How to Verify a Forex Broker’s License
A short, step-by-step checklist for confirming a forex broker's licence is real, current, and actually belongs to the entity you'd be dealing with.
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This is the quick-reference version: the exact steps to check a broker’s licence, in order, with nothing skipped. If you want the background on why this matters, read our longer piece on checking whether a broker is regulated — this one is just the procedure, written so you can work through it in a few minutes with a browser tab open to the broker’s site and another to the regulator’s.
Step 1: Get the exact legal entity name
Find the licence number and the full legal entity name the broker trades under, not just the brand name on the homepage. Look in the website footer, a “legal documents” or “regulatory information” page, or the account-opening agreement itself. Brands frequently operate through more than one legal entity worldwide, so write down both the number and the exact name before moving on — you will need both again in Step 4.
Step 2: Go straight to the regulator’s own register
Type the regulator’s address into your browser yourself, rather than clicking a badge or a “verify our licence” link on the broker’s own site. A logo claiming to show a regulator’s seal proves nothing — it can be copied onto any webpage regardless of whether the firm behind it is actually authorised. Treat any link the broker provides to “its” page on the register with the same scepticism, and navigate there independently instead.
Step 3: Search by licence number first
Most registers let you search by firm name or by licence number. Search by number first. This avoids the common trap of confusing two similarly named firms and takes you straight to the one record that actually matters, rather than scrolling through several results that all share part of the same brand name.
Step 4: Confirm the entity name matches, not just the number
Check that the name shown against that licence number on the register is identical to the legal entity named in the broker’s own documents. A number that checks out against a completely different company is not a pass — it is a reason to stop and dig further, since it may mean the number is genuine but belongs to an unrelated firm.
Step 5: Read the current status field
Look for a status such as active, authorised, suspended, cancelled, or under review. A firm can still appear in a search result after its authorisation has been withdrawn, so the status field — not the mere existence of a record — is what actually answers the question “is this firm currently licensed.”
Step 6: Search the regulator’s warnings list separately
Many regulators keep a public warnings or alerts page that is distinct from the main licence database, often listing firms known to be impersonating a genuine licence holder. Search the same firm name there too, since the main register search does not always surface it, and a clean result on the register alone does not rule out an impersonation warning sitting on a different page.
Step 7: Cross-check contact details against the register
Compare the domain, email address and registered office shown on the register with whatever the broker actually uses to contact you. A mismatch here — a different domain, a different registered address — is one of the more reliable signs of impersonation, which the next article in this cluster covers in detail.
What to do once you’ve finished the checklist
If every step checks out cleanly, you have confirmed the basics: a real, currently active licence belonging to the exact entity you would actually be opening an account with. That is a necessary condition for trading with a broker, not a complete judgement of whether it is a good one to use — it says nothing about fees, execution quality or support. For that fuller picture, this cluster’s article on researching a broker before depositing walks through the rest of the process.
For a faster first pass across more than one regulator, our Broker Regulation Checker can surface a broker’s licence numbers in one place. Treat that as a starting point rather than the final word, and always finish by confirming the result directly on the regulator’s own register before you deposit anything.