How this review set was built
I wanted a review set that a reader could trace, and the only clean way to do that was to start from the registers. On 21 August 2026 our team walked the three UAE financial regulators’ public registers and recorded every entry that met a fixed set of filters. I set the scope before any register was opened: only active retail CFD brokers with a current licence, no marketing names. A broker appears here because a register entry matched, and for no other reason.
CMA (formerly SCA)
Onshore mainland UAE- Entities on the register 318
- Filter applied Active OTC dealing
- Reviewed here 22
DFSA
Dubai International Financial Centre- Entries on the register 2,062
- Current 1,225
- Dealing permission 197
- Retail endorsed, not withdrawn 19
- Reviewed here 11
FSRA
Abu Dhabi Global Market- Firms on the register 486
- Dealing-class activity 57
- Still live 48
- Retail OTC condition 5
- Reviewed here 2
The CMA (formerly SCA) register held 318 licensed entities. Filtering to those with an active licence for “Trading broker of OTC derivatives and currencies in the spot market” produced the onshore mainland set. The DFSA register inside the DIFC listed 2,062 entries, of which 1,225 were current. From those, 197 carried a dealing permission covering Futures or Options, and 25 held the retail-client endorsement; 19 of those were not withdrawn. For you, that means the DFSA set narrowed from 2,062 entries to just 19 eligible brokers before we looked at anything else. The FSRA register in ADGM contained 486 financial firms, 57 with a dealing-class activity and 48 still live; 5 carried an affirmative condition permitting OTC derivatives for retail clients.
Entities with a withdrawn licence were excluded. Banks, asset managers and any firm that is not a retail CFD broker were excluded. Where a published trading name could not be reconciled conclusively with a specific register entry, that name stayed out. No entry was admitted on the basis of a marketing name alone.
A register entry was the only entry ticket. That rule removed household names that lack a current UAE retail licence, and it kept in firms most readers will not have heard of. I would rather you see a complete register picture than a marketing shortlist. The set is a record of who appears on the registers, not a curated list of familiar brands.
How the CFB Score works on a UAE broker
The eight criteria come from our published full scoring methodology and are not chosen page by page. They are trading costs (weight 25), trust and regulation (20), trading experience (15), platforms (15), customer service (10), range of markets (5), education (5) and funding (5).
| Criterion | Weight | How the UAE figure is reached |
|---|---|---|
| Trading costs | 25 | Captured from the UAE entity’s own published pricing |
| Trust and regulation | 20 | Read from the UAE register entry |
| Trading experience | 15 | Inherited from a sibling review, or dropped where none exists |
| Platforms | 15 | UAE capture where one exists, otherwise inherited |
| Customer service | 10 | UAE capture where one exists, otherwise inherited |
| Range of markets | 5 | UAE capture where one exists, otherwise inherited |
| Education | 5 | UAE capture where one exists, otherwise inherited |
| Funding | 5 | Captured from the UAE entity’s AED funding facts |
Our UAE application splits those criteria into local and global. A criterion is local where the answer changes with the licence: what a trade costs, who holds your money and how AED reaches your account are properties of the UAE entity. A criterion is global where it describes the same product regardless of which entity the contract sits with. Execution infrastructure, the platform build, the support desk, the instrument catalogue and the education library are one operation serving every market.
Two honesty rules govern every score. First, no criterion is ever scored from an absent value; every sub-score names the field it read. Second, a broker for which less than 75 per cent of the total 100-weight rubric could be realised publishes no CFB Score at all. That floor applies to the whole rubric, not to any single criterion. Separately, when one criterion cannot be measured but the broker still clears the floor, that criterion is dropped and the remaining weights are renormalised. A dropped criterion tells you the broker was not tested; a zero would say it was tested and found wanting.
What I check first is whether the broker clears the 75 per cent floor, because a missing score tells you something important straight away. The outcome is 34 scored reviews out of 35. eToro was the last exception, and the reason was our rubric rather than its disclosure: it prices EUR/USD as a percentage of trade value charged on each side rather than in pips, which the cost model could not read until August 2026. It now scores 59, with funding dropped rather than guessed, so you can read it against the other 24 on the same eight criteria instead of setting it aside as unrated. Three scores are set by an owner decision rather than derived from the UAE rubric. Pepperstone at 98 is carried whole from the parent site. Capital.com at 92 and MultiBank at 82 are set for this market and match no parent-site figure. All three render no per-criterion breakdown, because no set of category bars agrees with both the headline figure and the UAE licence facts stated further down the same page.
Which regulator licensed which broker
The three regulators are separate legal frameworks. The CMA (formerly SCA) regulates onshore mainland UAE. The Dubai Financial Services Authority regulates firms inside the Dubai International Financial Centre. The Financial Services Regulatory Authority regulates firms inside Abu Dhabi Global Market. They do not share a rulebook, a register or a client compensation arrangement, so a licence from one tells you nothing about a broker’s standing with the other two. If you are checking a broker, the regulator tells you which rulebook applies and which register to search.
The walk splits 22 CMA-licensed brokers, 11 DFSA-licensed brokers and 2 FSRA-licensed firms across three separate rulebooks. The Securities and Commodities Authority was renamed the CMA on 1 January 2026; it is the same onshore regulator under an updated name. The DFSA and FSRA remain unchanged.
CMA (formerly SCA)
22 reviewsOnshore mainland UAE. Register references take the form CP-0000000.
DFSA (DIFC)
11 reviewsDubai International Financial Centre. Register references take the form F000000.
I would always check the licensed entity name, not the marketing name. The entity name on the register is the name that holds the licence, and it often differs from the trading brand you see. Every review publishes the register reference so that check is straightforward.
Dealing licence or arranging licence
A dealing licence permits the UAE entity to act as principal: the broker is the counterparty to your trade. An arranging licence permits the UAE entity to introduce clients only. The counterparty is a different group entity in a different jurisdiction, and your money sits there. The UAE entity handles the relationship and the paperwork, not the trade or the funds. I look at the licence tier first because it tells you who would hold your money.
Dealing licence
29 reviewsThe UAE entity may act as principal, so it can be the counterparty to your trade.
- Counterparty
- The UAE licensed entity
- Client money
- Sits with that entity where the register also endorses client assets
- Regulator to contact
- The one that issued the licence
Arranging licence only
6 reviewsThe UAE entity introduces clients. The trade and the money sit with a group entity in another jurisdiction.
Of the 35 reviewed brokers, 29 hold a dealing licence and 6 hold an arranging licence only. The six arranging brokers are Pepperstone, ThinkMarkets, Axi, HYCM, Interactive Brokers and Vantage. An arranging broker is not unregulated; it holds a UAE licence and appears on the regulator’s public register.
The client-assets endorsement is a separate question from the licence tier. The register records separately whether an entity is endorsed to hold or control client assets. 20 of the 35 carry that endorsement and 15 do not. AvaTrade holds a dealing licence yet carries no client-assets endorsement, so the two questions are genuinely different and you need to check both. I would check both, every time.
Where to start, by what you are choosing on
The cards below group the set by a stated rule rather than by my own preference. Each card names its rule and draws only on facts we measured. You can use them to filter by what matters to you.
Transparent trading costs
8 of 34 brokers score 8.0 or better out of 10 on trading costs.
Lowest spread brokers in the UAE ›Client assets endorsed
20 of 34 brokers hold a client-assets endorsement on their UAE licence.
How custody differs from tier ›Full trust and regulation score
10 of 34 brokers score the full 10 out of 10 on trust and regulation.
Compare the three registers ›Both MT4 and MT5
14 of the 31 brokers with a platform capture run both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.
Expert Advisors permitted
17 of the 22 brokers with a platform capture permit Expert Advisors.
Automated trading in the UAE ›Readable swap-free terms
3 of the 9 brokers on the main guide publish swap-free terms a reader can actually read.
Islamic forex accounts in the UAE ›What these reviews still do not cover
No leverage figure appears anywhere on the page. No review claims a broker is safe, cheap or recommended. The site does not state a ratio, a cap or a range for any broker, and the UAE retail leverage position is not described. I stand by that: every claim that could imply a recommendation is absent by design.
Trading experience could not be measured for brokers that exist only in the UAE and have no sibling entity on the parent site or UK site to inherit a measurement from. That criterion needs funded live accounts, spread monitoring and execution measurement. I would rather tell you what we did not test than leave you guessing. Where it was dropped, the review says so and states what was not tested.
Stating the gap is the point. You can trust what is present because you know what is missing. Every factual statement on the page traces back to a regulator’s public register, and nothing was added from a marketing list, an affiliate feed or a paid placement.
FAQs
How many brokers are reviewed and how were they chosen?
Can every reviewed broker hold client money?
Are the SCA and the CMA the same regulator?
Does an arranging licence mean the broker is unregulated?
Does every review carry a score?
Do these reviews cover leverage?
Is forex legal in the UAE?
Which forex broker is best in the UAE?
Which is the safest trading app in the UAE?
How do I choose a forex broker?
Related pages
About the author
Justin Grossbard co-founded CompareForexBrokers in 2014 and serves as Co-Founder and CEO. He has traded forex since 1998. For this site he directs the research and comparison of UAE-licensed brokers. He holds Monash University degrees including a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours and a Master of Marketing. His commentary has appeared in Forbes, Kiplinger, Finance Magnates and Entrepreneur.