FCA CFD Firms Closing in 2026: What It Means for Your Broker

On 25 September 2026 the Financial Conduct Authority said 21 CFD firms have closed since 2025 after it challenged them, and three more are cancelling their permissions: 24 in total. Its target was firms that, in the FCA’s words, "carry out little UK business but use their authorisation as a badge to make linked overseas companies look more trustworthy than they really are." If your account is with a genuinely UK-authorised firm and your client agreement names that firm, nothing changes for you. If you signed up through a UK-looking brand but your contract sits with an offshore sister company, this announcement is about exactly your situation.

The FCA did not name the firms in its press release, and FX Recap will not guess. What follows is what the regulator said, how it fits with its two warnings from late 2025, and a short list of checks worth doing this week.

What the FCA announced

The press release, titled "Twenty-four CFD firms closing in crackdown on misuse of UK authorisation", describes a supervisory push that has led to 21 closures since 2025. Its concern was a business model rather than a single scam. A group holds a UK authorisation but does little business through it. The UK licence then appears on the group’s marketing, and customers are onboarded by a related company in another country with lighter rules.

According to the FCA, this "creates the misleading impression that consumers are dealing directly with a UK-regulated firm and benefit from UK protections when they do not." Firms faced "a range of actions, including restricting their trading abilities, requiring independent reviews of their business and opening enforcement investigations in the 2 most serious cases."

Dominic Holland, the FCA’s director of sell-side supervision, said: "Consumers need to know exactly who they’re dealing with and what protections they have. When firms blur the lines between their UK-regulated activities and overseas businesses, we will step in." The release ends its consumer advice by urging people to use the FCA’s Firm Checker to make sure you are dealing with a UK-authorised firm, "and not an overseas firm with a very similar name to a UK firm."

Why the badge model hurts traders

UK retail CFD rules are strict. Leverage is capped at 30:1 on major currency pairs, your broker must close positions at 50% of required margin, you cannot lose more than your account balance, bonuses are banned, and your money must be segregated under the FCA’s client money rules. Complaints go to the Financial Ombudsman, and if an authorised firm fails with a shortfall in client money, the FSCS can pay up to £85,000 per person.

An offshore affiliate owes you none of that. Its leverage can run to 500:1, it can offer a deposit bonus with withdrawal conditions attached, and disputes go to courts in its home country. The customer who picked the brand because of an FCA logo on the website ends up with a Seychelles, Vanuatu or St Vincent contract. Nothing about the trading platform looks different, which is why the FCA calls the impression misleading.

The two 2025 warnings that led here

September’s announcement did not come out of nowhere. On 30 October 2025 the FCA warned that CFD investors were at risk of losing UK protections. It said some firms were pushing retail clients to become elective professional clients, and others were "redirecting retail clients to associated CFD providers in third country jurisdictions without equivalent consumer protections." The regulator estimated that retail protections benefit nearly 400,000 people a year and are worth £267 million to £451 million a year. The FCA added that more than 90,000 people had lost about £75 million over four years at one firm through finfluencer-promoted schemes.

Two weeks later, on 13 November 2025, the FCA published a multi-firm review of how CFD providers deliver price and value under the Consumer Duty. It found wide variation in the effective interest rates built into overnight funding charges, with firms unable to justify the differences and not disclosing them well. Some firms charged funding on both legs of a hedged position, so a client holding a long and a short in the same market paid twice. Complaints data was not feeding into fair value assessments at many firms, and some firms’ responses suggested poor controls for vulnerable clients. Only a small number of firms paid interest on retail clients’ margin deposits.

Taken together, the three publications point one way. The FCA is squeezing the routes by which UK customers end up outside UK rules (opt-ups and offshore redirection), and it is pressing the firms that stay inside the rules on cost and value.

What to check on your own account now

1. Find your contracting entity. Open your client agreement or account terms and write down the exact company name and country.
2. Look that company up on the FCA Register. A UK brand on the website means nothing if your contract is with another entity. Our FCA Register walkthrough shows how.
3. Check your leverage. If you can trade GBP/USD at more than 30:1 and you have not opted up to professional status, you are almost certainly outside UK retail rules.
4. Confirm your client category. Look for a professional client confirmation email or a change in your account classification. You may be able to reverse it.
5. Review your funding costs. Pull a month of statements and add up the overnight financing. If you hold hedged positions, see whether you are charged on both.
6. Watch for transfer requests. A message asking you to move to a "global" or "international" account for better conditions is the exact pattern the FCA described.
7. If your firm is closing, follow its official instructions, withdraw to the original payment method and keep copies of every statement.

What happens if your broker is one of the 24

A firm cancelling its FCA permissions does not mean your money has gone. If the UK entity holds client money, it must return it under the FCA’s CASS rules, which keep client money segregated from the firm’s own funds. Positions are usually closed or you are asked to close them by a set date. If a firm fails and client money turns out to be short, the FSCS can step in up to £85,000 per person, as it did for customers of FIXI plc, declared in default on 30 August 2019.

For an account held with an offshore affiliate, the position is weaker. The FSCS and the Ombudsman do not cover it, and you would have to pursue any shortfall under the affiliate’s own law. That is the practical reason the FCA keeps repeating its advice to check who you are dealing with before you deposit. For the protections themselves, see our guides to FSCS cover for trading accounts and complaints to the Financial Ombudsman.

Our view: the crackdown is good news for UK traders who use properly authorised firms, and a clear warning for anyone who assumed an FCA logo protected an offshore account. It is unlikely to be the last announcement of its kind.

Frequently asked

Related reading

• How to check a broker on the FCA Register
• Offshore brokers and UK residents
• Professional client status in the UK
• FSCS protection for trading accounts
• Best FCA-regulated forex brokers