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Best 5 Digit Forex Brokers 2024

BrokerNotes.co

Written by BrokerNotes.co

March 14, 2024

What is a 5-Digit Forex Broker

Prior to 2007, the system of forex price quotations using 5 digits or 5 decimals was virtually unknown. All forex quotes were 4-digit or 4-decimal priced quotes, meaning that prices would include 4-decimal points in the format 1.2345. However, over the last few years, we have seen a transition away from the 4-digit system to a 5-digit price quotation system.

Almost all forex brokers now offer 5-decimal quotations, with the last decimal point in the quote representing a partial pip value, usually equivalent to one-tenth of a pip. Brokers presenting a 5-decimal point quotation system in pricing currency pairs are therefore referred to as 5-digit brokers or 5-decimal brokers, and pricing of currencies is done in this format 1.23456. Usually, the 5th digit is represented with a smaller font than the first 4 digits, to reflect the fractional nature of this digit.

5-digit brokers can therefore be defined as forex brokers that offer a 5-decimal or 5-digit price quotation system. The only currency pairs exempted from this rule are the Yen crosses, which have also undergone a transition from their traditional 2-decimal price quoting system to a 3-digit price quotation system.

Why a 5-Digit Forex Pricing System?

Forex trading really exploded in the 2000s and as brokers multiplied and began to reach regions of the world that were hitherto not engaged in forex trading, competition became fierce and brokers started to look for ways to attract and keep their clients, especially the high net-worth ones. One of the solutions that brokers devised was to create a more accurate and precise system of pricing forex products which would serve two purposes:

  • a) Reduce the cost of trading by lowering spreads.
  • b) Further decimalize prices so that traders could get more precise fills for entries and exits.

One of the benefits of using 5-digit brokers is that it allows those who trade large sizes to take advantage of the minute pricing differences created by the 5th decimal to make some money. Scalpers and those who use high-frequency trading algorithms are the entities that are best served with pricing from 5-digit brokers.

Best 5-Digit Forex Brokers

  • IG
    - 9.9/10 Overall
  • Interactive Brokers
    - 9.9/10 Overall
  • Saxo - 9.7/10 Overall
  • CMC Markets - 9.6/10 Overall
  • FOREX.com
    - 9.4/10 Overall
  • Charles Schwab - 9.3/10 Overall
  • City Index - 9.3/10 Overall
  • XTB - 9.1/10 Overall
  • eToro - 8.8/10 Overall
IG
star 9.9/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit£250.00
Tier-1 Licenses8
Tradeable Symbols (Total)19537

Year after year, IG has shown itself to be the best broker in the forex industry and a fantastic choice for forex traders. Highly trusted and regulated across the globe, IG delivers a wide variety of rich features, market research, and powerful trading tools. IG also offers seamless integration of trading signals into its web platform. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Interactive Brokers
star 9.9/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses9
Tradeable Symbols (Total)8500

Interactive Brokers is a highly trusted broker regulated across the globe that delivers access to over 100 markets, including forex and CFDs. Its Trader Workstation (TWS) platform offers a variety of advanced trading tools for experienced traders, and IBKR's web-based platform is great for beginner forex traders. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Saxo
star 9.7/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)70000

Saxo is a highly trusted broker that operates multiple banks and is regulated across the globe. Saxo delivers an incredible cross-platform experience alongside powerful research and a vast selection of more than 60,000 symbols across multiple asset classes. It’s worth noting that minimum deposits at Saxo are steep. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
CMC Markets
star 9.6/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)11925

CMC Markets is a highly trusted multi-asset broker regulated in multiple Tier-1 jurisdictions. CMC's powerful Next Generation trading platform for web and mobile delivers a huge selection of markets and a fantastic user experience. CMC Markets also ranks highly for its high-quality research and educational content. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
FOREX.com
star 9.4/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$100
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)5500

FOREX.com is a highly trusted brand with a long history of offering forex in the U.S. and across the globe. FOREX.com offers its own flagship trading platforms for web and desktop, as well as the full MetaTrader suite. Though its pricing is higher than average, FOREX.com is a balanced choice for traders of all experience levels. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes
Charles Schwab
star 9.3/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)40000

Charles Schwab is a leader in platform technology and trusted by millions of investors globally with trillions in assets under its brands. Available exclusively to U.S. residents, Charles Schwab's forex offering consists of just over 70 currency pairs, along with powerful research and trading tools. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
City Index
star 9.3/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit£100.00
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)13500

City Index, part of StoneX Group, is an award-winning, highly trusted broker with a long history of offering forex and CFDs across its global offices. City Index delivers a well-designed mobile trading app and a powerful web platform, as well as a large range of tradeable markets (though pricing is just average). Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
XTB
star 9.1/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$0 info
Tier-1 Licenses2
Tradeable Symbols (Total)6200

XTB is a highly trusted brand with a proprietary platform (xStation 5) that delivers a rich selection of trading tools. XTB also offers CFDs for a wide range of asset classes, including multiple cryptocurrencies. Beginners will appreciate XTB's excellent educational content and the hundreds of lessons that are available via its Trading Academy. Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
eToro
star 8.8/10 Overall
Minimum Deposit$50-$10,000
Tier-1 Licenses3
Tradeable Symbols (Total)5461

Best known for its copy trading platform suite, eToro is a highly trusted broker offering a large selection of cryptocurrency products, CFDs, shares, forex pairs, and a wide range of powerful trading tools. It’s worth noting that eToro is not a discount broker (though it offers zero-dollar commissions for U.S. stocks). Read full review

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)No
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 51% and 89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Price Movements on 5-Digit Broker Platforms

Many traders are confused as to how the pricing of currency pairs on 5-digit broker platforms translates into pip movements. You may also be wondering why the MT4 platform displays the profits or losses which are unrealized as a larger amount which is 10 times the actual value on the chart. It is important to understand how the price displays on 5-digit broker platforms work, especially when you will be setting stops and profit targets for your trades.

The first thing to get out of the way here is the points displayed on the bottom right corner of the chart. The reason why the MT4 will display a profit/loss which is ten times the actual price movement in pips is that the MT4 platform does not recognize fractional pip displays. What does this mean? This means that when it comes to 5-decimal pricing, the MT4 will not recognize a display such as 1.2952.2 because there is no such thing as two decimals in pricing. Rather, the MT4 will recognize that the last digit is a tenth fraction of the 4th digit and will display it as a round figure which is ten times the last digit. Therefore if you look at the snapshot below, you will see that for the two open trades, the total pip deficit for the active trades is actually -4.1 pips, but in the points display, it shows up as -41 pips: i.e. (-19 pips) + (– 22 pips) = -41pips.

It is important that the trader recognizes this so that errors are not made in setting stops. Whatever the profit or loss displayed in points is, simply divide it by 10 to get the actual pip value of the unrealized or realized profit/loss in the trade.

Similarly, you can use the same principle to determine price moves. So if on a 4-digit broker platform the price move from 1.4562 to 1.4567 is 5 pips, this will show up on a 5-digit broker platform as 1.45621 to 1.45671, or 50 pips. In the 5-digit pricing quote, any fraction from 0 to 9 may show up. So we will have a possibility of the 50-pip price move just described showing up as 1.45623 to 1.45673, 1.45624 to 1.45674, 1.45625 to 1.45675, etc. So even though the price movement shows up as a 50-pip move on a 5-digit broker platform, the movement in fact is just 5 pips.

Similarly, a price move of 54 pips on a 5-digit broker platform is actually 5.4 pips on a 4-digit platform and that is also the true value of the pip movement. So a 54-pip price move on a 5-digit broker platform is actually a move of 5.4 pips. Using the price move example just cited, a 54-pip move on a 5-digit platform is a move of 1.45623 to 1.45677, 1.45624 to 1.45678, etc.

Implications of Trading with 5-Digit Brokers

One of the first changes that traders had to bear with was that their robots and indicators coded on 4-digit broker platforms would no longer work on the 5-digit broker platforms. Any software coded with the MQL4 language using a 4-digit pricing system would have to be completely reconfigured. Fortunately, an army of programmers who can perform the reconfigurations has arisen. Therefore, any trader with software programmed for 4-decimal trading can get a programmer to reconfigure this software to perform 5-digit trading.

The 5-decimal pricing system also introduced some changes as to how brokers priced their assets. Prices are delivered from various price feeds and this has a bearing on the spreads that are offered by individual 5-digit brokers. Any trader who wants to start trading on the 5-digit broker platforms would have to carefully select the broker platforms to be used for this purpose. Furthermore, traders must be able to interpret the price movements and know the implications for profit and loss in their trades.

An aspect of 5-digit forex trading is the fact that it has made it possible to be able to use automated trading algorithms to get precise entries and exits, especially during news trades. It is possible for a trader to use high-frequency trading software to get specific targets for entry and exit. For instance, a trader may want to make $5,400 from a 5.4 pip movement, which displays 54 pips on the 5-digit broker platform. This will entail trading 100 lots of a currency with an entry of say, 1.56432 to 1.56476. Knowing that there are other traders around the world who may not have access to this software, this trader can with a high-frequency software, get an entry at 1.56432 and be able to sell off the position to another trader who the broker fills in at 1.56476, thus delivering the 5.4 pips target.

Conclusion

5-digit trading is now the norm in forex trading and using the information put up in this article, traders should be able to make better sense of what has hitherto been a mysterious price quotation system on their platforms.

BrokerNotes.co 2024 Overall Rankings

To recap, here are our top forex brokers for 2024, sorted by Overall ranking.

Company Overall Rating Minimum Deposit Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard Trust Score Tradeable Symbols (Total) Read Review Visit Site
IG logoIG
9.9 £250.00 0.98 info 99 19537 IG Review
Interactive Brokers logoInteractive Brokers
9.9 $0 0.63 info 99 8500 Interactive Brokers Review
Saxo logoSaxo
9.7 $0 1.1 info 99 70000 Saxo Review
CMC Markets logoCMC Markets
9.6 $0 0.61 info 99 11925 CMC Markets Review
FOREX.com logoFOREX.com
9.4 $100 1.4 info 99 5500 FOREX.com Review
Charles Schwab logoCharles Schwab
9.3 $0 1.25 info 99 40000 Charles Schwab Review
City Index logoCity Index
9.3 £100.00 1.4 info 99 13500 City Index Review
XTB logoXTB
9.1 $0 info 1.00 info 96 6200 XTB Group Review
eToro logoeToro
8.8 $50-$10,000 1 info 93 5461 eToro Review
Capital.com logoCapital.com
8.7 $20 info 0.67 info 87 3007 Capital.com Review
Swissquote logoSwissquote
8.8 $1000 N/A info 99 472 Swissquote Review
AvaTrade logoAvaTrade
8.7 $100 0.93 info 94 1260 AvaTrade Review
Plus500 logoPlus500
8.6 €100 1.5 info 99 5500 info Plus500 Review
FXCM logoFXCM
8.5 Starts from $50 0.78 info 95 440 FXCM Review
OANDA logoOANDA
8.5 $0 1.61 info 93 3928 info OANDA Review
Pepperstone logoPepperstone
8.4 $0 1.10 info 95 1726 Pepperstone Review
XM Group logoXM Group
8.4 $5 1.6 info 88 1394 XM Group Review
Admirals logoAdmirals
8.5 $100 0.8 info 93 8702 Admiral Markets Review
FP Markets logoFP Markets
8.3 $100 AUD 1.1 info 87 10000 FP Markets Review
Tickmill logoTickmill
8.1 $100 0.51 info 86 725 Tickmill Review
IC Markets logoIC Markets
8.1 $200 0.62 info 84 3583 IC Markets Review
FxPro logoFxPro
8.1 $100 1.51 info 90 2249 FxPro Review
Markets.com logoMarkets.com
8.1 $100 1.9 info 93 2179 Markets.com Review
FinecoBank logoFinecoBank
8.0 $0 N/A info 94 9770 Fineco Bank Review
BlackBull Markets logoBlackBull Markets
8.0 $0 0.76 info 78 26000 BlackBull Markets Review
Vantage logoVantage
8.0 $50 1.30 info 90 1000 Vantage Review
ThinkMarkets logoThinkMarkets
7.8 $0 info 1.1 info 92 4000 ThinkMarkets Review
HYCM (Henyep Capital Markets) logoHYCM (Henyep Capital Markets)
7.9 $20 1.2 info 86 1199 HYCM Review
HFM logoHFM
7.9 $0 1.2 info 86 500 HFM Review
DooPrime logoDooPrime
7.8 $100 N/A info 83 10000 DooPrime Review
Questrade logoQuestrade
$250 N/A 86 641
ActivTrades logoActivTrades
7.7 0 0.98 info 81 1267
Trading 212 logoTrading 212
7.7 €10 1.9 info 79 8025 Trading 212 Review
BDSwiss logoBDSwiss
7.7 $10-$5000 info 1.6 info 76 1081 BDSwiss Review
Trade Nation logoTrade Nation
7.6 $0 0.6 85 1000 Trade Nation Review
TMGM logoTMGM
7.6 $100 N/A info 83 12000 TMGM Review
Eightcap logoEightcap
7.5 $100 1.0 info 85 736 Eightcap Review
Moneta Markets logoMoneta Markets
7.5 $50 1.38 info 72 1016 Moneta Markets Review
Spreadex logoSpreadex
7.2 $0 0.81 info 71 10000 Spreadex Review
Exness logoExness
7.0 $10 info N/A 81 227 Exness Review
ACY Securities logoACY Securities
7.4 $50 1.2 info 75 2200 ACY Securities Review
easyMarkets logoeasyMarkets
7.3 $50 0.8 info 80 230 easyMarkets Review
RoboForex logoRoboForex
7.3 $100 1.3 info 73 8400 Roboforex (RoboMarkets) Review
VT Markets logoVT Markets
7.3 $100 1.2 info 70 1000 VT Markets Review
Octa logoOcta
7.2 $25 0.9 info 70 277 OctaFX Review
IronFX logoIronFX
7.2 $50 1.2 83 340 IronFX Review
IFC Markets logoIFC Markets
7.2 $1 1.44 info 67 630 IFC Markets Review
Trade360 logoTrade360
7.2 $250 N/A info 76 1062 Trade360 Review
Axi logoAxi
7.1 $0 N/A info 81 175 Axitrader Review
TeleTrade logoTeleTrade
7.1 $100 N/A 71 500 Teletrade Review
iFOREX logoiFOREX
7.0 $100 N/A 75 750 iFOREX Review
FXOpen logoFXOpen
7 $100 N/A info 76 87 FXOpen Review
Xtrade logoXtrade
6.5 $250 N/A info 74 482 Xtrade Review
FXPrimus logoFXPrimus
7.0 $100 N/A info 71 140 FXPrimus Review
Forex4you logoForex4you
6.9 $0 N/A info 61 150 Forex4you Review
GBE brokers logoGBE brokers
6.8 $500 N/A info 71 500 GBE Brokers Review
Alpari logoAlpari
6.8 $20 N/A info 68 105 Alpari Review
MultiBank logoMultiBank
7.5 $50 N/A 84 1042 MultiBank Review
TopFX logoTopFX
6.7 Depends on payment method 1.03 info 67 655 TopFX Review
Libertex (Forex Club) logoLibertex (Forex Club)
6.7 $10 N/A info 73 300 Libertex Review
LegacyFX logoLegacyFX
6.7 $500 N/A 67 425 LegacyFX Review
FXGT.com logoFXGT.com
6.6 $5 N/A 69 117 FXGT Review
ATFX logoATFX
6.5 $500 N/A info 85 150 ATFX Review

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BrokerNotes.co

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