IC Markets Review (2026)

What is IC Markets?

IC Markets is a CFD and forex broker founded in Sydney in 2007. It operates through several regulated entities. Australian retail clients are served by International Capital Markets Pty Ltd under ASIC licence AFSL 335692. EU retail clients are served by IC Markets (EU) Ltd under CySEC licence 362/18, which carries Investor Compensation Fund cover up to EUR 20,000 per retail client. Most other retail clients worldwide are onboarded to Raw Trading Ltd, a Seychelles company holding FSA Securities Dealer licence SD018 and trading as “IC Markets Global.” Additional entities exist in the Bahamas (SCB SIA-F214, per IC's disclosure) and Kenya (CMA licence No. 199, licensed May 2024). The broker does not accept clients from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Iran, or North Korea.

The commercial pitch is execution and cost. IC Markets routes order flow through Equinix NY4 (MetaTrader) and LD5 (cTrader) data centres, advertises average execution under 40ms, and states that 60% of trades on its books are algorithmic. The instrument range spans 2,850-plus markets, from 61 forex pairs through indices, commodities, more than 2,500 stock CFDs, bonds, crypto, and futures. This is a platform built for high-frequency and systematic traders first, and it shows.

Our verdict

IC Markets is a strong, high-liquidity broker with some of the lowest published trading costs in the market, undercut only by a trust profile that demands care from offshore clients. We assess it as a clear buy for traders who can onboard to the ASIC or CySEC entity, and a “proceed with eyes open” for everyone routed to the Seychelles default. The product is genuinely excellent. The protection behind that product varies enormously by which entity holds your money, and the offshore entity gives you the least.

We assess IC Markets from public sources, the relevant regulatory registers, the broker's own disclosures, and aggregated user reports. We have not opened an account or moved money through the platform.

Key features & specs

The shape of the offering is what matters: IC Markets leans into raw ECN-style pricing with near-zero spreads, a deliberately wide platform choice spanning MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView, and a deep 2,850-plus instrument shelf. We have led with the global Raw Trading Ltd accounts below because that is where most non-EU, non-AU traders land.

Pricing & value

On headline cost, IC Markets is at or near the front of the field. A round-turn on one standard lot of EUR/USD costs $6.00 through the cTrader Raw account ($3.00 per side) or $7.00 through the MetaTrader Raw account ($3.50 per side), layered on a raw spread that averages between zero and 0.1 pip. That assumes a one-lot trade of 100,000 units with commission charged on each side. Typical peers commonly sit at $7.00 round-turn, so the cTrader figure is genuinely competitive rather than merely marketed as such.

There are no deposit or withdrawal fees charged by IC itself, although intermediary banks can take a cut on international wires. The funding menu is broad, covering cards, PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, Apple and Google Pay, several cryptocurrencies, wire, BPAY, UnionPay, and Klarna. Withdrawal timing is where reality gets more uneven than the fee schedule suggests: card withdrawals are quoted at 3 to 5 days and wires at up to 14, and a recurring theme in user reports is that compliance and AML reviews can stretch those windows considerably. EU clients should also note a EUR 10 per month inactivity fee after six consecutive inactive months.

On the Standard account, IC's pages disagree with themselves on the EUR/USD spread, so we decline to assert a single number, just as we decline to assert a single minimum deposit when the help centre says $0 and the landing pages say USD/EUR 200. For a cost-driven trader, the value case rests squarely on the Raw accounts, and there it is strong.

Regulation & safety

This is the section that should decide your choice, so we will be precise about which entity protects which clients and what that protection is actually worth. If you are an Australian retail client, you trade with International Capital Markets Pty Ltd under ASIC AFSL 335692, capped at 1:30 leverage. If you are an EU retail client, you trade with IC Markets (EU) Ltd under CySEC 362/18, also capped at 1:30, with Investor Compensation Fund cover up to EUR 20,000. Those are established, tier-1 frameworks.

The problem is that most of the world does not get them. By default, non-EU and non-AU retail clients are onboarded to Raw Trading Ltd in the Seychelles under FSA licence SD018, an offshore, tier-3 regime with no compensation scheme and leverage up to 1:1000. IC states in its own words that this entity “is not established in the European Union or regulated by an EU National Competent Authority.” For insolvency protection, IC says global client funds are segregated at top-tier banks and insured up to USD 1,000,000 per client on Raw Trading Ltd insolvency, but the underwriter is not disclosed, which limits how much weight that figure can carry.

Three further items belong on the record. First, on 1 October 2024 the UK's FCA published an unauthorised-firm warning against “IC Markets Global,” stating the firm may be providing or promoting financial services without its permission and that consumers should avoid dealing with it. UK clients of the global entity have no Financial Ombudsman or FSCS recourse. To be precise, this is the legitimate offshore entity being flagged as unauthorised for UK clients, not a scam clone of the brand. Second, CySEC fined the EU entity twice in 2024: EUR 200,000 (announced 19 July 2024) for knowingly circumventing initial-margin protection by routing EU retail clients to up to 1:1000 leverage through the offshore entity, which CySEC noted was a repeat of a 2021 violation, plus EUR 50,000 (reported September 2024) for best-execution and cost-disclosure failures. IC denies both and is appealing. Third, an active class action, Bain & Anor v International Capital Markets Pty Ltd & Anor (VID1088/2023, Federal Court of Australia, filed 20 December 2023), names founder Andrew Budzinski as second respondent and alleges misleading, deceptive, and unconscionable conduct in supplying CFDs to retail clients. Both respondents have filed defences and deny all allegations, and the matter is unresolved.

The pattern that ties the FCA listing and the repeat CySEC fine together is the same one: routing clients to higher offshore leverage that domestic regulators were trying to cap. That is the single most important thing a prospective client should weigh. The SCB Bahamas (SIA-F214) and FSA Seychelles (SD018) licences are confirmed via IC's own disclosure rather than a live, machine-readable register, so we cite them as the broker states them. The takeaway is not that IC Markets is unsafe everywhere, but that the protection you receive depends heavily on which entity holds your account, and for most international clients that entity is the lightest one.

What traders say

The aggregate numbers are emphatically positive and the volume is large enough to mean something. Trustpilot shows roughly 4.8 out of 5 across about 53,000 reviews on the global domain, with the EU domain even higher at 4.9 across some 3,900. TradingView users give 4.6. The recurring praise is consistent and credible: fast execution with low slippage in normal conditions, genuinely tight raw spreads, quick e-wallet withdrawals, responsive 24/7 support, and particular affection for cTrader. A long-tenured TradingView user, “liquidation_engine,” captured the positive case in February 2026: “Great broker, i have been using them for past 10 years. I love the fast order execution and that they offer cTrader platform and TradingView integration.”

The dissenting picture is narrower but pointed, and it does not vanish under the weight of the five-star reviews. Forex Peace Army scores IC Markets at 3.591 out of 5 across about 1,975 reviews, and EarnForex sits at just 5.3 out of 10. The dominant negative themes are withdrawal delays and account freezes tied to AML and compliance reviews, slippage on news, an inconsistently rated proprietary mobile app (the Apple listing is only 3.3 out of 5), and conflicting information between live chat, the website, and email. We treat individual complaint accounts as unverified, but the consistency of the withdrawal-and-compliance theme across independent sources is itself a signal. A reviewer named “Diana” on forex-ratings.com put the support-consistency complaint plainly in June 2023: “Online support, the data from the website, and the email support have different answers to my inquiries. They are not trustworthy.” The honest read is a broker most users rate highly on execution and cost, with a real minority experiencing painful friction at the withdrawal stage.

Pros & cons

IC Markets pairs a near-best-in-class trading product with a trust foundation that depends heavily on which entity holds your account. The strengths are concrete and the weaknesses are not cosmetic. The lists below summarise what we found.

IC Markets vs alternatives

Against typical ECN-style competitors, IC Markets wins on cost at the margin. A $6.00 cTrader round-turn undercuts the common $7.00 benchmark, and the raw spread and execution infrastructure are as good as anything in the category. On platform breadth, offering MT4, MT5, cTrader, and TradingView together, few rivals match it. So for a pure product comparison, IC Markets is a front-runner.

Where alternatives can pull ahead is on the protection axis, and only for clients who would otherwise land offshore. A competitor that places the same client under a tier-1 regulator with a funded compensation scheme offers something Raw Trading Ltd structurally cannot, regardless of the USD 1,000,000 insurance claim whose underwriter is undisclosed. A trader who values FSCS, FOS, or an equivalent backstop should weigh that against the few-dollar cost saving. For AU and EU clients, that gap closes because they get ASIC or CySEC by default, and IC Markets becomes much harder to beat.

How IC Markets compares to the next tools in our forex brokers ranking:

In short: Fusion Markets edges ahead of IC Markets in the overall ranking, but active and systematic traders chasing the lowest commissions and the cTrader/TradingView stack is where IC Markets makes its strongest case.

Who is IC Markets for?

Use IC Markets if…

Use IC Markets if you are an active or systematic trader who values rock-bottom commissions, deep liquidity, and the cTrader or TradingView stack, and especially if you can onboard to the ASIC or CySEC entity. Scalpers and EA users are the core fit.

Skip it if…

Skip it if you are a UK client (the global entity is FCA-unauthorised), or you would be routed to the Seychelles entity and a funded compensation scheme is non-negotiable for you, or you prioritise a flawless withdrawal record over headline cost.

Final verdict

IC Markets is a genuinely excellent trading product wrapped around a trust profile that splits sharply by jurisdiction. For ASIC and CySEC clients, the combination of tier-1 regulation, class-leading cost, and a deep platform set is close to the top of the category. For the offshore default, the same low costs come with no compensation scheme, an FCA unauthorised listing in the UK, a repeat regulatory fine for circumventing leverage caps, and an unresolved class action. We score it 7.4 out of 10: a strong broker whose product justifies a high mark, held back from the top tier by an offshore-first structure and a regulatory record that a careful reader must price in. Choose the entity deliberately, and the trade-off becomes manageable.

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