2024 Latest List of Offshore Forex Brokers Accepting US Citizens & Reasons Why

The Latest List Of Offshore Brokers Accepting US Residents

It’s time to free Americans from a severely restricted trading environment such as limited leverage, no hedging & FIFO rule set by the NFA & CFTC. 

As of November 2024, 11 offshore Forex brokers accept US citizens.

We begin with the updated list of those offshore brokers (see the notes for the “Trusted” sign) though strongly suggest checking the Updated Listing Status section to know its dynamic nature, as well as the sections on specific advantages of offshore brokers, the reasons why they refuse US citizens, and why some still accept, etc. for your better understanding of this complicated offshore brokerage market to mitigate your risk.

Updated List Of Offshore Forex Brokers Accepting US Traders

Offshore Brokers Listing Status

Bear in mind that there is no assurance that these offshore brokers will keep accepting US Citizens. We have been presenting this list for 9 years and have seen a reducing number of brokers year by year. 

In the early 2010s, the number of offshore brokers accepting US clients was over 100, but now it’s merely around 10. 

They may stop it spontaneously like the below 2 brokers;

FXChoice & Trader’s Way

FXChoice & Trader’s Way offshore brokers stopped accepting US Clients last year. However, both of them replied to our inquiry related to the existing US customers in a positive manner as below;

Please be informed that the restriction only applies to clients coming from the countries on the list specified on our website (including the US). However, those clients who already have an existing account with us will continue to enjoy the top level service they have grown to expect here at FXChoice; the same trading environment and conditions will remain available to them. (FXChoice)

Already opened account is not affected. (Trader’s Way)

What Happens After They Stop Accepting the US Clients

After they decided not to accept US traders, there are 3 cases;

What is Offshore Investing & Offshore Brokerage for US Citizens?

Twisted Image/Fact of Offshore Investment & Offshore Broker

Offshore investing using an offshore brokerage account is often associated with wicked & unscrupulous politicians, ultra-rich, multi-national corporations, or gangsters who use offshore investment as havens for tax evasion or money laundering, etc.

Although it is true that there are always such instances of shady deals, the vast majority of offshore investment at offshore brokerage accounts is absolutely legal. Then, are offshore brokers safe? Basically, Yes.

The modern offshore centres, especially after the incident of Panama Papers, tighten their safety, which allows legitimate investors & traders to make the best use of higher rates of return (and/or lower rates of tax on that return) offered by offshore brokerages operated in those domiciles.

So, can US citizens trade forex overseas? Yes, no US law prohibits US residents from trading outside the US.

The general advantage to using offshore stock brokerage or forex broker (in other words, overseas forex trading) is that such operations are both legal and less costly than those offered onshore, namely the trader’s country, in your case the USA.

Offshore Forex Broker Meaning for US Citizens

The definition of Offshore investing is simply to keep your fund in a jurisdiction other than your country of residence, so an offshore broker meaning for US citizens is just trading in the Forex Broker domiciled outside the US. The offshore stockbroker also exactly applies to this meaning.

Allow me to repeat that despite its negative perception, it’s legal for US residents to trade with offshore forex brokers and it’s a very effective way to invest in the entities & services that are only available outside the US.

However, not all offshore forex brokers accept US citizens. We constantly receive questions like;

Importantly, don’t blindly count on the sites recommending certain brokers based on the reviewer’s subjective judgment.

For the unregulated offshore brokers, our priority is safety & security, thus we emphasize & remark the “Trusted” sign to each offshore Forex broker name based on our registered members’ input (as of now we have around 12,000+ members) as well as various forums’ assessments.

Anyhow, let’s start with the basic question Why Do You US Citizens Need Offshore Brokers? Are there any real advantages other than less costly (thus possibly the case of tighter spread & lower commission)?

Why Do US Citizens Need Offshore Brokers? What are the Constraints of US-Based Brokers?

Forex brokers in the US are regulated by the National Futures Association (NFA) and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which publishes Commitments of Traders (COT) Reports every Friday, around 2:30 pm EST.

The regulatory framework set out by these two bodies is often found too strict for free trading, which means the forex brokers regulated by NFA & CFTC are not necessarily the best forex brokers for many forex traders.

A few examples of rules US Forex Brokers must follow are;

Limited Leverage

The CFTC released the new trading rules regarding the use of leverage and margin by clients in 2010.

It sets out a leverage requirement of 1:50 for individual forex traders and 1:20 for options traders, while at least 1:100 is an absolute global standard.

This means the US traders have limited power to earn in comparison to other players.

No Hedge & FIFO

With the NFA rules, US brokers no longer allow hedge and they need to implement FIFO (First In First Out).

Hedging is simply coming up with a way to protect yourself against big losses namely a trader that is long a foreign currency pair, can protect oneself from downside risk, while a trader that is short a foreign currency pair, can protect against upside risk.

However, the NFA’s FIFO rule specifies that if you open more than one position on a currency pair, you must close the first before closing the second one, which is a not-so-straightforward way of preventing hedging.

This FIFO has never become common outside the US, which means offshore brokers are usually non-FIFO forex brokers.

OFAC Restrictions

The Office of Foreign Assets and Control (OFAC) has placed limitations on who US forex brokers can accept into their network. Nationals of countries on the OFAC blacklist are not permitted to open forex trading accounts with US forex brokers.

Those from affected countries who already operated accounts with US forex brokers had their accounts shut down as a result. US forex brokers, therefore, have to operate within pretty stringent guidelines and so they tend to restrict their business to a certain class of traders.

No Longer Credit Card

The NFA announced in June ’14 that its board has approved banning the use of credit cards for funding Forex accounts.

The impending ban was viewed as possibly being a huge blow to US Forex firms, who depending on the firm are estimated to have between 3% to 35% of their deposits in the form of credit cards.

Specifically, brokers with smaller size deposits were expected to be especially affected by the ban. The fact is NFA already made it Effective on 31 January 2015. after the approval of the CFTC in December 2014.

Pattern Day Trader (PDT) Rule

When it comes to stock trading, Pattern Day Trader, a.k.a. PDT rule requires you to maintain a minimum balance of at least $25,000 if you execute 4+ day trades in 5 consecutive business days, provided the number of day trades is more than 6% of the total trades in the account during that period.

This rule was established in 2001 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA – Day Trading Margin Requirements) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC – PDT).

I assume that $25,000 is a sizable risk for many traders, especially for newbies who want to start a day trading career, which sets a very high hurdle to participate in the market.

Therefore, I can easily imagine many US traders seeking the best offshore stock brokers with no PDT rule.

So you have many reasons for Not Using US Forex Brokers but Using Brokers with Better Trading Conditions, More Freedom, and More Convenience which are available with Offshore Brokers.

But, can US citizens practically trade forex overseas?

Why do Many Offshore Forex Brokers Decline US citizens to Open Accounts?

Unfortunately, a good number of regulated international Forex brokers operating offshore do not accept US residents to open an account with them.

There are strict regulations that limit doing business with US citizens originating from the US government. Below is the primary reason why almost all offshore international Forex brokers do not accept US citizens now.

Dodd-Frank Act

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a federal statute that President Obama signed into law. It first became operational on July 21, 2010. The act brought forth new rules that are designed to regulate all financial markets including stocks, futures, options, and Forex.

Dodd-Frank Act requires that Forex brokerage company that wants to do business with US citizens must first be registered with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA).

Many international Forex brokers find this a very difficult and costly operation with more reporting requirements as shown by the HBR report.

Many of them are still not registered with these two bodies. They are mostly legitimate and regulated offshore brokers. To avoid the paper mess, they stop accepting US citizens to open an account with them. It is easier for them to decline the US citizens than incur unforeseen expenses.

So the Dodd-Frank Act is the primary reason that has forced international offshore Forex brokers to decline US citizens (CFTC final release & final rules regarding retail foreign exchange transactions)

As a result, US citizens desiring to trade Forex are forced to open US Forex accounts and trade with very low leverage, namely 1:50 and 1:20 on majors and minors respectively.

It means you often have no choice but to deposit a lot of money in your account if you want to trade safely and get anywhere financially without getting a margin call that would normally wipe out a small deposit depending on the lot size of your choice.

So, in essence, the Dodd-Frank Act indirectly, even if unintentionally, makes it harder for the small trader in America to trade Forex, but it is not a problem for those who are already rich and have enough extra income they can afford to use in a US Forex account.

Reasons Why Some Offshore Brokers Can Still Accept US Citizens

Despite the regulation, there are chances US citizens can open an account with international brokers not registered by US regulatory bodies – NFA and CFTC.

However, this is done under certain different conditions. Such offshore brokers are allowed to accept US clients only under their US-based affiliate brokerage firms.

Let me quote the discussion from the babypips.com forum as;

The CFTC has U.S. forex brokers by the throat: by threatening their ability to do business in the U.S., the CFTC can interfere with the rights of those brokers to do business outside the U.S. and the CFTC has his tentacles deep inside many foreign governments, through a series of nasty, little agreements known as Memoranda of Understanding.

These agreements have effectively extended U.S. regulation to cover U.S. residents doing business in countries which have signed the agreements. There are yet the countries where these agreements do not exist. And there are a few offshore brokers, in Memorandum countries, who have the courage to defy the over-reaching U.S. regulatory authorities, and welcome U.S. residents as clients, and to consider client relationships with them.

And under the current law, the CFTC has no authority over individual traders who trade through foreign brokers that are beyond the reach of U.S regulation.

The U.S. government claims the authority, through the IRS, to require U.S. residents to report foreign accounts which people hold, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, etc, which has been automatically reported under FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) started in July ’14.

But, they cannot yet prevent US citizens from having those accounts.

From another perspective, the non-US Forex brokers who are affected by the Dodd-Frank act are those that are regulated in their own countries. This means the brokers in the countries where Forex itself is not regulated such as Finland can accept US citizens without being bothered by the Dodd-Frank act.

Remember the Act affects the brokerage but not you as an individual, as long as you report what is required to IRS, you are not subject to be punished.

Regulation Inquiry

I explained the reason why some offshore Forex brokers can accept US clients as;

the brokers in the countries where Forex itself is not regulated such as Finland can accept US citizens without being bothered by Dodd-Frank act.

I picked Tallinex (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) & TradeWise FX (I quoted Tallinex’s answer to check if they have common understandings) as examples and sent an inquiry about Regulation, then the answers I received (Note; both of these brokers no longer accept US Citizens, thus this info are already history, but just FYI);

But, remember, the fact remains that their business is not regulated, so you need to be cautious.

Let me reiterate that, it’s essential to make minimum Due Diligence before you open an account in any of the above brokers, especially for Not Regulated ones, because as North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) warned that there are still a lot of Forex Fraud.

Needless to say, forex brokers requiring no KYC are out of the question.

Dodd-Frank Act Repeal – Latest Status / Forecasting

Trump Administration

Lastly, let me update the regulatory movement. Donald Trump & Republicans were eager to deregulate the financial sector and pleaded to dismantle the Dodd-Frank act as below;

Actually, “Congress just approved a bill to dismantle parts of the Dodd-Frank banking rule” and Trump signed the bill.

Harsh Reality – Latest News, Current Status & Future Prediction

However, what is the real effect on Forex Industry & Forex Brokers?

Brookings issued an interesting article titled “No, Dodd-Frank was neither repealed nor gutted. Here’s what really happened“, which points out several misconceptions about the repeal. The Balance’s article of “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act 8 Ways a Repeal Hurts You” clearly identifies;

In summary, the key changes are Watering down bank regulation, Dismantling the CFPB & Loosening the Volcker Rule.

This Brookings webinar “A decade of Dodd-Frank” will give you a good latest update.

Biden Administration

Back to the Democratic regime where Obama & Biden set the Dodd-Frank Act, there should be no signs of changing the Act.

As Brookings reported, Biden’s priority is to appoint strong financial regulators to implement the Act.

The bottom line is when it comes to the US’s harsh regulation toward Forex Industry, nothing has changed and we foresee no optimistic prediction.

Follow Success Model & Use World Best Tools

Finally, allow me to remind you that almost all offshore brokers you will find here enable you to trade with large leverage, scalping with EAs & grid-based trading with hedging, etc.

Surely, these are the benefits you US traders look for but at the same time, they require a high level of risk management. Therefore, strongly suggest you go through the Successful Forex Model with Powerful Tools & List of Most Profitable Forex EAs &  Signals. 

These guides comprehensively explain how you can evolve Forex Trading successfully by using world-top-class tools & the full list. 95% of forex retail traders are estimated to fail. The 5% winners are only Institutional Traders & very experienced Professionals.

Most probably you are an experienced trader since you’re looking for better trading environments than US brokers.

But, usually, it’s difficult for even such traders to achieve consistent profits in the newly liberated trading conditions from the outset. So, take a look at the above Special guides which we believe are worth your time.

We set 2 Meditation videos for Traders, go to the Latest News section in the Successful Forex Model, you may want to go through it every day, which will definitely improve your trading psychology and thus trading performance.

Offshore Brokers FAQs

Good Luck!!

Joshua Walker (bio)

Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)