The 5-step method to verify any broker's licence
This method takes about five minutes and works for any broker — not just the ones we review. You are checking one thing: does a real regulator confirm, on its own website, that this exact company is licensed to hold your money and take your orders.
- Find the licence or registration number on the broker's own site — footer, "Regulation" or "About" page, or inside the account terms if it isn't advertised prominently
- Identify which regulator issued it — common ones are the FCA (UK), ASIC (Australia), CySEC (Cyprus), the FSC (Mauritius) and the DFSA (Dubai)
- Go to that regulator's own public register and search by the licence number or the company's exact legal name — not the marketing brand
- Confirm the legal entity name matches the entity you would actually be signing a contract with when you open an account
- Check the status field — it should read authorised or licensed and active, not suspended, cancelled or under a warning notice
Where to look up each regulator — the official registers
Every serious regulator runs a free, public, searchable register. If a broker only shows you a certificate image or a PDF, that is not verification — go to the register itself.
Official regulator registers — search these directly, never a certificate image
| Regulator | Country / region | Official public register | What to search |
|---|---|---|---|
| FCA | United Kingdom | Financial Services Register (register.fca.org.uk) | Firm name or FCA reference number |
| ASIC | Australia | ASIC Connect — Professional Registers (asic.gov.au) | Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence number |
| CySEC | Cyprus | CySEC list of Regulated Entities (cysec.gov.cy) | Licence number or company name |
| FSC Mauritius | Mauritius | FSC Mauritius licensee search (fscmauritius.org) | Company name or licence number |
| DFSA | UAE (Dubai) | DFSA Public Register (dfsa.ae) | Firm name or DFSA reference number |
| NFA / CFTC (US) | United States | NFA BASIC — Background Affiliation Status Information Center (nfa.futures.org) | NFA ID or firm name, then confirm CFTC registration |
Match the legal entity name — not just the brand
Many brokers operate several legal entities under one brand, each licensed in a different jurisdiction with different protections. A broker can be genuinely regulated by a tier-one authority in one country and still open your account through a separate, more lightly regulated entity if you sign up from a different region.
XM, for example, holds licences across several entities — the DFSA in Dubai, ASIC in Australia, CySEC in Cyprus and the FSC in Belize. Which one actually onboards you depends on where you register from, and each carries different investor protections. This is normal for global brokers, but it means the name on the register has to match the name in your account-opening documents — not just the brand name at the top of the page. See our XM review for how its licence structure breaks down.
Check which entity your account actually opens under
During sign-up, the terms and conditions or account agreement will state the exact legal entity you are contracting with — usually in the opening paragraph or a "parties" clause. Read that before you fund anything.
If the entity named in your account agreement is different from the regulated entity shown in the broker's marketing or homepage, stop and ask why. It can be entirely legitimate — global brokers route different countries to different licensed entities — but you need to look up that specific entity, not the one used in the advertising, on the correct register.