#1
Marex Group
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2005SFC
Regulation
License
Spread
91.3Score
216 brokers in the WIKILIX records give a registered address in the United Kingdom, and this page lists every one of them in score order. A UK address is the only thing they all share. It is not proof of an FCA licence, and it says nothing about whether a firm will take you on as a client: 114 of the 216 hold a licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, 102 do not, and 41 list no regulator at all.
That gap is why a domicile list is worth reading slowly. The register runs from Marex, the highest-scoring firm here at 91.3 and licensed by the FCA, SFC and NFA, down to shell brands that share nothing with it but a London postcode. The oldest name is Bank of Scotland, on record since 1695, followed by the asset manager Schroder from 1804 and Santander UK from 1857. Beside them sit the London Metal Exchange and the LBMA, institutions that are not retail brokers at all yet carry a UK address in the data.
What "based in the United Kingdom" means here, and what it does not
This list is built on one thing: the country recorded as a broker's headquarters. It does not filter on where a firm is licensed, and it does not filter on which nationalities it accepts. Those two questions matter more than the address for most traders, and neither can be answered from this page alone. A firm can be registered at a serviced office in London while running its live accounts through an entity in Saint Vincent or Vanuatu, and several here do exactly that.
So read the licence column, not the flag. Of the 216, 132 carry at least one tier-1 licence and 81 are authorised by two or more separate regulators, most often the FCA paired with ASIC, CySEC or SFC. At the other end, 120 firms carry a WIKILIX status flag: 51 recorded with no regulation, 37 as a suspicious clone of a licensed name, 23 as offshore, 8 as exceeding their permissions, and one, HTFX, as an outright scam. Trading Space scores 83.1 and quotes an FCA reference yet still carries a clone warning, which is the plainest reminder that a high place on a domicile list is not an endorsement.
Who you will not find here
Many of the names UK traders know best are absent, because their head office is somewhere else. A broker that serves London clients through an FCA-authorised branch while keeping its headquarters in Australia, Cyprus or Israel belongs on its home country's list, not this one. If you are choosing by licence rather than by address, the FCA's own register is where an authorisation is confirmed, and our onshore and tier-1 rankings reach the same firms from the licence side instead.
Why the address still tells you something
A UK head office puts a firm within reach of the FCA and, for the authorised entity only, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects eligible claims up to £85,000 if the firm fails. It also explains the leverage spread here. Recorded maximums run from 1:1, for banks and money managers such as Mizuho and GFFM, up to 1:2000 for offshore-facing brands, far above the 1:30 the FCA allows on UK retail forex. That high figure almost always belongs to a non-UK entity trading under the same name.
Before you rely on a UK address
- Find the exact legal entity on the FCA register and match its firm reference number to the one the broker quotes, not just the trading name.
- Check which entity your account agreement names: a UK holding company can sit above an offshore operating company that actually holds your money.
- Confirm the leverage you are offered against the entity you sign with, since a 1:30 UK cap and a 1:500 offshore cap can share one website.
- Treat any status flag on this page as a reason to read the FCA's warnings and the firm's own disclosures before depositing.
236brokers on this list
Researched & ranked by the Wikilix team
- #2
Market Securities
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2007NFA
RegulationLicenseSpread89.7Score - #3
ED&F Man Capital Markets
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2012FCARegulationLicenseSpread85.3Score - #4
Ebury Partners Markets Ltd
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2009DFSA
RegulationLicenseSpread84.8Score - #5
Hoxton Capital Management
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2023SECRegulationLicenseSpread83.5Score - #6
Trading Space UK Ltd
Suspicious CloneUnited KingdomEst. 2021FCARegulationLicenseSpread83.1Score - #7
Hantec Markets Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2009FCARegulationLicenseSpread83.1Score - #8
Trading.com Markets UK Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2015CySEC
RegulationLicenseSpread82.4Score - #9
Griffin Markets
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2011ACPR
RegulationLicenseSpread82.1Score - #10
CBCX MARKETS LIMITED
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 2011FCA
RegulationLicenseSpread80.9Score - #11
Santander UK plc
ExceededUnited KingdomEst. 1857FCARegulationLicenseSpread80.5Score - #12
GF Financial Markets (UK) Limited
RegulatedUnited KingdomEst. 1976SFCRegulationLicenseSpread80.5Score
This list is generated from the address WIKILIX holds for each firm, so it changes whenever a broker is added, relocates its head office, or has a new licence recorded against it. The order can move from month to month, but the boundary does not: it is drawn on where a firm is registered, and the licence column is where the real decision sits.
To confirm any authorisation, search the firm's reference number on the FCA Financial Services Register and read any published warnings before you deposit. If you would rather compare by home country, the neighbouring lists for brokers based in Australia, Cyprus and Ireland cover the jurisdictions where UK groups most often place their overseas entities. The United States and United Arab Emirates lists round out the major centres if you are mapping where a group's entities actually sit. Each of these pages is rechecked on the same schedule as this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions
Answers from the Wikilix research team about this ranking.
Most Popular Questions
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme protects eligible claims up to £85,000 per person, but only for the entity that is actually authorised by the FCA. If your account sits with an offshore company in the same group, the scheme does not apply, even when the parent is a well-known UK name. Confirm on the FCA register which specific entity holds your money before assuming any compensation cover exists.
No. Being registered in the United Kingdom is not a safety mark on its own. Of the 216 firms here, 120 carry a WIKILIX status flag: 51 are recorded with no regulation, 37 as suspicious clones of licensed names, 23 as offshore, 8 as exceeding their permissions, and one as a scam. A UK address next to any of those flags should raise more questions, not fewer.
Because the figure usually belongs to a non-UK entity. The FCA caps retail forex leverage at 1:30 for the accounts its authorisation covers, but several firms here run offshore arms under the same brand, and recorded maximums on this list reach 1:2000. If a UK-based broker advertises leverage well above 1:30, you are almost certainly being offered an account with an overseas entity rather than the FCA-regulated one.
This page cannot tell you. It is built on where each firm is registered, not on which nationalities it accepts, and the two are separate questions the data does not connect. A UK-headquartered broker may serve traders in one country and turn away another entirely, often depending on which of its entities holds your account. Check the broker's own terms and the relevant local regulator for who it is allowed to take on.
Bank of Scotland is the oldest, on record since 1695. The asset manager Schroder follows from 1804 and Santander UK from 1857, and 56 of the 216 firms here opened before 2010. Age is not a safety guarantee: Santander carries an exceeded-permissions flag in our records despite its long history, so treat opening date as context rather than a rating.
No. A registered address only tells you where a firm keeps its head office. Among the 216 UK-based brokers here, 102 hold no FCA licence and 41 record no regulator whatsoever, yet all of them can quote a London address. Some run their live accounts through entities in Saint Vincent or Vanuatu while the UK company sits above them, so the address and the licence need to be checked separately.
Of the 216 firms based in the United Kingdom, 114 hold an FCA licence. Marex, ED&F Man and Ebury sit at the top of that group by WIKILIX score, and IG holds licences from eight separate regulators. Holding an FCA licence is not the same as being headquartered in the UK, so confirm the exact authorised entity on the FCA register before you treat any name here as UK regulated.
WIKILIX has 216 brokers on record with a registered address in the United Kingdom. They range from FTSE-listed firms and clearing banks to small offshore-facing brands that share only a London postcode. Of the 216, 114 hold a licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, 102 do not, and 41 list no regulator at all, so the total on its own tells you less than the licence behind each name.