Top 10 Brokers Based in Cyprus, Ranked by WIKILIX Score

Ten brokers hold the highest WIKILIX scores among the 52 firms headquartered in Cyprus that clear 50 points, and this page ranks them by that score. Magic Compass, listed as MC900, leads at 77.5, and the order runs down to HF Markets (HFM) at 58.3. Every name here keeps a registered office in Cyprus, reads as regulated rather than flagged on our records, and holds at least one tier-1 licence.

What "based in Cyprus" means here, and what it does not

This list is built on domicile, the country where a broker's company is registered, which for all ten is Cyprus. That is a narrower claim than most comparison pages make. A broker can hold a Cyprus licence without being a Cyprus company, and plenty of the firms sold elsewhere as "Cyprus brokers" are registered in London or on an offshore island and only passport a CySEC entity into Europe. Those are not on this page. The reverse matters more for your money: several firms here are Cyprus-registered but run an offshore arm as well, so the entity that actually opens your account can sit outside Cyprus even when the brand does not.

Leverage is where that split turns concrete. IronFX and HFM show a ceiling of 1:1000 in our records, but that figure belongs to their non-EU entities. A client taken on by the Cyprus company answers to European rules, which cap retail forex at 1:30. Numisma sits at the other end at 1:1, because it operates as an investment firm rather than a leveraged CFD shop. Read the leverage column as the group's highest offering, not the number you will get from the Cyprus office.

What put a broker on this list, and what kept one off

The order is the WIKILIX score, highest first. Beyond that, a name qualified only if its recorded status reads as regulated rather than flagged. That one rule removed 16 of the 52 Cyprus-based firms scoring 50 or higher: 15 we have marked as a suspicious clone and one as offshore. The second-highest score in the whole set was among the names dropped. We also collapsed a duplicate record for Magic Compass into the single higher-scored entry, so the same brand does not appear twice. What remains are ten firms with a live regulatory record and, in every case, a tier-1 licence such as the FCA, which eight of the ten hold.

A Cyprus licence is issued by CySEC and carries real weight inside Europe. It brings a broker under MiFID rules and keeps client money separate from the firm's own funds. Retail accounts also fall under the Investor Compensation Fund, which covers eligible claims up to 20,000 euro if the firm fails. That licence does not vouch for pricing or execution, and it says nothing about an offshore entity the same group may run.

The names just outside the ten

A reader scanning other Cyprus lists will expect a few firms that are missing here, and the reason is the flag rather than the score. XSpot Wealth scored 74.4, second only to MC900, but carries a suspicious-clone marker. Just2Trade at 66.1, FXOpen at 62.0 and Easy Markets at 61.6 sit in the same spot: high enough to place, held back by status. They are real companies with CySEC records, and the flag is our own recorded label, not a verdict on the firm. Check each one yourself before you read anything into it.

The Cyprus pool skews established. Its oldest firm, Renaissance Capital, has traded since 1995, and 14 of the 52 opened before 2010. Half the pool, 26 firms, holds licences from two or more authorities. Before opening an account with any name here:

• Confirm which legal entity your account sits under, and whether it is the Cyprus company or an offshore arm of the same brand.
• Look up the CySEC licence number on the regulator's own register and check it is active, not lapsed or restricted.
• Assume the leverage you are offered follows the entity, so a non-EU arm can exceed the 1:30 European cap by a wide margin.
• Check whether your deposit would fall under the Investor Compensation Fund, which applies to the CySEC entity and not to offshore ones.