EU availability, broker by broker
Computed from our broker registry, which is why it stays current. The two columns are deliberately separate, because they are different things and conflating them is misleading:
- Will not onboard — the broker itself states it does not accept clients resident there. You cannot open an account, full stop.
- Referral restricted — the broker may well accept you directly, but its partner programme bars referrals from that country, so we show a research page instead of a handoff. This is our limitation, not necessarily yours, and we would rather say so than quietly hide the broker.
| Broker | EU states it will not onboard | Referral restricted (broker may still accept you) |
|---|---|---|
| FP Markets | None in our data | Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden |
| IC Markets | None in our data | Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden |
| Tickmill | None in our data | France, Portugal, Spain |
| Fusion Markets | Spain | — |
| IG | Belgium | — |
| Pepperstone | Belgium, Spain | — |
| FXTM | All EU member states — no EU entity | — |
| LiteFinance | All EU member states — no EU entity | — |
| RoboForex | All EU member states — no EU entity | — |
Platforms not listed above have no EU exclusions recorded in our data. That is not a guarantee of availability in your specific country — entity, product and onboarding rules can change, and the broker's own signup flow is the final word.
Why an EU licence isn't the whole answer
MiFID II lets an investment firm authorised in one EEA state notify regulators in the others and serve clients there. That is the passporting mechanism, and it is genuine — a CySEC-licensed firm really can reach Lithuania or Malta without a separate local licence.
What passporting does not do is oblige a firm to serve everywhere, or override national rules layered on top. Both of those produce the gaps in the table.
The two reasons a broker skips an EU country
1. No EU entity at all. Some well-known brands operate entirely offshore for EU purposes and exclude the whole EEA in their terms. One in our data previously held a Cyprus licence and gave it up: CySEC's register now lists that entity among former investment firms, which we verified on the register directly. A broker in this position isn't choosing between member states — it has no EU route at all.
2. National rules on top of the EU baseline. Member states can and do impose stricter local measures on CFDs than the EU-wide floor. Belgium restricts distribution of these products to retail clients far more tightly than most of the bloc; Spain, France and Portugal apply severe constraints on how CFDs may be marketed. That is why those countries — Spain especially — recur in exclusion and referral-ban lists while neighbouring states do not. Poland goes the other way: its regulator operates a national "experienced client" category permitting higher leverage than the standard retail cap on a limited instrument set.
What actually matters for you
- Check the entity, not the brand. Which company onboards you determines your regulator, your complaint route and your compensation cover. Our entity checker resolves it by country.
- Confirm the licence yourself. Look the entity up on the regulator's own register — not a link the broker hands you. Our regulation guide walks through it, and every licence we publish carries its own verification status.
- Treat an EU licence as a floor, not a promise. It tells you a supervisory regime exists. It does not tell you the firm serves your country, nor that your national regulator permits the product on the same terms as your neighbour's.
To see what is actually available where you are, compare platforms filtered by your country — leverage caps and availability update to the region you pick.