above at your own tier.
Swissquote: MT5 adds stock CFDs its MT4 does not carry
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- Spread-only, no commission to add
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, TradingView, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £1000
- Regulation
- Swissquote Ltd (FRN 562170)
◎ Standout: its MT5 carries stock CFDs that its own MT4 does not, on spread-only pricing rather than the raw-plus-commission basis this page ranks.
Why we recommend Swissquote
Swissquote Ltd (FCA FRN 562170) runs MT5 on the same Premium, Prime and Elite tiers as its MT4, and adds stock CFDs on MT5 that the MT4 build does not carry. Elite, the tightest tier, tested at 0.3 pips on EUR/USD.
It is unranked here because it charges no FX commission on any tier, so the whole cost is the spread and there is no second line to add for a like-for-like comparison. There is also a platform trade-off specific to this broker: Swissquote's own UK comparison table marks TradingView available on CFXD and unavailable on MT4 and MT5, with expert advisors the exact reverse. Choosing MT5 here means choosing EAs over TradingView, and a client cannot hold both.
Pros & cons
- MT5 adds stock CFDs over its own MT4
- Automated trading explicitly unrestricted
- No commission line on any tier
- Depth of market included
- Choosing MT5 rules out its TradingView integration entirely
- £1,000 minimum on the entry tier and £10,000 on Elite
- The tightest spread sits behind the highest deposit
- No VPS offered
OANDA: MT5 is bundled to one sub-account and cannot be unbundled
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- Spread-only, tested 0.94 pips
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, TradingView, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- £0
- Regulation
- OANDA Europe Limited (FRN 542574)
◎ Standout: its MT5 is welded to the OANDA One sub-account, which cannot be used with OANDA's own desktop or web platforms at all.
Why we recommend OANDA
OANDA Europe Limited (FCA FRN 542574) offers MT5, but not as a standalone platform choice. It is bound to the OANDA One sub-account and the two are inseparable: OANDA's own wording is that you cannot use that sub-account to trade on its desktop or web platforms. There is no spread betting on it either. UK-entity artefacts confirm this is a real OANDA Europe product rather than global boilerplate, including an oanda_uk5setup.exe installer and a webmt5-uklive terminal.
Two scope limits matter more than the rank. There is no raw account, so the cost is entirely the spread. And OANDA's MT4 and MT5 carry different instrument universes rather than one being an upgrade of the other: MT4 has bonds but no shares or ETFs, MT5 the reverse. The share and ETF commission on MT5 is a percentage of notional, 0.06% to 0.08% per side, with no per-lot or currency-denominated figure published anywhere we could find.
IG Markets: MT5 is new here, and IG has not finished announcing it
CFDs carry high risk. Retail leverage is FCA-capped.
- All-in cost per lot
- Spread-only, tested 1.13 pips
- Trading platforms
- MT4, MT5, own platform
- Minimum deposit
- None published
- Regulation
- IG Markets Limited (FRN 195355)
◎ Standout: the platform is real and running, but IG's own site has not caught up with it, and there is no commission account for this page's basis to price.
Why we recommend IG Markets
IG Markets Limited (FCA FRN 195355) added MT5 for UK clients around March to April 2026. The evidence is IG's own: an IG-hosted ig5setup.exe installer, a web terminal at mt5.ig.com/terminal, a free native VPS on qualifying accounts, and page assets dated March and April 2026. It is recent enough that most comparison pages, including ours until this update, still say IG does not offer MT5.
It is unranked for two reasons that pull in the same direction. IG runs no commission-based FX account, so the whole cost is a spread that tested at 1.13 pips, and there is nothing for a raw-account basis to price. And the rollout is visibly incomplete on IG's side rather than ours: MT5 is absent from IG's own footer and from its compare-accounts table, so the account paths are not documented the way MT4's are. Confirm MT5 is available on the account type you intend to open.
HYCM is not ranked here even though it would price second, at about £3.72 a lot. No UK-scoped document of the FCA entity, HYCM Capital Markets (UK) Limited, names MT5 anywhere: its UK Customer Agreement defines only a generic “Trading Platform”, and every platform name we can find sits on a Costa Rica-footered property instead. Its spreads and commissions are corroborated UK-side by the May 2026 Cost and Charges disclosure; the platform is not. Our standing rule is that a UK-scoped source with a URL and a date is the gate before a broker goes on a platform page, so HYCM is named here with its figure rather than carded.
What MT5 looks like on a UK account
The terminal is the same wherever you open it, so what separates these brokers is what sits around it: how you get the platform, and what help you get once it is running. The captures below show MT5 itself, HFM’s download page for the terminal and its mobile apps, and the guides Pepperstone publishes for setting it up.
MT5 platform screenshots
What MT5 does better than MT4
MetaTrader 5 is the newer, multi-asset platform and it adds real capability over MT4. It carries twenty-one timeframes against MT4’s nine, native depth of market, a multi-thread strategy tester that backtests faster across more pairs, a built-in economic calendar and extra pending-order types. For a UK CFD trader who trades indices, commodities and shares alongside forex, the multi-asset design is the practical reason to choose it. The full feature-by-feature split sits in our MT4 vs MT5 comparison.
Where MT4 still beats MT5
MT4 holds two genuine advantages. The expert-advisor and custom-indicator library is far larger after two decades of community code, so a trader who depends on a specific legacy tool may find no MT5 equivalent. Hedging is also on by default in MT4, while in MT5 it is broker-dependent. A trader whose whole workflow sits on a particular MT4 EA has a real reason to stay, and the best MT4 brokers guide ranks the FCA-regulated options.
How MT5 compares
The strengths and gaps above, in one table.
| Feature |  MT5 |  MT4 |  cTrader |  TradingView |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timeframes | 21 | 9 | 26 | Custom intervals |
| Netting and hedging | Both | Hedging only | Both | Via broker |
| Strategy tester | Multi-thread | Single-thread | Built in (cTrader Automate) | Pine strategy tester |
| Programming language | MQL5 | MQL4 | C# | Pine Script |
| New broker licences | Open | Mostly closed since 2018 | Open | Open |
| UK brokers offering it | 12 of 27 | 18 of 27 | 2 of 27 | 14 of 27 |
Across MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView, MT5’s edge is the 21-timeframe chart set and the multi-thread strategy tester; 12 of 27 FCA brokers we rank offer it.
Torn between the two MetaTrader builds? The MT4 and MT5 comparison sets them side by side.
FCA regulation: what it covers for MT5 traders
MetaQuotes licenses MT5 to brokers; the broker executes your orders and holds your money, so FCA protection attaches to the broker, not the platform. A UK retail MT5 account carries segregated client money, negative balance protection, FSCS cover up to £85,000 and Financial Ombudsman Service access. Retail leverage is capped per instrument under the FCA’s product-intervention rules.
| Asset class | FCA retail leverage cap |
|---|---|
| Major currency pairs | 30:1 |
| Non-major pairs, gold and major indices | 20:1 |
| Other commodities and non-major indices | 10:1 |
| Government bonds from the UK, eurozone, US, Japan, Canada or Switzerland | 30:1 |
| Individual shares, and any asset not listed above | 5:1 |
Two MT5-specific checks matter. Confirm hedging is enabled on the UK entity’s MT5 build if you trade opposing positions, and confirm the server you are given belongs to the FCA entity rather than an offshore sibling, since several ranked brokers run parallel entities with different protections.
Setting up MT5 with a UK broker: quick walkthrough
- Open and verify the account with the FCA-regulated entity.
- Download MT5 from the broker’s site so the correct live and demo servers are pre-loaded.
- Log in and check the server name matches your account type; raw accounts often sit on separate servers.
- Confirm the account currency shows GBP and set the hedging mode as expected, since netting versus hedging is fixed per account, not per trade.
- Load indicators or expert advisors through the platform’s data folder under MQL5; MQL4 code does not run on MT5, so budget for replacements.
- Fund in GBP and place a minimum-size trade to confirm execution, commission posting and swap display before scaling.
Compare brokers by the factor that decides it
Different traders rank on different things. Start from the factor that decides it for you.
Start with the overall ranking
Our main UK list scores every FCA-regulated broker on cost and execution.
Cost decides it
The same trade costs different amounts on different account types. These lists rank on the all-in figure.
Your strategy decides it
Pick your trading software first, then compare the brokers that carry it.
What you trade decides it
Each market carries its own FCA leverage cap, so the by-asset pages rank brokers per instrument.
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FAQs
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Does MT5 support hedging?
How much does MT5 cost?
Can I run MT4 expert advisors on MT5?
Which MT5 broker has the widest market range in the UK?
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About the author
Justin Grossbard is the co-founder and CEO at CompareForexBrokers. He has traded forex since 1998, leads UK broker research and has personally reviewed every FCA-regulated broker on this site. His work has appeared in Forbes, Kiplinger and Finance Magnates, and he holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and a Master of Marketing.