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FCA-Regulated Brokers 2026

FCA-Regulated Brokers 2026: The Register, FSCS Limits and Clone Firms

What FCA regulation actually gives a UK trader: how to check the Financial Services Register, what the £85,000 FSCS limit covers, and spotting clone firms.

At a glance

FCA authorisation means a firm must segregate your money, cap your leverage, publish its loss rate and answer to the Financial Ombudsman. If it fails, the FSCS covers investments to £85,000 and deposits to £120,000. It does not cover your trading losses, and it does not cover crypto at all.

  • The deposit limit changed. It rose from £85,000 to £120,000 on 1 December 2025. Most comparison sites still print the old figure.
  • Two limits, two situations. £85,000 if the investment firm fails; £120,000 if the bank holding the cash fails. They are not interchangeable.
  • Check the firm, then check the permission. A firm can be authorised for one activity and not the one you are buying.
  • Clone firms copy the real firm’s FRN. A matching reference number proves nothing on its own — the contact details are what expose a clone.
  • “Appointed Representative” is not the same as authorised. The FCA warns you may lose FSCS and Ombudsman cover if an AR exceeds what its principal allowed.

What does FCA regulation actually give a UK trader?

Four concrete things, and it is worth being precise because the phrase is used loosely in broker marketing.

What it does not give you. FCA authorisation does not make a broker good, does not vet its pricing, and does not protect you from losing money on a trade. The FSCS is explicit: it covers firm failure, not market losses. A regulated broker with a 77% loss rate is still a broker with a 77% loss rate.

  • Client money segregation. Your money is held separately from the firm’s own funds, so it is not available to the firm’s general creditors if it fails.
  • Leverage caps. Retail CFD leverage is capped by rule, not by broker choice. Any UK-facing firm offering more than 30:1 on major currency pairs to a retail client is not doing so under FCA permission.
  • Mandatory loss disclosure. Every firm must publish the percentage of its retail accounts that lose money, in prescribed wording.
  • Access to redress. The Financial Ombudsman Service for complaints, and the FSCS if the firm fails.

The current retail leverage caps

These are identical at every FCA-authorised firm because they are a rule rather than a feature. If you see 1:500 advertised to a UK resident, you are looking at an offshore entity of the same brand, and the protections on this page do not apply to it.

Table 1 — FCA retail leverage caps (COBS 22.5.11R)

Table 1 — FCA retail leverage caps (COBS 22.5.11R)
Asset classMaximum leverage for a UK retail client
Major currency pairs30:1
Non-major currency pairs, gold, major indices20:1
Commodities other than gold, non-major indices10:1
Individual equities5:1
Cryptoassets2:1 — and retail crypto derivatives are restricted

How do you check a broker on the FCA register?

The FCA publishes a four-step process, and step three is the one people skip.

Firm Checker or the FS Register? The FCA distinguishes them. Use the Firm Checker before you buy a product. Use the Financial Services Register to search for an individual, or to find out whether a firm was previously authorised.

A firm reference number (FRN) is the unique identifier. The FCA uses 6-digit and 7-digit numbers, having begun issuing 7-digit FRNs in 2023 — so a 7-digit number is not a red flag.

  • Search for the firm by name on the FCA Firm Checker.
  • Select the product or service you are looking for.
  • Check the firm is authorised and has permission for that specific product or service. Authorisation is not general — a firm may hold permission for one activity and not another.
  • Check the contact details on the Firm Checker match the details you were given. This is the step that catches clones.

The UK entities and reference numbers

Check each of these yourself rather than taking them from us — that is the entire point of the register. Note that several of these brands also operate non-UK entities, and the entity you are onboarded to determines your protection.

Table 2 — UK entities and FCA firm reference numbers

Table 2 — UK entities and FCA firm reference numbers
FirmUK legal entityFRN
PepperstonePepperstone Limited (Co. 08965105)684312
Capital.comCapital Com (UK) Limited (Co. 10506220)793714
IGIG Markets Ltd (Co. 04008957)195355
Trading 212Trading 212 UK Ltd (Co. 8590005)609146
eToroeToro (UK) Ltd (Co. 07973792)583263
CMC MarketsCMC Markets UK plc (Co. 02448409)173730

What are clone firms, and how do you spot one?

A clone firm is a scam that impersonates a genuine authorised firm. The FCA’s own description is the important part: clones “often use the name and address of a genuine firm, or they may copy the firm reference number”.

So a matching FRN proves nothing by itself. This is the single most common mistake. Someone checks the number, finds it on the register, and treats that as verification — when the number was copied from the real firm precisely so that it would check out. The contact details are the test. Call the phone number listed on the FCA register, not the one in the email you received.

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What do the FSCS limits actually cover?

Check the date on any source quoting £85,000 for deposits. The deposit limit rose to £120,000 on 1 December 2025. A great many comparison pages, and some brokers’ own help articles, still carry the old number. The investment limit is unchanged at £85,000 — which is why the two are so easily confused.

Table 3 — FSCS protection

Table 3 — FSCS protection
SituationLimitWhat it means
Investment firm fails and there is a shortfall in your assets or client money£85,000Per eligible person, per firm
Bank holding the cash fails£120,000Per eligible person, per banking group — raised from £85,000 on 1 December 2025
Joint accounts£120,000 eachThe deposit limit applies per eligible person
Your trade loses money£0Not covered, in any circumstance

What the FSCS does not cover

Three exclusions matter to anyone trading, and the FSCS states all three plainly.

The practical consequence. A single account at a single firm can hold assets with three different levels of protection at once: shares covered to £85,000, cash covered to £120,000 at the underlying bank, and crypto covered by nothing. Most people assume one number covers the account.

Check a broker before you deposit, not after

Pepperstone Limited is authorised and regulated by the FCA under firm reference number 684312 — verify it on the FCA Firm Checker, then test the platform on a free demo before committing capital.

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Pepperstone Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA, firm reference number 684312

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 72.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Pepperstone Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference 684312). 72.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. Capital.com publishes 65% under the FCA. This is a paid affiliate link: we may earn a commission if you open an account. It does not change our ranking or what we publish.

  • Market losses. The scheme exists for firm failure. If your position goes against you, there is no claim.
  • Cryptoassets — entirely. In the FSCS’s words: the FCA “does not regulate most cryptoassets, so FSCS cannot protect you if a platform that exchanges or holds them goes out of business.” This applies even when the platform itself is an FCA-registered firm, because crypto registration is an anti-money-laundering registration rather than full authorisation.
  • Unregulated activities at regulated firms. The FSCS requires that the regulator authorised the provider and regulated the service and product it provided. Both, not either.

What is an Appointed Representative, and why does it matter?

The register shows several statuses and they are not equivalent. An Appointed Representative is not directly authorised — it carries out activities on behalf of an authorised firm, its principal, which agrees what the AR may do and is responsible for that business.

The FCA’s warning is worth quoting in full, because the consequence is severe: if an AR “has gone beyond the activities the principal has allowed, you may not be protected by the Financial Ombudsman or the FSCS if something goes wrong.” So an AR arrangement can leave you outside both redress routes, in circumstances you have no way of observing from outside.

Reading the loss percentage properly

Every FCA-authorised CFD provider must publish this line in prescribed wording:

“CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. [X]% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.”

Two things to understand about the figure. It is per account, not per client — someone with three accounts appears three times. And it counts accounts that lost money over the period, not the size of the losses, so a firm whose clients lose small amounts often can show a worse number than one whose clients lose catastrophically but rarely.

It remains the single most useful number on any broker’s website, because it is the only one the firm is compelled to publish and cannot frame.

Table 4 — Published UK retail loss rates

Table 4 — Published UK retail loss rates
FirmPublished rateEntity named?
Trading 21277%Yes — Trading 212 UK Ltd clients
eToro51%Yes — eToro (UK) Ltd clients
Pepperstone72.9%Footer identifies Pepperstone Limited, FRN 684312

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CFDs and spread bets are complex instruments and carry a high risk of losing money rapidly. Signals are analyst opinions, not investment advice.

Written and reviewed by
Best Trading Signal — editorial & analysis team

We review brokers on licensing, cost and withdrawals — and state the cons, not just the pros. How our signals are produced · Risk Warning and Disclosure · Last updated 12 September 2026

Frequently asked questions

Search the firm by name on the FCA Firm Checker, select the product you want, confirm the firm holds permission for that specific product, then check that the contact details shown match the ones you were given. The last step is what catches clone firms.

£85,000 for investments if the firm fails, and £120,000 for deposits if the bank holding your cash fails. The deposit limit rose from £85,000 on 1 December 2025, so any source quoting £85,000 for deposits is out of date. Joint account holders each get the full £120,000.

No. The FSCS covers firm failure, not market losses. If your position moves against you there is no claim, regardless of how the firm is regulated. This is the most common misunderstanding about what regulation provides.

No, and not at any firm. The FCA does not regulate most cryptoassets, so the FSCS cannot protect you if a platform holding them fails. A firm can be FCA-registered for crypto under the money laundering regulations and still leave your holdings entirely outside the scheme — the registration is an anti-money-laundering one, not full authorisation.

30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on gold and major indices, 10:1 on other commodities and minor indices, 5:1 on individual shares and 2:1 on cryptoassets. These are FCA rules, identical at every authorised firm. Higher leverage advertised to UK residents comes from an offshore entity to which none of these protections apply.

A unique identifier the FCA assigns to each authorised firm, used to search the register. It may be six or seven digits — the FCA began issuing seven-digit numbers in 2023, so length alone tells you nothing about legitimacy. Nor does a matching FRN, since clone firms copy them deliberately.

Not necessarily. An AR acts on behalf of an authorised principal that decides what it may do. The FCA warns that if an AR exceeds those permitted activities, you may not be protected by the Financial Ombudsman or the FSCS. Check the register for the firm’s status, not just its presence.

No. It means the firm must segregate client money, cap leverage, publish its loss rate and provide access to redress. It says nothing about pricing, execution quality or service. Regulation is a floor, not a recommendation — and the published loss rates make that plain.

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CFDs, spread bets and forex are complex, leveraged products and carry a high risk of losing money rapidly — our signals are analyst opinions, not guaranteed profits, and past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Last updated 12 September 2026

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