ActivTrades Review 2023

ActivTrades trading fees

ActivTrades trading fees are low.

We compared ActivTrades's fees with those of Admirals (Admiral Markets) and FxPro, two similar brokers selected by our analysts. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. We also drew up a more detailed rundown of ActivTrades alternatives.

CFD fees

ActivTrades has generally low CFD trading fees.

Forex fees

ActivTrades forex fees are low.

For a comprehensive comparison of forex fees charged by various brokers, use BrokerChooser's FX fee calculator.

Non-trading fees

ActivTrades has low non-trading fees.

If the account is not used for over 1 year and there is a remaining balance, a fee of £10 per month will be charged.

ActivTrades also has a currency conversion fee of 0.3%. This fee applies to the conversion of the closed profit and loss from an instrument with a different quote currency than the account base currency.

How we ranked fees

We ranked ActivTrades's fees as low, average or high based on how they compare to those charged by all the brokers reviewed by us.

There are two basic types of broker fees:

• Trading fees are charged when you trade and may include commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, such as withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

Can you open an account?

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63-81% of retail CFD accounts lose money

What is the minimum deposit at ActivTrades?

The required ActivTrades minimum deposit is $0.

Account types

ActivTrades offers various account types for retail and corporate clients as well as Islamic accounts.

• individual account - account is owned by a retail investor
• institutional account - account is owned by a legal entity
• Islamic account - it has no overnight rollover interest, nor additional rollover commissions

How to open your account

The account opening process was fully digital, fast, and easy. The account was verified within a day.
The account opening process starts with selecting your country of residence and adding basic personal information, including your name, email address, and password.
Based on your country of residence, ActivTrades may offer to change the entity you would like to register at. This is significant because the entity affects your investor protection, and products and fees may also be different.
Then you have to go through a four-step registration process.

• Account holder information: personal details, tax residency, home address
• Trading experience: how long you have been trading CFDs, the number of trades, the average lot size per trade
• Financial and account information: employment status, income and savings, source of funds, trading preferences
• Trading account setup: choose your trading platform, base currency

Finally, you have to add some documents (ID or passport, bank statement or utility bill, etc) and a photo for client verification.

Account base currencies

At ActivTrades, you can choose from the following 4 base currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, CHF.

ActivTrades's account base currency range is narrow, as minor currencies are not available.

This selection falls behind competing brokers. Both Admirals (Admiral Markets) and FxPro offer more base currencies.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you won't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. These usually offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates, as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

Compare digital banks

Deposit fees and options

ActivTrades charges no deposit fees.

The deposit is free for bank transfers and electronic wallets. Credt/debit card deposits are charged with a 0.5% fee in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA) and 1.5% for non-EEA clients. The EEA includes EU countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is instant. You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

ActivTrades supports the following electronic wallets:

• Neteller
• Skrill
• AstroPay
• Sofort

Sofort and Paypal are only available to UK/EEA clients.

ActivTrades withdrawal fees and options

ActivTrades charges no withdrawal fees for credit/debit cards and electronic wallets.
Bank transfers are also free in most currencies at the UK/EEA entities, but USD bank transfers cost $12.50 per withdrawal. At the Bahamian entity, however, all bank transfers carry a £9 fee.

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

How long does it take to withdraw money from ActivTrades? We tested the credit card/bank transfer withdrawal and it took more than 3 business days.

How do you withdraw money from ActivTrades?

• Go to your Personal Area in ActivTrades.
• Click on 'Make a withdrawal' under Transactions.
• Choose the account and the amount.
• Enter or change the bank details if required.
• Click 'Proceed'.

ActivTrades offers the following trading platforms:

• ActivTrades's own trading platform, called ActivTrader
• Third-party platforms: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5 and TradingView

If you already have an ActivTrades account, you can either use one of the MetaTrader platforms to trade or you can connect your account to TradingView.

We tested ActivTrades's own platform for this review.

The web trading platform is available in several languages.

Look and feel

ActivTrades's web trading platform is user-friendly and well-designed.
Customizability is average, as some features cannot be moved around on the platform. The search bar and the portfolio report features are, for instance, fixed.

Login and security

ActivTrades provides a safer, two-step login.

Search functions

The search functions are good.

You can search for the name of the asset and there are search categories, too, like forex, cash index, etc.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing stop

If you are unfamiliar with some of these terms or want to learn more, read our overview of order types.

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til time (GTT)

Alerts and notifications

You cannot set price alerts and notifications on the ActivTrades web trading platform.

Notifications on the changes to your account, when for example an order is executed, are available.

Portfolio and fee reports

ActivTrades has clear fee reports.

You can see the commission, swap fees, and the performance of your portfolio. A right-click on the 'History' tab will take you to a website, where, you can download the reports, but only in HTML format. An Excel or CSV format would be preferable.

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ActivTrades has its own mobile trading platform besides MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. In this review, we tested ActivTrades's own mobile app.

Look and feel

ActivTrades's mobile trading platform is user-friendly and well-designed.

Login and security

ActivTrades provides only a one-step login for its mobile platform. A two-step authentication would be more secure and adding this feature should be high on any company's list of security changes.

You can log in using biometric authentication, which is a convenient feature.

Search functions

The search functions are good.

Placing orders

You can use the following order types on the mobile trading platform:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing Stop

There is a single order time limit you can use: Good 'til canceled (GTC).

Alerts and notifications

You cannot set alerts and notifications on the ActivTrades mobile platform.

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63-81% of retail CFD accounts lose money

ActivTrades doesn't have an in-house developed desktop trading platform, it uses the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. These are third-party trading platforms. We tested MetaTrader 4 because it's more popular.

The desktop trading platform is available in many languages.

Look and feel

ActivTrades's desktop trading platform has great customizability.It is easy to change the size and position of the tabs.
However, the platform feels outdated and some features are hard to find. For example, it took some time until we found how to add an asset to the watchlist.

Login and security

ActivTrades provides only a one-step login. A two-step authentication would be more secure and adding this feature should be high on any company's list of security changes.

Search functions

The search functions are OK.

You can find the assets in categories. However, categorization is a bit confusing as there are several forex categories. We also missed the usual search function when you can type in the asset names manually.

Placing orders

The following order types are available on the desktop platform::

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing Stop

There are also order time limits you can use on the desktop platform:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til time (GTT)

Alerts and notifications

You can set alerts and notifications on the desktop trading platform.

Alerts and notifications are n the form of email, push notifications to mobile, or notification to the desktop platform.
To set email or mobile notifications, you have to add your email address and your mobile MetaQuotes ID (it can be found in the MT4 app's settings). You can add them if you go to 'Tools' and then 'Options'.

Portfolio and fee reports

ActivTrades has clear fee reports.

It is easy to find your profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid. These reports can be found under the 'Account History' tab: right-click on a position, then choose 'Save as Detailed Report'.

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63-81% of retail CFD accounts lose money

ActivTrades is a CFD and forex broker. If you're not familiar with CFDs, read this article.
ActivTrades has a limited product portfolio. You can trade mainly CFDs and forex products. Cryptocurrency CFDs are also available, but only for those under the Bahamas-regulated entity.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 63-81% 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.

Leverage

You can change leverage levels, which is great. Changing the leverage is a useful feature when you want to lower the risk of your trade. Be careful with forex and CFD trading, as the preset leverage levels are high.
ActivTrades offers access to 10 stock CFD markets. This is an average selection compared to its competitors.

Research tools are available on the website and on the trading platform. We've tested the research tools only on ActivTrades's own platform.

Trading ideas

ActivTrades does not provide trading ideas.

There are some short market analysis articles and videos on the website. These are commentaries rather than deep insights into certain developments. They don't include clear trade ideas or recommendations.

Fundamental data

ActivTrades does not offer fundamental data.

Charting

ActivTrades has good charting tools. You can use 103 technical indicators.

News feed

There is an economic calendar on the website, under the 'Markets' tab. The calendar helps clients monitor the most important events all over the world. You can filter the news by countries, even types, and impact. On the downside, there's no historical data to these events. You cannot look up, for example, historical US inflation data.

Other research tools you may enjoy

There are other technical tools, like Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which help implement an automated trading strategy. APIs allow traders to directly connect their screening software with their broker account to place orders.
You can see the number of long/short (buy/sell) positions in the search bar. This is a good sentiment indicator to gauge the market mood.

Compare research pros and cons

You can contact ActivTrades via:

• live chat
• phone
• email

ActivTrades has a slow live chat. The relevance of the answers was not satisfactory. They ask for contact details (email, phone) before answering, which we found a bit annoying.
ActivTrades's phone support was slow but once we got through we received relevant answers. The agent was very helpful, providing detailed answers to our questions.
We did not receive answers however to our email queries.
We also missed 24/7 availability, as customer service is only available 24/5.

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63-81% of retail CFD accounts lose money

At ActivTrades you can learn through the following ways:

• Demo account
• Platform tutorial videos
• General educational videos
• Webinars
• Quality educational articles

We think that the demo accounts are the most useful because they allow you to become familiar with the platform and its features without any risks.
ActivTrades provide one to one training, where you can chat with an expert online. This is a personalized education session to help you understand the main features of the trading platform. This is a very special service, as individual coaching is not at all common at other brokers.

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63-81% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Is ActivTrades regulated?

Yes, it is regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) of Luxembourg, and The Securities Commission of the Bahamas.

Is ActivTrades safe?

To be certain that a brokerage is safe, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• the background of the broker.

How you are protected

ActivTrades has three entities that are all regulated. The amount of investor protection depends on where you open an account.

ActivTrades provides negative balance protection. If the balance on your account goes into negative, you will be protected.
In addition to the protection that for example UK retail investors get by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), ActivTrades has purchased, at no direct cost to clients, separate insurance protection from Lloyd’s of London. This provides up to £/$/€ 1 million per client additional coverage and applies to all clients, regardless of which entity they are under.

Background

ActivTrades was established in 2001. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.
Being regulated by the top-tier FCA and being in operation for a long time are all great signs for ActivTrades's safety.

Find your safe broker

We recommend ActivTrades for forex and CFD traders looking for low fees and great deposit/withdrawal conditions.

Below you can find links to all aspects of ActivTrades in this comprehensive collection.

Lower fees, lower costs?

We detailed this in our ActivTrades fees article.

What about the minimum deposit?

Our ultimate guide to the ActivTrades minimum deposit is updated regularly.

How to start your ActivTrades account?

Look no further than our evaluation of the ActivTrades account opening.

How's their trading app?

Here's our expert view after checking the ActivTrades trading app.

Is the quality of customer service satisfactory?

All you need to know about the ActivTrades customer service.

Legit or scam?

Is ActivTrades legit features all the key aspects you need to look at to see if a broker is safe and legit.

Free or premium? Or both?

A glance at actual costs and whether ActivTrades is really free.

Is this broker good for beginners?

We checked it in Is ActivTrades good for beginners.

Should you buy your silver bullets on ActivTrades?

Research for silver bugs in the Silver buy on ActivTrades guide

I want to trade options, are they available at ActivTrades?

We explored the topic in Can you trade options on ActivTrades?

What is the minimum account balance at ActivTrades?

Check out the current account balance requirements at ActivTrades in our What is the minimum account balance at ActivTrades article.