Plus500 is one of the best-known online forex and CFD brokers. Perhaps you already recognise the company’s logo from the shirts of Atlético de Madrid players or one of the other high-profile football sponsorships the company is engaged with.
In this Plus500 review, we’re going to explore the services provided by the broker. This review of Plus500 will cover regulation and what makes them safe to trade with, the trading platforms you can use to manage your trades, funding methods for depositing and withdrawing your money, trading fees and commissions, what products are available to trade and any frequently asked questions.
By the conclusion, you should know what type of trader Plus500 is suitable for and if you should open a Plus500 account or consider another forex broker.
Plus500 Overview
- Secure. The company holds several financial services licenses and is publicly listed on the LSE.
- Experienced. Launched in 2008, pioneered many products and developed its own trading platform.
- Variety. A vast range of asset classes spanning FX, commodities, indices, stocks, crypto, ETFs and more.
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Plus500 Company Profile
Initially founded in 2008, Plus500 has grown into an international company with more than 2,000 employees in offices located around the world. Several financial services regulators license the broker. Moreover, the company is publicly listed in the UK, and shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. As of November 2020, the market cap of Plus500 is £1,453 million.
Plus500 isn’t just one of the oldest online trading brokers, but the company has been a pioneer in the forex and CFD trading industry. In 2009 the company launched stocks as CFDs, and by 2011, more than one-thousands stocks were available. In 2012, Plus500 launched the first-ever Bitcoin CFD in the world.
As of 2019, Plus500 trading volumes exceeded $100 billion on average per month, and the company supported 200-thousand clients.
Plus500 Regulation
Forex regulation is a controversial topic these days. Traders have always considered Europe and Australia to offer the most reliable forex regulation in the world. Due to recent and upcoming changes to forex and CFD regulation in Europe and Australia, traders are rethinking what is important to them.
Thankfully, Plus500 has a variety of different regulated companies that offer different trading conditions depending on what you want or need. If you’re a retail trader looking for a reliable forex broker with high leverage, then consider opening an account with Plus500 in the Seychelles where the company provides leverage up to 1:300. If you want to trade Bitcoin CFDs, then don’t think about opening an account with Plus500 in the UK, where the FCA banned crypto CFDs. Or, if you want to ensure your balance is protected by an investor compensation fund, then consider not opening an account with Plus500 in Seychelles.
Each regulatory jurisdiction presents pros and cons, and you should consider which makes sense for you. In the table below, you can see the details of Plus500 regulation.
| Legal Entity | Regulator | License/Registration No. |
| Plus500UK Ltd | Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) | FRN 509909 |
| Plus500CY Ltd | Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) | Licence No. 250/14 |
| Plus500SG Pte Ltd | Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) | License No. CMS100648-1 |
| Plus500SEY Ltd | Seychelles Financial Services Authority | Licence No. SD039 |
| Plus500AU Pty Ltd | Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) | AFSL #417727 |
| New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA) | FSP No. 486026 | |
| South Africa Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) | #47546 |
Plus500 Trading Platform
One of the unique characteristics of Plus500 is that the broker doesn’t offer MetaTrader 4, nor any of the other most popular forex trading platforms. Plus500 is in an exclusive club of forex brokers with a proprietary trading platform, which means the company designed and developed a proprietary platform.
We recommend Plus500 for beginners because the trading platform is very user-friendly and straightforward to use, thus making it an ideal option for new traders. The platform is available to access via a web, iOS or Android applications. While the platform offers simplicity, you cannot customise the layout and appearance.
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Open a Plus500 Demo Account
It’s effortless to open a Plus500 demo account. If you have Google, Facebook or Apple ID, you can open a demo account with just a couple of clicks and start exploring the Plus500 trading platform in seconds. There is no time limit to how long you can use a Plus500 demo account. The demo account will automatically replenish itself when the paper money balance falls below 200 EUR or the equivalent amount. You can use the demo account forever.
Trading Instruments
Plus500 offers several asset classes for clients to trade. These include forex, indices, cryptocurrencies, indices, shares, commodities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and options. All-in-all, there are over 2,000 instruments to trade in the Plus500 platform.
Interestingly, Plus500 also offers some unique instruments too. For example:
- The Crypto 10 Index which follows the performance of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the market, including Bitcoin, Ethereum & more. You can trade this index on the weekends.
- The Real Estate Giants Index follows the 30 biggest publicly-listed companies in the real estate sector from North America.
- The Lithium & Battery Index follows the top 15 manufacturers of lithium and battery metals in America such as FMC Corporation, Sociedad Quimica and others.
- The Cannabis Stock Index follows the top medical marijuana shares in the world, such as Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth, Tilray & more.
Plus500 Deposits & Withdrawals
Plus500 offers many of the most popular forex trading deposit methods. You can deposit using various e-wallets, bank card and bank transfers as are available. Not all funding methods are open to all clients. You will be able to see which methods are available when you log in to your live Plus500 trading account. Here is a list of all available methods;
| Visa | Mastercard | PayPal | Skrill |
| iDeal | BPay | Klarna | Giropay |
| Trustly | Multibanco | Przelewy24 | MyBank |
The minimum deposit to open a Plus500 live account is $100.
Account Currencies Supported by Plus500
Plus500 offers 14 different account currencies, which is the currency your trading account is denominated.
| USD | GBP | EUR | CHF | AUD | JPY | PLN |
| HUF | CZK | CAD | TRY | SEK | NOK | SGD |
Deposit & Withdrawal Fees
Plus500 covers the costs to deposit and withdraw funds to and from your trading account. While all deposits are covered, the company only covers five free withdrawals per month. It’s also worth noting that you may be subject to conversion fees if you deposit a currency which differs from your trading account currency.
Plus500 Withdrawal Times
The Plus500 withdrawal times vary depending on the method you are using to withdraw funds. There are two components to every withdrawal. The first is the broker’s internal approval process; the second is the processing time of the payment provider. Withdrawals to bank cards are notoriously slow, and bank transfers typically take a few days.
Because of anti-money laundering and fraud prevention rules, brokers have strict internal policies to follow before releasing any funds. Plus500 claims to process any withdrawal request within one to three days. What you can do to ensure a fast approval is to make sure your request follows the rules, such as assuring money is being withdrawn to a verified method in your name.
Fees and Commissions
Before you make your decision to trade with Plus500, you probably want to understand the fee structure. Firstly, Plus500 does not charge commissions on most trading pairs. Therefore, most fees are added to the spread between the bid and the ask price. However, there are still some fees to take note of.
Inactivity Fee
If you do not sign in to your Plus500 trading account for longer than three months, an inactivity fee will start being charged each month. The fee will continue to be charged until you log in again or until the account balance is depleted. The inactivity fee can be up to US$10 per month.
Overnight Fee
The Overnight Fee is usually known as Swap Fee or rollover fee. Unlike other trading platforms which calculate Swaps in Pips, Plus500 has found a more user-friendly way of expressing this cost. In the trading platform, you can see the Overnight Fee listed in the symbol information panel. All Overnight Fees are expressed as a percentage of the value of the position being carried over to the following day.
Conversion Fee
A conversion fee is charged on all trades where the base currency differs from your account currency. For example, if your trading account balance is in USD and you place a trade for EUR/JPY, a fee of 0.5% will be charged on any profit or loss, including fees. The logic behind this charge is that your gains or losses and fees are charged in Euro, and must therefore be converted into USD, which is the currency your trading account balance is denominated in according to this example. Simply put, this fee is not charged on the total position size, only the amounts that are to be added or subtracted from your trading account balance.
Conclusion: Should you Trade with Plus500?
We recommend Plus500 for beginners; the broker is a great all-rounder and a great jumping-off point for any new trader. Plus500 offers a wide range of trading instruments and reasonable trading conditions for all the products they offer. Plus500 is a good option for a new trader who isn’t sure what their preference is yet. If however, you are a more experienced trader with a refined trading strategy, then you may want to invest some more time and explore other options that fit your precise needs.
Plus500 Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Plus500 suitable for scalpers?
- Plus500 does not allow scalping strategies. If the company believes you’re following a scalping strategy, it may block your trading account and terminate the relationship with you. Plus500 defines scalping as keeping positions open for a duration shorter than two minutes with a goal to make quick profits from small price movements. If you keep a trade open for less than two minutes, but the intention was to protect your account from losses, you would not be seen as scalping.
- Does Plus500 support algorithmic trading or expert advisors?
- Plus500 does not support any type of algorithmic trading. If you’re interested in using trading robots, custom indicators or expert advisors, you should consider opening a trading account with one of the forex brokers offering MetaTrader 4.
- Does Plus500 offer Islamic Accounts?
- No. Plus 500 does not offer Islamic Accounts.
