XTB Review 2023

For this XTB review, we opened a live account and deposited €5,000

We traded the popular instrument in each market to identify the average spread and placed 12 trades in total.

We contacted the broker’s customer support to resolve the challenges we faced.

Finally, we withdrew all our funds to identify if there are any issues with withdrawals.

What is XTB

XTB is a global Forex and CFD broker, founded in 2002.

The broker has dual headquarters in London and Warsaw and is licensed by regulators in the UK, Cyprus, Poland, Spain, and Belize.

XTB has offices in each of the countries in which it is regulated.

Here’s a summary of XTB’s key features:

🗺️ Authorised & Regulated in	UK, Cyprus, Poland, Spain, Belize
🛡️ Is XTB safe	Yes
💰 EUR/USD Spread	0.9
💳 Minimum deposit	US$0
💰 Withdrawal fee	US$0
🖥️ Trading Platform	xStation5, xStation5 Mobile
📈 Markets offered	Forex, Indices, Stocks, Commodities, ETFs, Cryptocurrencies
📉 Number of Products	2111

Licenses and Regulations

XTB is licensed by 5 regulators globally including the top-tier UK’s FCA, the CySEC, Poland’s KNF, Spain’s CNMV & Belize’s FSC.

Here’s a full list of the licenses held by XTB’s subsidiaries:

Legal entity	Registered in	Regulator	License Number	Accepting Clients From	Compensation Scheme Amount
XTB Limited	United Kingdom	Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)	522157	United Kingdom	£85,000
XTB Ltd	Cyprus	Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC)	169/12	EU	€20,000
X-Trade Brokers DM SA	Poland	Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF)	1538207	Poland	€20,000
XTB Sucurusal	Spain	National Securities Market Commission (CNMV)	40	Spain	€20,000
XTB International Limited (XTB)	Belize	Financial Services Commission (FSC)	000302/46	Globally many countries	No compensation scheme

Is XTB Safe

Yes, XTB is safe to trade. XTB is a public company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and as such is required to publicly disclose its financial statements, which it does on a regular basis.

The broker is also regulated by the FCA and CySEC, which are highly regarded, and traders registered under the two entities are entitled to deposit compensation schemes of up to £85,000 and €20,000 respectively.

We did not encounter any major issues when trading and making withdrawals with XTB.

For this review, we opened an account with XTB Ltd which is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which we used to deposit money, place trades, and finally withdrew our funds.

You can open an account with the UK, Cyprus, Poland and Spain entities since they all offer deposit protection if they’re available to you.

We consider the FCA regulation to be the best since it provides compensation of up to £85,000 in case the broker goes bankrupt, but the other three entities also provide deposit compensation of up to €20,000.

Fees and Commissions

XTB doesn’t charge any commissions except for Equity and ETF CFDs.

The commissions could add up quickly and greatly reduce your profits if you trade small contract sizes.

XTB Spread Charged in our Trades

In our tests, we chose the popular instrument in each market. We placed 3 trades for each instrument to get a complete picture of the average spread. We tested the Standard Account which charges a spread on most assets except for ETFs, which attract a fixed €6.60 commission. Overall, the spread is stable as shown in the table below.

Markets	Instruments	1st trade	2nd trade	3rd trade	Avg. Spread	Commission
Forex	EUR/USD	0.5	0.5	0.6	0.53
Indices	FTSE 100	0.8	0.8	0.8	0.80
Stocks	Apple	1	1	1	1.00
Commodities	Gold	0.36	0.3	0.35	0.34
ETFs	QQQ	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	€6.60
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	189.06	189.95	189.65	189.55

We tested all our trades via the xStation5 mobile app on our iPhone. We discovered that the broker only allows long trades on the QQQ ETF since we were unable to go short/sell the ETF.

Comparing the spreads charged in our trades to industry benchmarks, we found the spread on Forex pairs to be quite low, but the spreads on commodities, stocks, indices and cryptocurrencies were in-line with industry averages or higher.

Markets	Instruments	Avg. Spread Charged	Industry Avg. Spread
Forex	EUR/USD	0.6	1.16
Indices	FTSE 100	0.8	1.65
Stocks	Apple	1.00	1.75
Commodities	Gold	0.34	3.53
ETFs	QQQ	N/A
Cryptocurrencies	Bitcoin	189.55	72.81

Other fees

XTB charges some inactivity fees: after 12 months of inactivity it starts charging €10 per month; also, it charges some small fees for withdrawing if it is below £60.

XTB Account Types

XTB offers only 1 Standard account:

	Standard
Execution type	Market
Available Instruments	CFDs on Forex, Commodities, Indices, Crypto, Shares, ETFs
Instruments	1500+
Maximum Leverage	1:30
Minimum Spread	0.00008
Negative Balance Protection	Yes
Minimal Order	0.01 lot*
Automated Trading	Yes
Account Setup & Management	Free
Trading Platforms	xStation5 & xStation5 Mobile
Forex, Indices, Commodities, Stocks	No Commission
ETF CFDs	Commission from 0.08% per lot
Cryptocurrencies	No commission

XTB also offers a forex swap-free Account. The main difference with Islamic accounts is that instead of daily swap rates, there is an administration fee charged if you hold positions for more than 3 nights.

For our tests, we chose to open a Standard Account.

Account Opening

XTB account opening is fast and smooth. We opened an account to test the entire process, which was fully digital.

Here are the 5 steps to opening an XTB account:

1. Enter your email address, country of residence and account password.
2. Enter your personal details including your full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and Tax identity among others.
3. Provide your physical address including your street, building no./name, flat no, postcode and city.
4. Choose a trading platform, account type, currency, and preferred language.
5. Answer questions about your experience, market knowledge and financial status.
6. Verify your ID and residency using either a National ID or Passport and a bank statement.

The registration process took just 13 minutes and our account was approved on the same day, which was impressive!

We registered our account on 21 January 2023 and it was verified on 21 January 2023. Our account was approved shortly after submitting all the necessary documents.

We opened a standard account with XTB Ltd, which is regulated by the CySEC.

Deposit and Withdrawal

XTB offers free and fast deposits and withdrawals. There are various options for funding your account, including bank wires, credit and debit cards, and Skrill.

XTB Minimum Deposit

XTB has no minimum deposit for individual accounts.

Deposit

XTB clients can deposit funds into their trading accounts using debit/credit cards, bank transfers, and Skrill.

The table below shows the details of our deposits:

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funded Account Date	Funding Time	Fee
Skrill	2023-01-08	2023-01-08	Instant	zero
Debit card	2023-01-08	2023-01-08	Instant	zero

All the deposit methods offered by XTB are instant and free, we did not make a deposit via bank transfers.

Withdrawal

XTB processes client withdrawals via bank transfer only, which could be a major drawback.

You cannot withdraw your funds via any other deposit methods available. Since the XTB is a UK broker and deals with UK customers mainly, it provides instant withdrawal.

XTB does not allow you to withdraw your funds using the other payment methods except for bank wire transfers.

Payment Method	Submitted Date	Funds Released Date	Funds Arrived Date	Withdrawal Time	Fee
Bank Transfer	2023-01-16	2023-01-16	2023-01-18	Instant	zero

Markets and Products

At XTB, you can trade CFDs on Forex pairs, stock indices, stocks, commodities, ETFs and cryptocurrencies.

Here’s the complete list of XTB’s product offerings:

Markets	Instruments
Forex	57
Indices	42
Stocks	1849
Commodities	23
ETFs	119
Crypto	25

The trading conditions at XTB are good. You can run most types of trading strategies as the broker allows high-risk strategies such as hedging and scalping.

There are no time limitations for keeping your hedging positions open.

Trading Method	Allowed
Hedging	Yes
Scalping	Yes
Change Leverage	No

Leverage

XTB offers different leverage levels to its clients depending on the entity under which they registered their account.

However, traders cannot change the leverage level of their account after registration.

The table below outlines the various leverage levels available to clients:

Markets	XTB Limited	XTB Ltd	X-Trade Brokers DM SA	XTB Sucursal	XTB International Ltd
Currency pairs	30:1	30:1	30:1	30:1	500:1
Gold	20:1	20:1	20:1	30:1	500:1
Other Commodities (except gold)	10:1	10:1	10:1	10:1	67:1
Indices	20:1	20:1	20:1	20:1	100:1
Stocks	5:1	5:1	5:1	5:1	5:1
ETFs	5:1	5:1	5:1	5:1	5:1
Cryptocurrencies	2:1	2:1	2:1	2:1	5:1

XTB Trading Platform

XTB only offers a proprietary trading platform known as xStation5 as well as its mobile version xStation5 mobile.

Starting from 2020, XTB no longer provides MetaTrader 4 to its clients.

XTB Trading Review

In our test, we placed all our trade through the xStation5 mobile app.

xStation5

XTB offers the xStation5 trading app, which is a proprietary platform developed by the broker.

Research and Tools

XTB provides user-friendly research tools including:

• Interactive charts
• Market analysis
• News flow
• Trading ideas

Education

XTB offers a wide variety of educational materials including:

• A demo account
• Webinars
• Ebooks
• Video Tutorials about the platform
• Detailed educational articles
• Educational videos

XTB educational materials are grouped according to a trader’s experience and based on various subjects, which we found to be very helpful.

You can find the educational resources in the broker’s trading academy section under the learn to trade tab.

Customer Service

XTB’s customer support team was helpful and provided relevant answers to our questions.

You can contact XTB via email, and live chat. We got an instant response to our questions via the live chat function.

Our email queries were answered within one working day for our first question with our followup question being answered on the same day.

See the results of our test below:

	Question	Response Time	Quality of reply
Live chat	Is hedging and scalping allowed?	Instant	Direct and accurate
Email	Withdrawal methods	One working day	Direct and accurate

Conclusion

Overall, our experience with XTB was smooth from opening account, to deposit, trading and withdrawal.

XTB offers great trading conditions with zero commissions charged; however, it does charge a small fee for inactivity and withdrawals.

XTB carries several licenses and the spreads on currency pairs are quite low; the broker also allows scalping.

We recommend XTB for traders who are

• Trading Currency pairs and Stocks
• Scalping trader
• Experienced traders and beginners
• EA trader

XTB might not be a fit if you are

• Trading on ETFs with small contacts
• Commission based trading

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