FinCEN Registered Forex Brokers

Thirty-two brokers in the WIKILIX database hold a FinCEN registration and carry a clean status label. FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, is a bureau of the US Treasury, and its register is an anti money laundering list of money services businesses. It is not a trading licence. Appearing on it does not mean a firm is authorised to take retail forex clients anywhere.

That gap is the reason this page exists. Of the 63 brokers in our records that hold a FinCEN registration, 31 carry a scam, clone or no-regulation flag, so the list here is narrowed to the 32 whose overall status is currently clean. A FinCEN entry proves that a company filed as a money services business with the Treasury. It says nothing about how that company prices trades or protects the money you deposit.

What a FinCEN registration covers, and what it leaves out

MSB registration is a filing, not an approval. A company registers itself and FinCEN records the filing. There is no capital test and no conduct supervision attached to it. That is why the register puts established names next to brand-new shells. Robinhood, which opened in 2013 and also holds SEC and FCA licences, sits on the same list as firms incorporated in Saint Lucia this year that hold nothing else.

Fifteen of the 32 brokers here also hold a licence from a major markets regulator such as the FCA, ASIC or Singapore's MAS. Ten hold a FinCEN registration and nothing else in our records, and the remaining seven pair it with lower-tier or offshore licences. Reading which licences sit beside the FinCEN entry is the quickest way to tell those groups apart.

Who a reader expects here, and will not find

A lot of search traffic for this term comes from people who mean "brokers regulated in the USA". A FinCEN registration is not that. Only six of these 32 firms are actually headquartered in the United States, and five are registered in Saint Lucia. The register also says nothing about who a broker accepts as a client. A firm can hold a FinCEN MSB entry and still refuse US residents, or take them on without the CFTC and NFA authorisation that US retail forex requires. If US forex oversight is what you are after, the NFA register is the one to read, not this one.

Many names here are crypto and payments businesses rather than margin-forex houses, which is what an MSB register naturally collects. Kraken and BitMart are exchanges. TransferWise and Uphold are payments companies. Their FinCEN entry reflects money transmission, so a blank leverage figure on those cards is expected rather than a hole in the data.

Reading the register before you deposit

• Confirm the MSB filing yourself on the FinCEN MSB registrant search, using the legal entity name rather than the brand.
• Check whether the same firm holds a conduct licence, such as one from the FCA or ASIC, that actually governs client money. FinCEN does not.
• Match the registered legal entity to the one that will hold your deposit, because several firms here trade under a name that differs from the registered company.
• Treat a card listing FinCEN and nothing else as offshore until shown otherwise. Ten of these firms are in exactly that position.
• If you are a US resident, verify CFTC and NFA status separately, since a FinCEN entry does not cover retail forex there.