Elefin

Elefin is an offshore forex and CFD broker operated by Elefin Ltd, a company registered in St. Lucia and classified as unregulated, even though it shows a licence number. Elefin offers two accounts, a $50 minimum deposit, spreads from 1.0 pips on the Standard account, leverage up to 1:2000, and MetaTrader 4 and 5. The trade-off is regulation: no financial regulator stands behind the entity, which affects how your money is protected and what you can do in a dispute. Elefin does not accept US clients.

Who operates Elefin

The broker trades under the Elefin brand at elefin.com. The operating company is Elefin Ltd, registered at Ground Floor, The Sotheby Building, Rodney Bay, P.O. Box 838, Gros-Islet, Saint Lucia. Elefin Ltd is the only legal entity behind the brand.

Some brokers run a regulated entity for European or Australian clients and an offshore one for everyone else. Elefin does not. Every client who opens an account is contracting with the St. Lucia company.

Regulation and licence status

What the listed licence number means

Elefin’s licence details:

• Entity: Elefin Ltd
• Licence No.: 2026-00297
• Regulator: none (unregulated)
• Tier: Offshore

Because no financial regulator stands behind Elefin Ltd, licence number 2026-00297 is best read as a registration or company record, not as authorization from a financial supervisor. Registering a company in St. Lucia is a corporate formality. It is a different thing from a licence issued by a forex regulator that sets capital requirements, audits client money handling and investigates complaints. Confirm the number with the issuing body yourself.

What that means in practice:

• No regulator-mandated client money rules are attached to the account. Rules such as holding client funds in segregated accounts come from regulators. Without one, any such arrangement depends on the broker’s own policies and contract terms.
• No investor compensation scheme applies. Schemes like the UK’s FSCS or Cyprus’s ICF cover clients of firms those regulators authorize. An unregulated St. Lucia company falls outside them.
• No ombudsman route. If a withdrawal is refused or a trade is disputed, there is no financial regulator to complain to. Your recourse is the broker’s internal process and, in theory, courts in St. Lucia.
• Leverage is not capped by a regulator. That is why 1:2000 is possible here. In the EU and UK, retail leverage on major currency pairs is capped at 1:30.

Comparable multi-regulated brokers each hold between 8 and 10 licences.

Is Elefin legal in India?

Legality for an Indian resident depends on Indian law, not on where the broker is registered. Under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA), and Reserve Bank of India rules, resident individuals may trade forex only in permitted forms:

• on recognized Indian stock exchanges (NSE, BSE and MSE), in the currency pairs those exchanges list, through a SEBI-registered broker, or
• on electronic trading platforms authorized by the RBI.

The RBI has repeatedly warned that trading on unauthorized online forex platforms is not permitted. It has also said that remitting money abroad for margin or leveraged forex trading is not allowed under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme. Residents who do so can face action under FEMA. The RBI publishes an Alert List of unauthorized forex trading platforms and adds names to it over time.

Elefin is an offshore, unregulated broker offering leveraged forex CFDs. It is not an Indian exchange or an RBI-authorized platform. An Indian resident trading with it would fall outside the permitted routes described above, whether or not the broker appears on the Alert List on any given day. Paying a deposit through a domestic method such as UPI does not change that analysis, because the restriction concerns the activity and the platform, not the payment rail. Check the current Alert List on the RBI website before relying on any offshore broker.

Account types and trading costs

Elefin offers a Standard Account and a Pro Account. The Standard account is the entry option. The Pro account requires ten times the deposit in exchange for tighter quoted spreads and higher maximum leverage.

The 1:2000 headline figure applies to both the Standard and Pro accounts. Standard clients get the same maximum leverage of 1:2000.

Spreads and commissions

The Standard account is commission-free, so the spread is the main trading cost. The quoted figure is a minimum (“from 1.0 pips”), not an average or a guaranteed spread. Spreads on offshore market maker and STP accounts generally widen around news releases, rollover and thin trading hours.

To convert pips into money on EUR/USD, one pip on a standard lot (100,000 units) is worth $10. Here is a hypothetical example at the minimum quoted spread, assuming the spread is paid once per round trip (open and close):

• Standard account, 1 lot EUR/USD at 1.0 pips: about $10 per round trip
• Standard account, 0.1 lot at 1.0 pips: about $1 per round trip
• Pro account, 1 lot at 0.7 pips: about $7 per round trip in spread

Elefin quotes the Pro account from 0.3 pips with commission listed as zero, so at the minimum quoted spread it is cheaper per lot than the Standard account’s 1.0 pips. Swap (overnight financing) charges also apply to positions held past rollover and are a separate cost from the spread.

Several terms need confirming in writing before you fund the account. Elefin lists the Pro account’s commission as zero. Elefin publishes a minimum spread only for EUR/USD on the Standard account, so the cost of trading gold, GBP/USD or USD/JPY cannot be estimated in advance. Margin call and stop-out levels, which decide when open positions are closed automatically, are set in the account agreement. Elefin lists deposits via Debit Card, Crypto, Bank Transfer, UPI, or local payment methods, but fees and withdrawal processing times are not published.

Leverage up to 1:2000

High leverage reduces the margin needed to open a position. It does not reduce the risk of the position. Margin required is:

Margin = (Lot size × Contract size × Price) ÷ Leverage

Here is a hypothetical example, assuming EUR/USD at 1.1000, so 1 standard lot has a notional value of $110,000:

• At 1:2000 (Pro): $110,000 ÷ 2000 = $55 margin
• At 1:1500 (Standard): $110,000 ÷ 1500 = about $73.33 margin
• At 1:30 (EU/UK retail cap): $110,000 ÷ 30 = about $3,666.67 margin

Now apply that to a $50 Standard deposit. A 0.1 lot position needs only about $7.33 of margin at 1:1500, so the account could technically open several of them. Each pip on 0.1 lot is worth $1, though. A 50 pip move against one 0.1 lot position costs $50, the whole deposit. EUR/USD can move 50 pips within a session.

The leverage ratio decides how large a position the broker will let you open. Your stop distance and position size decide how much you can lose. Sizing trades by risk rather than by available margin is the safer approach; a position size calculator does this arithmetic from your balance, risk percentage and stop distance.

Platforms

Both accounts have the same platform lineup:

• MetaTrader 4
• MetaTrader 5
• Web platform (Elefin’s own web terminal)
• Mobile app (the Elefin app is published on Google Play)

MetaTrader 4 and 5 are third-party platforms from MetaQuotes that support expert advisors (automated strategies) and custom indicators, so traders can carry existing tools and strategies over without learning a proprietary interface.

The platform software does not change the counterparty risk. Trades placed through MT4 or MT5 are still executed by, and held with, Elefin Ltd.

Deposits, withdrawals and fund safety

The $50 minimum deposit lowers the cost of opening an account. It does not tell you how easily money comes back out. With an unregulated offshore broker, withdrawals carry the most risk. No external body enforces processing times, and none limits the grounds on which a withdrawal can be delayed or refused.

Practical steps that reduce exposure with any offshore broker:

1. Start small and test a withdrawal early. Deposit a modest amount, make a few trades, then withdraw before adding more capital.
2. Read the client agreement. Look for the governing law, bonus conditions that can lock funds, inactivity fees, and the broker’s right to cancel trades or profits.
3. Use a traceable payment method in your own name, and keep records of every deposit, withdrawal request and support exchange.
4. Do not keep more on the account than you need for margin. Unused balance sits with an unregulated counterparty.
5. Check the entity yourself. Confirm that the company name, address and number in the broker’s legal documents match Elefin Ltd and the St. Lucia address above.

Elefin’s website has a partners section, so an affiliate or introducing broker program exists. If someone recommends Elefin to you, ask whether they earn commission from your deposit or trading volume.

Strengths and trade-offs

What Elefin offers:

• A low $50 entry point on the Standard account
• No commission on the Standard account, so costs are easy to estimate from the spread
• A Pro account with spreads quoted from 0.7 pips
• MetaTrader 4 and 5, plus a web terminal and mobile app, on both account types
• Leverage up to 1:1500 (Standard) or 1:2000 (Pro) for traders who understand margin

What you give up:

• No financial regulator behind Elefin Ltd, which is unregulated
• No investor compensation scheme and no ombudsman route for disputes
• A single offshore entity for all clients, with no regulated alternative
• An undisclosed commission on the Pro account, so its true cost is unclear
• Minimum spreads published only for EUR/USD
• Not available to US clients, and outside the permitted routes for Indian residents

How we checked Elefin

We visited elefin.com on 13 November 2026, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia. The home page opened normally and offered a live chat window. In the footer we found the company line: “Elefin Ltd is registered in Saint Lucia (Registration No. 2026-00297),” with a registered office at Ground Floor, The Sotheby Building, Rodney Bay, P.O. Box 838, Gros-Islet, Saint Lucia. We saw no risk warning on the pages we opened. We clicked through to the “Who is Elefin” page, which loaded. Two footer links did not. “Legal Documents” and “Market Sentiment” were blocked from our location, so we never read the client agreement.

The account-type page lists a Standard Account at a $50 minimum deposit with spreads from 1.0 pip, and a PRO Account at $500 with spreads from 0.3 pip. Both show commission as ZERO and leverage of 1:2000. Gold is quoted from 2.4 pips. The instrument count wobbles: the home page says 300+, while the account page says 2,100+. Deposits can be made via Debit Card, Crypto, Bank Transfer, UPI, or local payment methods, according to the same page. We did not open or fund an account, so we cannot say what sits behind the sign-up step.

No register check was possible. The footer cites a company registration in Saint Lucia, not a licence from a financial regulator whose register we can query, so there was nothing for us to look up.

On Trustpilot, read 13 November 2026, Elefin scored 2.8/5 from 33 reviews, with 58% of them one-star. The profile was unclaimed. Elefin had replied to none of the 8 newest reviews. The Wayback Machine’s first capture of elefin.com dates to 2011-01-28, though that may belong to an earlier owner of the domain. We could not verify the part that matters most: how withdrawals work in practice, and whether the segregated funds mentioned on the MetaTrader 5 page are real arrangements or just marketing copy.

Who Elefin may suit

Based on its terms, Elefin is built for traders who want a small starting deposit, MetaTrader access and very high leverage, and who knowingly accept counterparty risk with an unregulated offshore company. It fits an experienced trader who sizes positions by risk, keeps only working margin on the account and tests withdrawals early.

It is a poor fit for anyone whose priority is deposit protection, regulatory recourse or a long, verifiable operating history, and it is not an option for US or Indian residents. Beginners who want to learn without risking capital can practice first in a paper trading simulator.