What are the fees and costs of spread betting and CFD trading?’

The spread is expressed in ‘points’ and is the difference between the bid and ask price. It varies depending on the market conditions, time of day and instrument you wish to trade. In most cases, we add our spread on top of the underlying market spread as our charge for the trade. Our spread charges apply to trades for all markets except CFD share trading, where a commission is charged instead of adding our spread to the market spread.

Please note: spreads aren’t charged as a separate fee and won’t be shown in your trade history, but rather included in your purchase or selling price. Immediately after opening your trade, you’ll notice that your position will start at a loss equal to the spread at the time you placed your trade.

Usually spreads will be tighter for daily funded bets (DFBs), and wider for futures and forwards contracts. This is because overnight funding fees are included in the spreads of futures and forwards. Before placing a trade, you can view the spread on the deal ticket as indicated below:

Viewing the spread – Desktop

Viewing the spread – mobile

Commissions are charged when trading shares using a CFD account and are calculated as a percentage of the transaction value for most markets, with minimum charges, or as cents per share as summarised below.

See a full list of commissions for other markets.

Spread betting and CFD trading uses a leveraged, derivative product. This means capital will need to be lent and managed when holding these positions – which leads to overnight funding.

Overnight funding is a daily interest fee applicable when daily funded bets (DFB) and cash CFD positions are held through 10pm (UK time). There’s no overnight funding on futures and forwards, as it’s built into the spread.

Learn more about the charges and how we calculate overnight funding for each market.

When shorting a stock using daily funded bets (DFB) and cash CFD positions, an annualised borrow fee may be applicable at the underlying market interbank borrow rate (published by Bloomberg) plus our 0.5% administration charge.

Our standard forex conversion fee is 0.8% which is added to the best available exchange rate provided by several banks. To add our forex conversion fee, we multiply the underlying exchange rate by 1.008 before converting.

For example, if the GBP/USD exchange rate is 1.4, the FX conversion rate applicable would be 1.4 x 1.008 = 1.4112.*

*The examples are for illustrative purposes only. Please check the costs and charges before trading. Figures may not add up to a given total due to rounding.

IG does not charge for deposits or withdrawals provided no currency conversion is required.

If a currency conversion is required, our standard forex conversion fee is 0.8%. For more information on currency conversions, click here.

Please be aware of PayPal or your bank may charge you upon transactions, especially if an international transfer is required. It’s advised to check with your provider before making any deposits or withdrawals.

Our standard forex conversion fee is 0.8% which is added to the best available exchange rate provided by several banks. To add our forex conversion fee, we multiply the underlying exchange rate by 1.008 before converting.

For example, if the GBP/USD exchange rate is 1.4, the FX conversion rate applicable would be 1.4 x 1.008 = 1.4112.*

You can find more information on forex conversion fees here.

*The examples are for illustrative purposes only. Please check the costs and charges before trading. Figures may not add up to a given total due to rounding.

Direct market access (DMA): there’s no charge for using DMA to trade CFDs on forex* and shares, or buy and sell shares via our share dealing service. However, you may need to pay a monthly exchange fee to access live DMA prices for some shares.

Live price data feeds: obtaining live share prices from an exchange – whether that's to trade share CFDs or buy and sell shares via a share dealing account – incurs a monthly fee.

ProRealTime charts: subscribing to ProRealTime charts costs £30 per month. This is refunded if you place four or more trades a month. We reserve the right to charge you for the service if your qualifying trades are of an extremely low value.

Account documentation fee: we charge a US$50 fee on accounts that have not supplied a mandatory W-8 or W-9 form before the dividend ex-date of a qualifying trade on a US-incorporated stock. We don’t apply this fee to accounts with up-to-date documentation or accounts which haven’t entered into qualifying trades. We’ll notify you if you’ve entered into a qualifying trade and need to complete a form.

* From 2 July 2018, regulatory interventions mean certain products are unavailable to retail traders. As a result, we can only offer Forex Direct to professional traders. To find out more about this, and to check whether you’re eligible for a professional account, please see our professional account page.