How to check a broker in about two minutes
Every regulator worth the name publishes a free, searchable register. The check itself is trivial. What makes it worth doing is that most people check the wrong thing — they confirm the brand is regulated somewhere, which is almost always true, and never establish whether it is regulated for them.
The four steps
- 1
Find the legal entity, not the brand
Open the client agreement or the account-opening terms and look for the company name and its country of registration. It will not be the brand on the homepage. This single step is what the rest depends on.
- 2
Search the register for that exact name
Use the regulator’s own register, linked below. Search by company name or licence number. If the entity you found is not there, the licence being advertised is not the licence you are getting.
- 3
Read the permissions and the status
A register entry states what the firm is authorised to do and whether that authorisation is current. An entry that is lapsed, restricted, or covers something other than dealing in investments for retail clients answers your question.
- 4
Establish what protection follows
Authorisation is a route to recourse, not a guarantee. Check whether that jurisdiction runs a compensation scheme, caps leverage, and requires negative balance protection — the three things that decide what happens on your worst day.
The registers
Free, public, and authoritative — these are the regulators’ own systems, not a third party repeating them.
United Kingdom
FCA Financial Services Register — read 2026-08-02
ASIC registers — read 2026-08-02
CySEC register of Cypriot investment firms — read 2026-08-02
Why the entity matters more than the licence
A broker group can hold a top-tier licence and still open your account on an offshore company. Both are real. Both may be named on the website. Only one of them is your counterparty, and only that one’s jurisdiction decides whether your leverage is capped, whether your losses stop at your balance, and whether anyone compensates you if the firm fails.
This is not a loophole — it is how the industry is structured, and it is disclosed in the agreement nobody reads. Which is exactly why reading that one line is the highest-value two minutes available to a retail trader.
What the check cannot tell you
That a firm is well run. Regulation is a floor, not a rating: authorised firms still fail, and an entry on a register is not a recommendation. What it gives you is a named authority that can be complained to, rules the firm must follow, and — in the UK and the EU — money back up to a limit if the firm goes under.
See what each authority actually requires on the regulation comparison, and what your own broker names on its broker page.
Questions
- How do I check if a forex broker is regulated?
- Find the legal entity name in the client agreement — not the brand on the website — then search that exact name on the regulator’s public register. The register will show the licence number, its status, and which activities it permits. If the entity does not appear, or appears with a different permission set, the licence being advertised does not cover the account you are about to open.
- Why does the broker’s licence not apply to my account?
- Large groups operate several companies. A UK or Australian entity serves clients in those jurisdictions, and clients elsewhere are onboarded to an offshore company in Seychelles, Vanuatu, Belize or the British Virgin Islands. Both are genuinely part of the group and the website may name both. Only one of them holds your money, and it is the one named in the agreement you sign.
- What does a licence number actually tell me?
- That a named company was authorised by that regulator, for particular activities, and whether that authorisation is still current. It does not tell you the firm is well run, and it is not a guarantee against loss. What it does give you is a route: a regulator that can be complained to, rules the firm can be held to, and in some jurisdictions a compensation scheme if it fails.
- Is an offshore broker automatically a scam?
- No, and treating it that way is unhelpful. Plenty of long-standing firms operate offshore entities, often to offer leverage that regulated jurisdictions cap. What is true is that the protections are absent: no leverage limit, no compensation scheme, and no realistic way to escalate a dispute from another country. That is a trade-off to make deliberately, not one to discover afterwards.