Would you be surprised if I tell you that there are only a handful of off-shore forex brokers that accept US clients? The country with the biggest economy in the World, the leading advocate of the free market economy and the one that houses Wall Street, is really strict and careful when it comes to the derivatives markets, especially investing in leveraged foreign exchange.
Glad that I am not US citizen or residing there. Mind that the law applies not only to US citizens but also to residents. This means that you could be a non-US citizen but you will still have restrictions if you are a legal resident in the US.
Why don’t many brokers accept US traders?
It has all started with Great Financial Crisis (GFC), guys. Those of you who have watched the documentary Inside Job or the movie Big Short already got an idea on what I am going to say about strict rules in the US about leveraged investment. Brokers with a passion for big profit have created exotic investment products that promise very high returns for the clients. The clients are not aware of the risk that they are taking by buying those derivative products due to the their complexity.
After the big US banks went bust at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 – 2009, watchdogs like CFTC, SEC and NFA decided to tighten the screws in financial sector as a solution to moral hazard problem. Leveraged products got its lion share on these new stricter financial rules and forex was one of those scapegoats.
Thanks to those stricter rules, the leverage is lower compared to other jurisdictions and required capital to operate in the USD is much higher compared to its peers. Thus profit prospects are not that attractive and we don’t see a lot of forex brokers based in the USD.
Forex Brokers that Accept Clients From US
These are the forex brokers that accepts clients who reside in the US; Forex.com is the first one in my list while AAFX Trading follows as second and FxChoice as the third. The ranking depends on several important criteria for forex traders such as regulation, reliability, customer service, trading conditions, deposit & withdrawal methods, bonus and promotions.
FOREX.COM
Forex.com is one of the few forex brokers that accept clients from the US. The brand is owned and operated by an industry giant; GAIN Capital Holdings who has been around for more than 20 years. The important point is that Forex.com is headquartered and regulated by CFTC and NFA in the US which means that Forex.com is not an off-shore entity. I would recommend Forex.com for all my followers who are residents of the US. It is a reliable and customer oriented forex broker. If safety of your funds and reliability is your primary concern, then Forex.com is the best answer between the three forex brokers that accepts clients from the US.
Forex.com Account Types
Forex.com offers two different account types; Standard Account and ECN Account. Spreads goes as low as 1.0 pips for EURUSD on Standard Account which is very competitive compared to industry standards. Minimum initial deposit required for Standard Account is zero which means that you can open an account and verify it without depositing any funds. The Broker also offers ECN like account on their exclusive trading platform called Advanced Trading Platform.
Forex.com Customer Support
Forex.com provides customer support in four languages; English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic. Live Chat is prompt to answer your questions and very informative. There is customer support for 24 hours. The Broker offers extensive market analysis and educational material on their web site.
Forex.com Trading Platforms
Forex.com offers its own exclusive trading platform called Advanced Trading Platform in addition to conventional MetaTrader 4. So, clients are given chance to choose between those two trading platforms. Advanced Trading Platform comes with a highly customizable dashboard and trade preferences, useful charting tools, more than 80 technical indicators, extensive drawing tools and integrated trading strategies with hundreds of predefined templates to choose from.
Forex.com Withdrawal and Deposit Methods
Investors can deposit and withdraw funds by credit card, bank card and wire transfer. Digital wallets such as Neteller, Skrill, Sofort are not available for the moment.
AAFX Trading
AAFX is also among those rare forex brokers accepting clients from the US. It is headquartered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and regulated by SVG FSA. The company is founded in 2013, so passes one of my criteria of being a reliable forex broker. Negative balance protection feature should be noted as well. Not too many forex firms provide this feature. Those of you who have been trading since 2015 (SNB’s abrupt EURCHF 1.20 removal) would know the significance of Negative Balance Protection. Spreads are tight and they offer a lot of options in terms of deposit / withdrawing funds.
AAFX Trading Account Types
AAFX Trading provides two different forex trading account types for its clients. The first one is Fixed Account. As you can guess from the name, the spreads on instruments don’t change depending on the time of the day or volatility. Spreads are fixed and 2 pips for majors. Traders can choose between USD, GBP and EUR for their account currency. Maximum leverage is 1:2000 for accounts up to $20000 and 1:1000 for account bigger than $20000. AAFX Trading doesnt charge any commission on the top of spreads for executed trades. Traders are allowed to use Expert Advisors (EA) on this account type and minimum deposit is $100.
The second account type is ECN Account. ECN Account has exact same specifications with Fixed Account other than spreads. Spreads could go as low as 0.3 pips on ECN Account compared and the spreads are variable.
AAFX Trading Customer Support
AAFX Trading offers customer support in many languages including Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Indian, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese. There is Live Chat feature on the web site where you can get accurate and quick answers to your inquiries. Another important point about AAFX Trading is that the Company is one of the rare off-shore forex brokers that accept clients from the US as I mentioned at the introduction of the review.
AAFX Trading Platforms
MetaTrader 4 is the trading platform that AAFX Trading offers to its clients. In addition to PC desktop version, MetaTrader 4 for MAC, MetaTrader Web and MetaTrader Mobile are also provided by request. MetaTrader 4 is the most commonly used trading platform that comes with a huge bag of trading, charting and monitoring features such as Expert Advisors, Technical Indicators and 9 different timeframes. AAFX Trading doesnt only provides the trading platform but also offers informative tutorials for the novice traders who have not used MetaTrader 4 before.
AAFX Trading Withdrawal and Deposit Methods
AAFX Trading clients can use eight different methods for depositing and withdrawaing money. These methods are Wire Transfer, Debit Card, Credit Card, Web Money, Skrill, Neteller, Fasapay, Bitcoin. I should point out that there are not too many forex brokers that offer Bitcoin as deposit and withdrawal method. Even though, international wire transfer and credit card are my two favorites for financial transactions with forex brokers, having Bitcoin as an option is a big plus.
FXChoice
FXChoice opens account for investors who are residents of the US as well. Having outstanding expertise as a broker in CFD as well as Forex trading for fund managers, private clients and institutional investors, FX Choice has been around almost for 10 years trying to provide the best service and support to their clients. Their extraordinary service earned FXChoice the prestigious Exceptional Customer Service award by LiveHelpNow 5 times in the year 2016 alone.
One of the things that make FXChoice really special is the fact that they allow traders to trade on more than 40 currency pairs and a plethora of other CFDs. And they offer their clients with amazing trading experience with the help of two exceptional platforms. As a matter of fact, FXChoice executes more than 15000 transactions in a day with the help of their NDD technology.
FxChoice Account Types
There are two types of accounts that are available for the clients of FXChoice. While one of them is a named classic, the other one has been named pro. These two account types have a basic difference amongst them. The accounts belonging to the classic type are completely commission free; thus they come with wider spreads. On the other hand, the pro account type is commission based so they provide the clients with tighter spread as per the norms of ECN. Plus, you can avail either MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 trading platform as per your choice only if you are using the Pro account. Apart from that, you will have the choice for opening a corporate or individual account as per your wish.
FxChoice Trading Platforms
FxChoice provides their clients with a myriad of choices on the trading platforms. MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, as well as Myfxbook Autotrade these are the trading platforms that a client can choose between. When it comes to the MT4 and MT5 platforms, they do not only offer access to the CFD and forex market but they also help the clients to invest in the options and futures market. Moreover, the MT5 platform allows the client to trade in the stock market too.
FxChoice Withdrawal and Deposit Methods
FXChoice offers their clients to deposit and withdraw funds using different methods. From the debit card, credit cards, e-wallets, Fasapay, Bitcoin, Skrill, Neteller to Perfect Money, ePayments, Trustly, Astropay and PaySafeCard.
PaxForex
PaxForex was founded by a team of professional traders in 2011and is registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The company’s owners have extensive experience as traders and dealers in the Forex, stocks, options and CFDs markets. They have gained their experience through working for the prestigious forex brokers for years in managerial positions.
The Broker provides traders the advantages to use an offshore forex broker with quick registration procedure, low trading fees and a high leverage of up to 1:500. Although PaxForex is not regulated by any financial watchdog, it has become a praised forex broker among retail forex and CFD traders in recent years. The Broker owes these praises to its welcoming policy to accept traders from all over the world, including the United States.
PaxForex Account Types
PaxForex offers a variety of different account types to ensure that there’s something for every need, from the newbie traders to forex veterans. There are a total of four trading accounts types for the traders’ choice; Cent, Mini, Standard and VIP.
PaxForex Customer Support
PaxForex clients can access customer support through a variety of options including phone, email or live chat. All of these methods are available for 24/5 and competent to respond to the inquiries from existing and future clients with the most useful and accurate information.
PaxForex Trading Platforms
PaxForex provides the industry’s most commonly preferred trading platform, MetaTrader 4. The MT4 platform is available in its traditional desktop format, as well as on mobile devices via the MT4 mobile platform.
PaxForex Withdraw and Deposit Methods
PaxForex clients can choose withdraw and deposit funds into their account through Wire Transfer, Credit / Debit Card, Neteller, Skril, OkPay, Qiwi, FasaPay, Perfect Money, WebMoney and UnionPay.
FxGlory
FxGlory was founded in 2011 and is registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines which is a popular destination for online forex and CFD brokers. The Broker is not regulated by any financial watchdog which means that there is not any authority that oversees the financial services offered by FxGlory.
FxGlory provides the state of the art trading platform MetaTrader4 (MT4) to provide access to the financial markets for its clients. When you open a trading account at FxGlory, you will be able to invest in currency, commodity and oil markets.
FxGlory Account Types
FxGlory provides 4 different types of trading accounts to cater for its diversified clientele base. These account types are Standard Account, Premium Account, VIP Account and CIP Account. The clients get the same fixed spreads and high leverage on Standard and Premium accounts. Micro lots are only offered on Standard accounts. On the other hand, VIP and CIP accounts come with lower leverage compared to Standard and Premium accounts but also with lower trading fees.
FxGlory Customer Support
Local customer support is available for 6 countries in their native languages. Clients can reach the support team vio email, web contact form, live chat and phone.
FxGlory Trading Platforms
FxGlory provides the MetaTrader 4 trading platform to its clients for free. Because of its reliability and execution speed, the MT4 has always been popular among traders and forex brokers.
FxGlory Withdraw and Deposit Methods
FxGlory clients can deposit and withdraw funds through an abundance of methods. Those methods are Wire Transfer, Credit / Debit Card, Neteller, Skril, Payza, WebMoney, EPay, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Perfect Money and SticPay.
LMFX
LMFX is an offshore forex broker that was founded in 2015. A company named Global Trade Partners Ltd. owns LMFX and the parent company is located in North Macedonia according to Terms of Business file. Besides, there is another company called GTP Global Solutions Ltdw which is based in Sts Vincent and Grenadines that provides payment services for LMFX. Thus, LMFX is associated with two different entities of which one is located in North Macedonia and other is located in St. Vincent and Granedines.
LMFX Account Types
LMFX gives its customers a choice of three different account types for different trading style and experience. Those accounts are Premium Account, Zero Account and Fixed Account.
LMFX Customer Support
LMFX assists its clients through various methods including live chat, email, web contact form and phone. The support team is swift to respond to the questions with informative content. Their web site features an education section where traders are able to access economic calendar and several forex calculators. Those two tools are very handy for veteran traders however, the web site lacks the educational and informational material for novice traders.
LMFX Trading Platforms
MetaTrader 4 is the trading platform provided by LMFX to its clients without extra charge. The Broker does not offer any other trading platform which makes LMFX a MetaTrader 4 only broker. MT4 has become a standard in the forex industry due to its reliability, charting tools, indicators and other free features.
LMFX Withdraw and Deposit Methods
Clients of LMFX are able to deposit or withdraw funds via wire transfer, credit card, debit card, Neteller, Skrill, fasapay and VLOAD. Since LMFX is not a regulated forex broker, the potential clients are recommended to deposit required minimum deposit at first instead of risking a bigger amount. Following the broker gained your trust and you are feeling more comfortable with their services, you may deposit further.
Started trading demo account with forexcom when i was at college back in 2015. Since i master the tricks of the fx trade thanks to their demo and in 2018 i opened real live trading acct with few hundred dollars. There were some initial good and bad trades too however i keep my eyes on trading opportunities all the time. whenever i see favorable trends i surf with it and pretty succeed in making profits.
Generally speaking, I can say that I am very pleased with the work of Forex.com. The client panel is easy to use and there is everything there that I need. The trading conditions are good – the spreads are one of the lowest. Qualified support which is very important for me. You can always ask for their help when you need.
Fxchoice is worth to trade with. They try to make things easier. Their spreads changed only with when news released, because I traded with other brokers and their spreads increased without now reason, this is unfair I think. And withdrawals are really mean profit which you can earn, not just a word, you know.
Does FxChoice offer PAMM accounts for US residents? While it’s hard to find a broker who accepts us clients but i need PAMM accounts or which broker you advice for PAMM in th world?
FXTM is one of the best in terms of PAMM accounts. Give it a shot.
I dont really understand how the hell in this earth US can ban companies in other countries from accepting US customers? For example, say that I am US citizen and I want to open account with a CySEC regulated broker, but they warned me that they cant accept clients from the US. Why? Have US and Cyprus governments made an agreement about it?
which broker is more trusted,,, I am not US citizen but I reside in California, many forex broker tell me I cant open account, AAFX or Fxchoice?
There is no comparison with FXchoice and AAAFX. Fxchoice is one of the best brokers in the world i have ever seen
CFTC should go after those bankers who made their pockets deep between 2002 – 2009… not the forex brokers.