The threshold is not the answer
Forex brokers by minimum deposit
RoboForex opens an account from 10 USD, Alpari from $30, LiteFinance from $50, Tickmill from 100, and FxPro sets no fixed minimum while recommending $1,000. Those are admission prices. The amount that lets you trade the smallest position at a sane risk is a different number, and this page works out both.
Conditions checked against each broker's own pages
The threshold, and what works
Lowest published threshold first. The second column is the one that matters: what it takes to open a 0.01-lot position and survive a fifty-pip move against you, which is our arithmetic rather than a broker's claim.
| Broker | Minimum to open | What it takes to trade | Smallest position |
|---|---|---|---|
| RoboForex | 10 USD / 10 EUR on every account type | 10 USD genuinely works here — on the ProCent account the balance is held in cents, so the deposit shows as 1,000 cents and positions scale down with it | Cent account; 0.01 lots on standard accounts |
| Alpari | $30 on Micro, $100 Standard, $300 ECN, $500 Pro ECN | $30 covers roughly $33 of margin on a 0.01-lot position at 1:30, or a fraction of that at its own 1:500 — the constraint is the fifty-pip move, which costs $5 | 0.01 lots on the Micro account |
| LiteFinance | $50 on both ECN and Classic | $50 leaves room for a 0.01-lot position and ten consecutive fifty-pip losses | 0.01 lots; cent accounts offered separately |
| Tickmill | 100 in USD, EUR, GBP, PLN or CHF | 100 is close to the sensible floor for a capped-leverage account: 0.01 lots needs about $33 of margin at 1:30, leaving two thirds of the balance as room | 0.01 lots on Classic and Raw |
| Libertex | 100 EUR first deposit, then 10 EUR per top-up | The minimum trade size is set in euro of exposure rather than in lots | Not published outside the platform |
| FxPro | No fixed minimum on the Standard account | FxPro recommends $1,000 itself, «for a smoother trading experience» — the only broker here that publishes a recommendation alongside the absence of a minimum | Micro lots on the Standard account |
| Deriv | No single figure; the threshold depends on the payment method | Cannot be worked out from published figures | Not published |
| Bybit | Not published | Cannot be worked out from published figures | Not published |
| ForTrade | Not published to visitors outside the markets it serves | Cannot be worked out from published figures | Not published |
Scroll the table sideways →
Minimums as each broker publishes them, read on 24 August 2026. The third column is our arithmetic on those figures — 0.01 lots on EUR/USD is about ten cents a pip, so a fifty-pip move costs $5, and margin is roughly $33 at 1:30 leverage.
The threshold and the working amount are different numbers
A minimum deposit is an admission price: the smallest sum a broker will accept to open an account. It says nothing about whether that sum can be traded, and brokers are not pretending otherwise — FxPro publishes no minimum at all and recommends $1,000 in the same breath.
The working amount comes from arithmetic instead. The smallest position most brokers allow is 0.01 lots, where a pip on EUR/USD is worth about ten cents, so a fifty-pip move against you costs $5. Margin for that position is roughly $33 at 1:30 leverage and a few dollars at 1:500. Add the two: a capped-leverage account needs about $100 to open one small position and survive a normal losing run; an account at high leverage needs less margin and exactly the same cushion.
Which is why the cheapest entries on this page are not the outliers they look like. RoboForex's 10 USD is workable because its cent account scales the positions down with the balance; the same 10 USD on a standard account buys margin and no room at all.
«No minimum deposit» usually means something else
Where a broker sets no threshold, the constraint moves elsewhere: to the payment method, which has its own minimums, and to the margin required by the smallest position it will let you open. Deriv is the clearest case — it publishes no single figure because the number depends on how you fund the account.
Read a missing minimum as an invitation to do the arithmetic yourself rather than as generosity. FxPro is unusually direct about this, and the gap between «no minimum» and its own recommendation is a factor of a thousand.
What a small account costs you elsewhere
Cost per trade does not scale down with your balance. Spread and commission are charged per lot, so a $50 account trading 0.01 lots pays the same 0.2 to 1.8 pips per round turn as a $50,000 account — but that cost is a far larger share of the balance, and it compounds against you before any strategy has a chance to work.
Withdrawal minimums bite in the same direction. Several brokers set a floor per method — Libertex publishes a 10 EUR minimum withdrawal on most methods — which can exceed what a small account has earned.
And the leverage available on a small deposit is precisely the temptation to fix the problem the wrong way. The arithmetic is on our leverage page: at 1:3000, $100 supports three lots and three and a half pips of adverse movement.
How much to actually deposit
Enough for the smallest position you intend to trade, plus room for a run of losses at that size, and no more than you can lose entirely without it mattering. On a capped-leverage account trading 0.01 lots that lands between $100 and a few hundred; anything smaller is a subscription to watching rather than trading.
The number worth avoiding is the one chosen because it is the minimum. A deposit sized to the broker's threshold rather than to your position size is how the first month ends in a margin call, and the published loss statistics — 69% to 83% of retail accounts at these brokers — are made of exactly those accounts.
Questions people ask
Which forex broker has the lowest minimum deposit?
RoboForex, at 10 USD or 10 EUR on every account type, followed by Alpari at $30 and LiteFinance at $50. FxPro sets no fixed minimum at all, while recommending $1,000 of its own accord.
Is $10 enough to start forex trading?
Only on an account built for it. RoboForex's cent account holds the balance in cents, so $10 shows as 1,000 cents and positions scale down to match. The same $10 on a standard account covers margin for one small position and nothing else — the first fifty-pip move ends it.
How much should I deposit as a beginner?
Enough for a 0.01-lot position plus a run of losses at that size: on a capped-leverage account that is roughly $100 upwards, since a fifty-pip move costs $5 and margin is about $33 at 1:30. And never more than you can lose entirely without it mattering.
Are there forex brokers with no minimum deposit?
Yes — FxPro sets none on its Standard account, and Deriv publishes no single figure because the threshold depends on the payment method. That moves the constraint to the payment minimum and to the margin the smallest position requires.
Does a small deposit cost more to trade?
Proportionally, yes. Spread and commission are charged per lot, not per balance, so the same 0.2 to 1.8 pips per round turn takes a far bigger share of a $50 account. Withdrawal minimums work the same way.
What is the difference between a minimum deposit and a cent account?
The minimum is what the broker will accept; a cent account changes what that money can do by denominating the balance in cents, so ordinary lot sizes move a hundredth of the money. RoboForex and Alpari both offer one.
Getting the terminal itself is a different question — which version to download and where from. The full cost arithmetic for every account here is on what a trade actually costs, and a demo account What each trade costs regardless of your balance is on spread plus commission, and the temptation a small deposit creates is worked out on high leverage brokers.
Trading a hundredth of a lot with real money is what cent accounts are for: cent account brokers.