Which brokers actually offer the lowest spreads in 2026?
The honest answer depends on whether you are reading a spread figure in isolation or reading it next to the commission that funds it. A broker advertising 0.0 pips almost always means a raw, interbank-style spread with a separate commission charged per lot — the spread number alone is only half the price. A broker advertising 0.6 pips with no commission has simply folded its cost into the spread instead of billing it separately.
A quick definition, since it changes how you read every number below: the spread is the gap between the price you can buy at (ask) and the price you can sell at (bid), quoted in pips on forex or in points on gold. It is the built-in cost of every trade the moment you open it, before the market has moved at all. A pip on a pair like EUR/USD is the fourth decimal place — 0.0001 — and is worth roughly $10 per standard lot (100,000 units); a fraction of a pip, sometimes called a pipette, is the fifth decimal.
Both structures — raw-plus-commission and all-in — can end up cheaper depending on your position size, which is why the table below lines up the two components for every broker we track, rather than ranking them on the spread figure alone.
Spread and commission structure across our 2 regulated brokers
| Broker | Pricing model | Spread from | Commission | Round-turn cost, 1 lot EUR/USD* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pepperstone (Razor) | Raw spread + commission | 0.0 pips | ~$3.50/lot/side | ~$7 |
| Capital.com | All-in, no commission | 0.6 pips | None | ~$6 |
Why a headline 0.0 pip spread is meaningless on its own
A raw spread account gives you pricing close to what the broker itself pays its liquidity providers — often genuinely close to 0.0 pips on EUR/USD during liquid hours. To make money, the broker charges a separate commission per lot, per side (meaning once on the way in, once on the way out). That commission does not show up in the advertised spread figure, which is exactly why a 0.0 pip headline can still cost more than a 0.6 pip all-in account, depending on how much volume you trade.
An all-in spread account does the opposite: no separate commission, but the spread itself is marked up to cover the broker's cost and margin. What you see in the quoted spread is genuinely the whole trading cost — no invoice arrives later.
Neither structure is inherently cheaper. A raw-spread-plus-commission account tends to win at larger position sizes, where the fixed commission is small relative to the trade. An all-in spread account tends to win on very small positions, where a flat commission would weigh disproportionately.
Worked example: what a 1-lot EUR/USD round turn actually costs
A round turn means opening a position and later closing it — the cost is paid once on entry and, on a commission account, again on exit. Take a standard lot (100,000 units) of EUR/USD, where each pip is worth roughly $10. On Pepperstone's Razor account, a 0.0-pip-from spread plus ~$3.50 per lot per side commission works out to roughly $7 per round turn once you open and close the position — even though the spread line alone might read 0.0.
Compare that with Capital.com at 0.6 pips, no commission — a flat ~$6 round turn. On this single-lot example, the all-in account is slightly cheaper than the commission account, not because 0.0 pips is fake, but because the commission adds a fixed cost that a smaller all-in spread does not always beat.
Scale the same math up: at 5 lots, Pepperstone's commission grows linearly to roughly $35, while Capital.com's spread cost also scales linearly to roughly $30. The ranking between accounts does not flip with size in this example, but it can at other brokers depending on how their commission and spread are structured — always run the arithmetic for your own typical size rather than trusting the headline figure.
Worked round-turn cost, 1 standard lot EUR/USD (pip value ~$10)
| Broker (account) | Spread cost | Commission cost | Total round-turn cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pepperstone (Razor) | ~$0 (0.0 pips from) | ~$7 (2 x $3.50) | ~$7 |
| Capital.com (Standard) | ~$6 (0.6 pips) | $0 | ~$6 |
Gold (XAU/USD): spreads run wider, and the commission gap matters more
The same raw-versus-all-in mechanism applies to gold, but the numbers scale up because XAU/USD is priced and provisioned very differently from a major FX pair. Gold spreads are routinely several times wider than EUR/USD's at every broker we track, and a broker's forex commission structure does not automatically translate one-for-one to its gold pricing — some brokers charge a different, often higher, commission on metals.
As an illustrative example rather than a specific broker's published figure: a raw-spread-plus-commission gold trade might run roughly $20 in spread cost plus a $7 commission, for around $27 total, while an all-in spread account on the same trade might run closer to $50 once the wider markup is priced in. The exact numbers vary broker to broker and shift with volatility, which is precisely why the headline spread figure matters even less on gold than it does on EUR/USD — always confirm the live spread and commission for gold specifically before assuming your forex pricing carries over.
Illustrative XAU/USD round-turn cost, raw + commission vs all-in spread (example, not broker-specific)
| Account structure | Spread cost component | Commission component | Approx. total, 1 lot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw spread + commission | ~$20 (tighter raw spread) | ~$7 (per-lot commission) | ~$27 |
| All-in spread | ~$50 (wider marked-up spread) | None | ~$50 |
Lowest spreads for UAE-based traders
For a trader based in the UAE, Pepperstone is the DFSA-regulated option among the two brokers we track. It gives you a genuine choice between an all-in and a commission-based account — Standard (spread-only) against Razor (0.0 pips from plus commission). Which entity actually onboards you, and what leverage and spread conditions apply, depends on your country of registration, so confirm the specific entity at signup rather than assuming the headline figure applies unchanged.
Capital.com holds an onshore UAE licence — a Category One dealing licence (No. 20200000176) from the Capital Market Authority, formerly the SCA, through Capital Com MENA Securities Trading LLC — and prices spread-only from 0.6 pips with no commission. Compare both on cost once you have checked the entity that would onboard you — see how to verify a broker's licence.