5 Best Forex Brokers with Welcome Bonuses 2026

Brokers at a glance

Forex trading knowledge: questions and answers

The welcome money a trading broker offers is rarely free cash. On this list, the five promotions are five different products: a deposit bonus, a time-limited account offer, a cashback rebate, an account-specific bonus and a percentage bonus with turnover rules. XM leads with an 8.0 score, and the two Tier-1-regulated brokers, XM and E*TRADE, hold the top two places. A high-volume trader gets the most from RoboForex’s rebate, while a low-volume trader gets little from cashback and may never complete a turnover requirement like Quotex’s. The headline amounts cannot be lined up against each other, because “up to $10,000,” “up to $1,500” and “cashback up to 10%” measure different things and pay out under different conditions.

How the ranking is ordered

The five brokers are sorted by their Fintrev score, from XM at 8.0 down to Quotex at 3.8. E*TRADE sits second at 5.4. RoboForex and Rock-West share 4.5.

The order does not follow promotion size. Rock-West offers the largest dollar cap of the group (up to $10,000 on its Standard account) and still ranks fourth. The two Tier-1-regulated brokers hold the top two places, while the bottom three are all offshore regulated.

All five promotions were checked on Nov 8. Broker promotions are frequently time-limited, and ETRADE’s offer is explicitly “for a limited time.” The terms that apply to you are whatever the broker publishes when you open the account, and several points can only be confirmed there: the size of XM’s bonus and which XM entity offers it, ETRADE’s qualifying deposit and holding period, what RoboForex’s 10% is calculated on, which Quotex deposit earns which percentage, and each offer’s expiry rules. For the offshore entries, confirm the licence directly on the regulator’s public register, under the exact entity name.

How we checked the firms in this list

We ran these checks on 2026-11-13, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia, in the EU. All five brands on this page have a recorded check. Four official sites opened normally. Quotex did not. Its site could not be read from the EU because it was blocked, and we have no register lookup on record for it.

The registers gave mixed answers. For XM, the CySEC register (Cyprus) confirmed 120/10, licensed 05/08/2010, and the FCA register (UK) confirmed 705428 with status Authorised since 03/05/2016. The DFSA register (Dubai) confirmed F003484 as an Authorised Firm since 10-Sep-2019. Our Companies House (UK) search did not return Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK Limited. ETRADE checked out on FINRA BrokerCheck, where Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC shows status Approved since 05/19/2009 with 185 disclosures, and on NFA BASIC, where ETRADE Futures LLC shows NFA Member Approved. For RoboForex, our search of the FSC Mauritius register did not return 9759600. The FSA Seychelles register confirmed an entity listed as MAIV LIMITED for Rock-West (Rewalt), but the public list shows no license numbers, so SD044 could not be matched. We have no sign-up or checkout steps on record for these brands. We did record account types from each brand’s own pages, from 2 at XM and Rock-West to 5 at RoboForex.

Review counts put scores in context. Rock-West shows 4.5 from 801 reviews on Trustpilot, while XM shows 2 from 3,102 and E*TRADE shows 0 from 0. The archive hints at age. XM’s first capture is 1996-12-27, and Quotex’s is 2020-11-15. These checks do not tell you how any broker treats customers in practice, because we opened no accounts, made no deposits and tested no payouts.

Five entries, five kinds of bonus

Here is how each entry’s promotion maps onto the general bonus categories.

Each category creates value differently:

• Deposit bonus. The broker adds credit proportional to what you fund. The credit usually adds trading capacity rather than withdrawable money. What you can typically take out are profits, once the stated conditions are met.
• Capped account offer. “Up to” sets the ceiling, not the amount you receive. Offers of this shape generally scale with the size of the deposit or transfer, and the top figure needs the largest qualifying deposit.
• Cashback or rebate. You get back a share of trading costs or a per-lot amount after you trade. Nothing is credited upfront, and the value grows only with volume.
• Percentage deposit bonus with turnover. The percentage you receive and the trading volume you must complete are both written into the terms. Turnover is where most of the real cost sits (see the worked example below).

Where the entries actually differ

XM

XM has the highest score on the list (8.0), the lowest minimum deposit after E*TRADE ($5), and Tier-1 regulation. It advertises a deposit bonus without a stated percentage or cap. The score rates the broker, not the bonus.

There is a regulatory point that matters for any Tier-1-regulated broker running a deposit bonus. Regulators in the EU, the UK and Australia restrict bonuses on CFD products for retail clients (details in the regulation section below). A broker group that holds Tier-1 licences can still run other entities in other jurisdictions, so the entity your account is opened with may not be the one offering the promotion.

E*TRADE

E*TRADE is a US brokerage owned by Morgan Stanley since 2020. It is the only entry with a $0 minimum deposit and the only one whose promotion is explicitly time-limited. Offers of this kind usually depend on deposit tiers and on keeping the funds in the account for a set period, so $1,500 is the ceiling rather than the amount most accounts receive.

This is closer to a brokerage account promotion than to a forex deposit bonus, the kind compared on the brokerage account bonuses page.

RoboForex

RoboForex’s promotion is cashback of up to 10%, and the broker is offshore regulated. It is the only offer of the five that credits nothing upfront and adds nothing to your margin.

The 10% is a maximum. As a hypothetical example: if a rebate of 10% applied to a spread cost of $10 per standard lot, you would get $1 back per lot traded. A rebate lowers your cost per trade, and it pays more the more you trade.

Rock-West

Rock-West’s bonus is attached to a specific configuration: the Standard account, with a $50 minimum deposit. The cap is up to $10,000. The cap does not tell you what a $50 deposit earns, and reaching a five-figure bonus would require a far larger deposit under any percentage structure.

Rock-West is offshore regulated. Its licence record and trader complaints are covered in our Rock-West safety check.

Quotex

Quotex is the only entry whose promotion states turnover requirements, alongside a 10% to 100% deposit bonus and a $10 minimum deposit. It has the lowest score on the list (3.8) and is offshore regulated. The range means the percentage changes with the deposit or the promotion tier, so do not assume the 100% end applies to a minimum deposit.

Regulation and why it shapes bonus size

The split between Tier-1 and offshore regulation explains much of what you see in the promotion column.

• European Union. In 2018, ESMA’s product intervention measures on CFDs for retail clients banned monetary and non-monetary benefits linked to trading, which covers deposit bonuses. National regulators across the EU then adopted these restrictions permanently.
• United Kingdom. The FCA made equivalent CFD restrictions permanent, including the ban on trading-linked inducements for retail clients.
• Australia. ASIC’s CFD product intervention order, in force since March 2021, also prohibits inducements such as bonuses and rebates to retail clients.

So the largest percentage bonuses are generally offered through entities outside these regimes. The trade-off goes beyond the bonus. Tier-1 jurisdictions add protections such as segregated client funds and, in some cases, compensation schemes. For example, the UK’s FSCS covers eligible claims up to £85,000, and Cyprus’s Investor Compensation Fund covers up to €20,000. An offshore account may come with a larger bonus and weaker recourse if the broker fails or refuses a withdrawal.

Offshore regulated means the broker holds a licence in a less stringent jurisdiction.

What a turnover requirement costs: a worked example

Turnover rules decide whether a deposit bonus is worth anything. They are usually expressed as a trading volume, in lots, that you must complete before the bonus or its profits become withdrawable.

Hypothetical example (not any broker’s terms):

• Deposit: $1,000
• Bonus: 50%, so $500 of credit
• Turnover rule: 0.1 standard lot traded for every $1 of bonus
• Required volume: 500 × 0.1 = 50 standard lots

Assume you trade EUR/USD with a USD account, a 1-pip spread and no commission. One pip on a standard lot (100,000 units) is worth $10, so each round-trip lot costs about $10 in spread.

50 lots × $10 = $500 in spread costs, the full value of the bonus.

Under these assumptions you would pay roughly the whole bonus in trading costs just to unlock it, before any profit or loss on the trades themselves. Wider spreads, commissions or a stricter lot ratio push the cost above the bonus. When reading Quotex’s turnover terms, or those of any deposit bonus, convert the requirement into lots and multiply by your real cost per lot.

How bonus credit behaves in a margin account

A deposit bonus usually appears as credit in a margin account, separate from your cash balance. Two figures matter:

• Balance: your deposited money plus or minus closed profits and losses.
• Equity: balance plus floating profit or loss on open trades, and, where the broker counts it, bonus credit.

If credit counts toward equity, it raises your free margin and lets you open larger positions. That is the appeal, and also the risk. A larger position means larger losses per pip on your own money. Terms may also say that credit is removed once equity falls to a certain level, or that withdrawing any of your deposit cancels the bonus. If credit disappears while positions are open, your margin level can drop sharply and trigger a stop-out sooner than you expected.

Size positions on your own cash, not on cash plus credit. The position size calculator lets you set lot size from the amount you are willing to lose per trade, which keeps a bonus from quietly increasing your leverage.

Choosing between the entries

1. Decide which type of bonus suits how you trade. A low-volume trader gets little from cashback and may never complete a turnover requirement. A high-volume trader gets the most from a rebate and may clear turnover more easily, but should still calculate the cost.
2. Check the regulation against where you live. If you are in the EU, UK or Australia and open with a regulated local entity, a CFD deposit bonus will generally not be available to you as a retail client. An offer that looks available may belong to a different entity.
3. Use the score and regulation before the bonus. The Tier-1-regulated brokers hold the top two places; among the offshore entries, RoboForex and Rock-West tie and Quotex trails.
4. Read the configuration the bonus is attached to. Rock-West’s bonus applies to the Standard account. E*TRADE’s is time-limited. Quotex’s percentage depends on the deposit tier.
5. Turn the bonus into a cost figure. Required lots × cost per lot, compared against the bonus amount, tells you whether the offer adds value.
6. Confirm the withdrawal rules before depositing. Find out what happens to the bonus if you withdraw part of your deposit, and whether profits or only the bonus are locked.

If you only want to try a platform with no money at risk, a paper trading simulator answers that question without bonus conditions. Brokers that credit an account without a deposit are compared separately on the no-deposit bonus page.