Margin rates

What is margin?

CFDs are leveraged products, meaning you don’t have to pay the full value of your trade upfront. Instead, you’ll put up an initial deposit – which is a fraction of your position’s total value – to trade. This opening amount is called margin – also sometimes referred to as ‘deposit margin’.

Margin is usually required on leveraged trades. Bear in mind that the profits and losses of leveraged trades are calculated on the full position size, not the margin amount. This means that you could lose or gain more than the amount you paid to open the trade.

Our margin rates

All our margins are kept at competitively low rates. We offer tiered margining, meaning there are different margin requirements at different levels of exposure. Smaller trade sizes attract our lowest margin rates because they generally benefit from better market liquidity.

Our tiers start from one and go up to four. Tier one has the lowest margin rates, while tier four has the highest.

You can see a summary of tier one margins for some of our most popular markets below. For all tier one margins, you can limit your potential for losses by using stop orders. This limits your exposure to risk by automatically closing out your positions if losses reach a certain level, predetermined by you. However, if markets move too fast and your position is not closed in time, your trade can go through negative slippage. To counteract this, you can use guaranteed stops, which will always close out your trade at the predetermined level, which you’ll pay a premium for.

Maintenance margin

Maintenance margin, also known as variation margin, is extra money that we might need to request if the market moves against you. It ensures you’ve got enough money in your account to fund the present value of the position – covering any running losses.

This type of margin is charged via a ‘margin call’, which is a status applied to your account when it’s fallen below the minimum required to keep a position open. Should you go into margin call, we will attempt to notify you by email. However, it’s important to note that’s it’s always the obligation of the client (you) to monitor accounts and ensure that you have sufficient funds to cover both margin and losses at all times.

Find out more about margin calls and how they work