Is Pepperstone safe? Licences, protection and costs

The short answer

Pepperstone is a legitimate, well-regulated broker for UK and EU traders. UK clients are served by Pepperstone Limited, authorised by the FCA under firm reference 684312, with client money held in segregated accounts and FSCS cover of up to £85,000 if the firm fails. EU clients get Pepperstone EU (CySEC licence 388/20) or Pepperstone GmbH (BaFin registration 151148), where compensation tops out at €20,000.

The caveats are the product and the entity. Pepperstone’s UK site says 73.6% of retail accounts lose money on its spread bets and CFDs (October 2026), and its offshore Bahamas entity offers up to 1:1000 leverage with far less protection. A UK or EU resident should make sure they end up on the right company.

Who regulates Pepperstone?

Pepperstone is a group of companies. Its websites say it has nine licensed entities worldwide, and which one holds your account decides your regulator, your leverage limits and which compensation scheme, if any, stands behind you. These are the entities and licence numbers as they appear in the footers of Pepperstone’s regional websites, checked in October 2026:

The UK company is registered in England and Wales under company number 08965105. Its website footer gives a registered office at 27 Old Jewry in the City of London, while the FCA firm checker shows 70 Gracechurch Street; the licence number is the thing to match, not the address. Pepperstone also has a UAE entity licensed by the local Capital Market Authority, but its footer says that licence covers only introduction and financial consultation.

Check the licence yourself rather than trusting a broker’s footer (including the ones quoted here). Search the FCA register for 684312, or the CySEC and BaFin registers for the EU numbers, and confirm the status reads authorised.

Which Pepperstone entity will a UK or EU client get?

A UK resident signing up on Pepperstone’s UK site is onboarded with Pepperstone Limited. That is the entity you want: it is the only one that gives you FCA rules, FSCS cover and access to spread betting.

EU residents are served by Pepperstone EU in Limassol or by Pepperstone GmbH in Düsseldorf, depending on the site and country. Pepperstone’s EU site says it is not intended for residents of Belgium or Spain, so readers there should check what Pepperstone offers locally before assuming they can open an account.

The entity to avoid as a UK or EU resident is Pepperstone Markets Limited in the Bahamas. It is a genuine, licensed subsidiary, but Pepperstone’s international site advertises leverage of up to 1:1000 for SCB Pro clients, and the protections set out below do not travel with it. If an onboarding flow offers you “Pro” status or a different country’s entity in exchange for higher leverage, that is the trade being offered: more leverage, less protection.

How much leverage do you get on each entity?

UK retail clients cannot trade crypto CFDs or crypto spread bets at all, because the FCA has banned crypto derivatives for retail customers since January 2021. That restriction is the FCA’s, not Pepperstone’s.

What does the FSCS cover for Pepperstone UK clients?

Pepperstone’s UK withdrawals and safety pages say client funds are held in segregated accounts with multiple tier-1 banks, cannot be used for business activities, and are protected from creditors if Pepperstone goes into liquidation. In that case your share of segregated funds would be returned after administrative costs, and, in Pepperstone’s words, “any shortfall of funds of up to £85,000 may be compensated under the FSCS”.

That £85,000 is the FSCS investment limit per eligible person, per firm. Because client money is ring-fenced, the FSCS is a backstop for a shortfall, not the first line of defence. Pepperstone does not name the banks that hold its client accounts, so you cannot work out your exposure to any single bank.

What about EU clients?

The EU schemes are smaller, and this is the biggest practical difference between a UK and an EU account.

• Pepperstone EU (Cyprus): Pepperstone’s EU safety page says client money is held in segregated accounts at regulated EU banks and that retail clients are covered by Cyprus’s Investor Compensation Fund, which pays the lower of 90% of the claim or €20,000.
• Pepperstone GmbH (Germany): Pepperstone’s German client-money page says client funds are held separately at tier-1 banks and that the company is a member of the EdW (Entschädigungseinrichtung der Wertpapierhandelsunternehmen), which covers 90% of claims up to €20,000. The €100,000 figure on the same page refers to the statutory deposit guarantee if a bank holding the money fails, not to a Pepperstone failure.

A larger EU balance is protected first by segregation. The scheme only pays for whatever segregation fails to return.

Can you lose more than your deposit?

Not as a UK or EU retail client. Pepperstone’s UK support pages say a retail account that goes into a negative balance is returned to zero, and the FCA’s rules require negative balance protection on retail CFDs and spread bets; EU rules do the same. Retail positions are also closed out automatically when your margin level falls to 50% of the requirement.

Two groups lose this protection. Clients who opt up to professional status give it up, and Pepperstone’s global safety page says guaranteed negative balance protection does not apply to anyone classified as a Pepperstone Pro. Pepperstone’s own UK risk warning puts it plainly: professional clients could lose substantially more than their initial investment.

How many Pepperstone clients lose money?

Each entity publishes its own figure. As shown on Pepperstone’s regional websites in October 2026:

The pattern is worth noticing: the higher leverage allowed on the offshore entities goes with a higher share of losing accounts. None of these numbers says anything about whether Pepperstone is solvent. They describe what leveraged products do to most retail users.

What do Razor and Standard accounts cost in the UK?

Pepperstone’s UK costs and fees page, checked in October 2026, sets out two CFD account types and a spread betting account:

Commission varies by platform and account currency. On MetaTrader the round-turn charge is listed as USD 7, EUR 5.20 or GBP 4.50 per lot, while cTrader is quoted at $6 round trip and TradingView at $7. Deposits are free, and withdrawals are free except for a £15 charge on bank wires to international accounts. Overnight funding applies to every leveraged position held past rollover.

For anyone trading regularly, Razor is usually cheaper: a near-zero raw spread plus £4.50 round turn costs less than a 1-pip mark-up on a standard lot of GBP/USD. Standard is simpler and suits occasional traders who prefer one all-in number.

Does Pepperstone offer spread betting in the UK?

Yes. Pepperstone Limited offers spread betting alongside CFDs to UK clients, with no commission and the cost built into the spread, and the same £10 minimum deposit. Its UK risk warning covers both products. Pepperstone notes that spread betting profits are currently exempt from UK capital gains tax and stamp duty; that depends on your circumstances and could change. Leverage limits and negative balance protection are the same as for CFDs. For how the two compare on tax and cost, see spread betting vs CFDs.

Has Pepperstone faced regulatory action?

We could not find any. Searches of news coverage and the regulators’ published enforcement announcements in October 2026 turned up no fine or enforcement action against a Pepperstone entity by the FCA, ASIC, CySEC or BaFin. That compares well with some listed rivals; XTB, for example, has two fines from the Polish regulator.

The limit on that reassurance is transparency. Pepperstone is privately owned, so there are no audited group accounts published to a stock exchange of the kind a listed broker produces. You are relying on the regulators’ supervision and the client money rules rather than on public financial disclosure.

What is not protected?

• Market losses. No compensation scheme pays out because a trade went against you.
• Losses up to your balance. Negative balance protection stops losses at zero; everything above zero is at risk.
• Anything above the scheme limit: above £85,000 in the UK, or above €20,000 in the EU, you rely on segregation alone.
• Professional and Pepperstone Pro accounts, which give up negative balance protection.
• Accounts with the Bahamas or Kenya entities, which sit outside UK and EU protection.

Verdict

Pepperstone is safe in the sense most people mean: a UK client gets an FCA-authorised firm, segregated client money, negative balance protection and the FSCS behind it, and we found no record of regulatory fines. Our trust score of 8.9 reflects that, held back by private ownership and the offshore entities that make high leverage easy to reach. The real risk is the product: roughly three in four UK retail accounts lose money. The full assessment, including platforms and execution, is in our Pepperstone review.

If you are comparing on safety and cost, see Pepperstone vs IC Markets, XTB vs Pepperstone and Plus500 vs Pepperstone, or the full list of best forex brokers.

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Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 73.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.