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You can trade forex in Tanzania. It is totally legal. However, there are a few things you should be aware before venturing into trading.
The most important is the fact that forex trading is regulated in Tanzania by the Capital Markets and Securities Authority (CMSA). They oversee the activities of forex brokers in Tanzania and protect the interest of local traders.
It is highly recommended that you trade with regulated forex brokers only. This ensures that your funds are protected.
The next thing to consider after regulation are different factors related to a forex broker. Is their trading fees high or low? What are their trading platforms? What CFD instruments do they provide?
The brokers on our list were selected based on these criteria & other key factors.
| Broker | Regulations | EUR/USD Spread (pips) | Min. Deposit | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
FBS |
FSCA, FSC, CySEC, ASIC
|
0.9
|
$5 (13,125TZS)
|
Visit Broker |
FP Markets |
ASIC, CySEC, FSCA, FSA
|
1.1
|
$100 (262,500TZS)
|
Visit Broker |
HF Markets |
CySEC, FSCA, FCA, FSA, DFSA, CMA, St. Vincent & the Grenadine
|
1.4 (Premium Account)
|
$0 (0TZS)
|
Visit Broker |
AvaTrade |
ASIC, FSA, CBI, BVI, FSCA, FRSA, CySEC, ISA, JFSA
|
0.9
|
$100 (262,500TZS)
|
Visit Broker |
Exness |
CBCS, CySEC, FCA, FSA, FSC, FSCA, CMA
|
1.0
|
Depends on trading account
|
Visit Broker |
According to our review, these are the seven best forex brokers in Tanzania for 2024.
The essence of this article is to help you choose the forex broker you believe is right for you. Here is a brief review of the best forex brokers in Tanzania.
FBS is not locally regulated in Tanzania. However, they hold a top-tier license with ASIC in Australia. In Africa, they are regulate with the FSCA in South Africa.
Account Types: FBS has one trading account only. No multiple account.
Fees: FBS offers floating spread that starts from 0.7 pips and they charge no commission per standard lot. You will also pay no fees for deposits and withdrawals.
Though you can open a swap-free Islamic account, FBS charges a swap when for all of your trades. A buy trade on EUR/USD will cost you -5.46. If you go short, you get paid 0.61. FBS charges no inactivity fees.
Trading Conditions: FBS minimum deposit is $5 (13,125TZS). Your account can be denominated in USD or EUR. It all depends on you. Though you can open an account with little money, FBS recommends you start trading with $100 (262,250TZS).
You can fund your account via SticPay, NETELLER, Skrill, Perfectmoney, Visa, MasterCard, and Maestro. The same options are available for withdrawal.
Tradable Instruments: FBS offers CFDs on 72 forex pairs, 8 metals, 11 indices, 3 energies, and 100+ stocks.
Trading Platforms: MT4 and MT5 are the platforms supported. They are available on Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web.
Customer Support: You can contact FBS customer support via live chat or call back. Customer support agents are available 24/7. There was a long queue of about 5 minutes every time we tried FBS live chat. However, the customer support was good.
FBS Pros
FBS Cons
FP Markets is not regulated by the CMSA. They hold a tier-1 ASIC license and tier-2 CySEC license. In Africa, they are licensed with the FSA in Seychelles and the FSCA in South Africa.
Account Types: FP Markets provides two accounts: Standard Account and Raw Account. You can also open an Islamic version of these two accounts.
Fees: FP Markets spread varies by trading account. The spread for EUR/USD on the Raw Account is 0.1 pips. You will also pay a commission. Commission for all CFDs is built into the spread on the Standard Account. For the Raw Account, the fee is $3 per standard lot for forex and metals.
Commissions for commodities, indices, shares, and cryptocurrencies are built into the spread. FP Markets also charge their traders swap but no fees for deposits and account inactivity. Some withdrawal methods attracts fees from FP Markers.
Trading Conditions: FP Markets minimum deposit for their two accounts is $100 (262,250TZS). You can fund/withdraw funds from your account through bank transfer, crypto payments, debit/credit cards, NETELLER, Skrill, and Perfect Money.
Tradable Instruments: FP Markets offers the following CFDs: 70+ currency pairs, 10,000+ shares, 17 metals, 12 commodities, 18 indices, 12 digital currencies, 2 bonds, and 48 ETFs.
Trading Platforms: You can execute your trades with MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView, and FP Markets App.
Customer Support: FP Markets can be contacted via call back, live chat, and email. We got a response within a minute when we tested their email support. The only downside is that customer support is not 24/7.
FP Markets Pros
FP Markets Cons
HF Markets is licensed with & regulatory bodies globally. Only their FCA license in the UK is tier-1. In Africa, they are regulated with the CMA in Kenya, FSA in Seychelles, FSC in Mauritius, and FSCA in South Africa.
Account Types: HF Markets has six account types. Cent, Zero, Pro, Pro Plus, Premium, and Top-up bonus account. None of the accounts is TZS-based.
Fees: HF Markets charges a spread on all of their CFDs. The spreads are different for each of HFM’s accounts. You will only pay commission on forex pairs for the Zero Account only. Overnight fees also apply. For EUR/USD, the swap is 8.1 for bullish trades.
No deposit fees except for bank wire transfer. Withdrawal is also free except for payments made via crypto platforms.
Trading Conditions: HF Markets minimum deposit is $0 for for four of their six accounts. Only the Pro and Pro Plus Accounts have a minimum deposit of $100 and $250 respectfully. You can fund/withdraw your funds via Skrill, NETELLER, Perfect Money, Credit/Debit cards, and alternative crypto payment methods.
These methods have their own minimum deposits and withdrawals.
Tradable Instruments: You can trade 50+ currency pairs, 6 metals, 2 energies, 12 indices, 195 stocks, 4 commodities, 3 bonds, and 24 ETFs. All of these instruments are CFDs.
However, your account type and trading platform determines how much of these CFDs you can access.
Trading Platforms: You can trade CFDs with HFM on MT4 and MT5. HFM’s MT5 have more CFDs than the MT4. You can also use HFM’s proprietary trading platform.
Customer Support: HFM has good customer support. You can contact them via email and live chat. We tested the live chat and got a response within two minutes. HFM’s support is available 24/5.
HF Markets Pros
HF Markets Cons
AvaTrade have tier-1 ASIC license and tier-2 CySEC license. They are also regulated the FSCA in South Africa.
Account Types: Only a single trading account is available. This one account also have an Islamic version.
Fees: CFD Trading at AvaTrade cost zero commission with no deposit or withdrawal fees. Spread accounts are fixed with a competitive spread (0.9 pips for pairs like EUR/USD). However, their swaps are quite high.
AvaTrade clients will also pay inactivity fees after three months of no trading activity. The fee is $50 and it is recurrent after every 3 months of inactivity.
Trading Conditions: The maximum leverage on AvaTrade is 1:400 but this figure might change depending on the instruments you are trading.
Ava Trade’s minimum amount of deposit is $100 or TZS262,500. You cannot open an account in TZS. The option is not available. You can fund your account via bank transfer, credit/debit cards, and e-wallets.
Tradable Instruments: AvaTrade offers over 600 instruments including CFDs on 55 currency pairs, 616 stocks, 20 cryptocurrencies, 31 indices, 54 FX options, and 19 commodities.
Trading Platforms: AvaTrade provides various platforms for trading including MT4, MT5, AvaTrade App, AvaOptions, AvaSocial, DupliTrade, and Webtrader.
Customer Support: AvaTrade provides support via live chat and email. You can also take advantage of their FAQs to get quick answers to your questions. If the FAQ does not satisfy you, then you can use the live chat.
AvaTrade Pros
AvaTrade Cons
A forex broker offers brokerage services to retail and professional traders who want to speculate on currency pairs & other markets as CFDs, by going long (buy) or short (sell). Through a forex broker, your profit or loss from trading CFDs is cash settled in a brokerage account you have opened with the broker.
A forex broker could be a market maker which means they could be taking the opposite sides of your trades. A market maker also stands to make profit when you lose a trade so there is a little conflict of interest.
A forex broker could also be a no-dealing desk broker that connects you to buyers/sellers through their liquidity providers via computerized networks.
Forex traders in South Africa face a dilemma over the choice of a brokerage firm to trade with. Although getting started in forex trading is easy as one just needs to register and fund an account with a broker. What constitutes a problem is finding the right broker.
Probably the most important of all factors to consider after regulation is trading fees. Some brokers charge high fees for almost every transaction carried out by the trader. Such numerous and exorbitant trading fees can eat into a trader’s profit or even his capital. A trader must choose a broker that has low or minimal trading fees.
Here is a detailed layout of the factors you should consider when choosing a forex broker.
Forex trading in Tanzania is regulated with the Capital Markets and Security Authority (CMSA). Most of the brokers in this review accept traders from Tanzania though they have no local license.
So what do you do? Well, the absence of a local license should not stop you from choosing a broker. What you should do is to check if the broker has a top-tier license with a regulatory body outside Tanzania. The broker you choose should have at least an FCA (UK) license or an ASIC (Australia) license. Some brokers have both.
In addition, you can check for a tier-2 license with CySEC (Cyprus). All the brokers in our review have a tier-1 license and licenses in other African countries.
After confirming your broker’s regulation, you can then proceed to verify the license. Here is an example with HF Markets’ FCA license.
1) Go to the FCA Register.
2) Check for the presence of the firm on the FCA register.
3) Click the name of the broker for more details.
4) From the image, you can see HF Markets’ registered name and reference number. For final verification, compare the reference number on the FCA register with the one on HF Markets (UK) website. If the numbers match, then the license is valid.
You should also look into the overall trading fees, which include the spreads, commission charged by your broker. Extremely high fee can eat deeply into one’s funds and profits.
Some brokers also charge for inactive trading accounts between 3-6 months.
We break down the fees charged by forex brokers in Tanzania into 2 components:
a. Trading Fees: These are the fees that you will have to pay for actual trading. It includes the spread and commissions per lot.
Depending on your Account type, you may be charged commissions. For example, if you are trading via Premium Account at HF Markets, there are no extra commissions per lot. The only fee you will be charged is the variable spread. This depends on the instrument that you are trading.
For example, on average, FP Markets charges 1.1 pips spread for majors like EUR/USD with their Standard Account type. But FP Markets also has a Raw Account type, with which you pay much lower spreads, but there is an extra commission of $3/lot for currency pairs.
Here is an example of the spread for some currency pairs at FP Markets with their various account types.
Understanding pricing structure help you choose the best account for you. Do you want a low spread account with commissions or a high spread account with zero commissions?
b. Non-Trading Charges: These include other charges like withdrawal fees and inactivity fees. Some brokers can charge a lot of money with these fees. Some brokers do not charge for them at all. The ideal broker is one with low charges for these fees.
If a forex broker does not charge them at all, it is even better.
Before making a deposit to your broker, you need to know the number of instruments available for you to trade. As usual, you should go through the broker’s instrument page to see what they are offering you. Currency pairs, CFDs, indices, and commodities are important instruments for a broker to have.
Check the exact number of asset classes being offered & the total trading fees (spread, commission & swap fees) for each instruments under every asset class. For example, if you want to mainly trade major currencies like EUR/USD, GBP/USD etc. then you should look at the fees for these exact instruments.
To check, you should visit the broker’s website & see the instruments page. Generally, you will find under sections like ‘markets’. FP Markets for example mention their asset classes under this section & you can check every asset class like this.
Here is a table showing spreads of certain classes of CFDs on HF Markets’ website.
Metatrader 4 (MT4) and Metatrader 5 (MT5) are the most popular trading platforms. Not all brokers have them though. What you want to pay attention to here are platform-specific features.
Some brokers have more instruments on their MT4 platform than MT5 like HF Markets. There could even be differences in swaps and commissions across the two platforms. So make sure to look this up on the broker’s website.
The availability of copy trading is another important thing to check. You will find this on the broker’s website if it is available. For example, AvaTrade has AvaSocial and HF Markets have HF Copy.
Many forex brokers also support more third-party trading platforms like TradingView, and cTrader. FP Markets recently added TradingView to their list of platforms
Furthermore, some forex brokers also have their proprietary forex trading platforms. These platforms are developed by the company for the company. Traders hardly use these platforms for varying reasons.
However, brokers have greatly improved their platforms over the years with good trading conditions that may or may not be available on their third-party platforms.
Brokers should always have a reliable support system as traders will always have complaints and problems. This system should be fast as in some cases, money is on the line.
One way for traders to know the effectiveness of the broker’s support system is by trying them before registering. Test the live chat, send an email to the customer support. This lets you have a feel of how effective your broker’s support will be.
a. Order types: Varying order types help give you options in the market. Limit and stop orders can come in handy in entering the market at the right time and price. Your chosen broker must have these orders available on their platform.
Guaranteed stop-loss orders close your trades at specified prices. This order is executed regardless of market conditions. It is important your broker has this service in place because it is key for risk management. In addition, GSLOs are not free. So check with your broker to know if they have it, and much they charge for it.
b. Negative balance protection: Without negative balance protection, you can lose more than the funds in your trading account. There is no local regulatory body that mandates forex brokers to offer negative balance protection in Tanzania. However, if the broker is regulated by African regulators like the FSCA (South Africa) and CMA (Kenya), they likely offer it.
You can even confirm with your broker if they provide negative balance protection. By contacting their support, you can verify. However, some brokers have FAQs on their websites. You can use it to verify if they have this risk management tool without waiting for an email or live chat response.
Here is an example on FP Markets website
c. Deposit/Withdrawals: Quick processing, multiple deposit/withdrawal methods, and low charges are the factors to keep a close eye on here. You should also be able to deposit and withdraw through your local bank. Most forex brokers do not charge extra fees for deposits/withdrawals. However, you can incur charges from your bank or e-wallet providers. Your broker does not receive any of these fees.
Summarily, what you want here is a broker with fast processing with little to no fees. Here is a screenshot of FBS deposit/withdrawal methods for Tanzania.
As you can see, FBS combines low fees, multiple local payment methods, and quick processing for deposits. Withdrawals can take 15-20 minutes which is quick compared to other brokers.
Another factor you might want to consider here is minimum withdrawals. This is not common but you should speak with your broker’s support to know if they have minimum withdrawals.
d. Education: Education is key. A forex broker should be friendly to beginners. Structured online courses, webinars, articles, and free research tools a forex broker should offer.
These should be offered free of charge without extra costs.
Finding a broker’s education is easy. It is usually on their homepage. With few clicks, you can access quality courses for your learning. Let us show you how you can do this (HF Markets is our example). On HF Market’s homepage, click on ‘Tools & Education’. Here is an illustration below.
From the image, you can see that HF Markets has webinars, podcasts, courses etc. You can use any of these tools to expand your knowledge about forex and CFD trading.
Yes, you need a forex broker to trade in the foreign exchange market. They act as an intermediary between you and the interbank market where currencies are actually traded.
Here’s why:
1) Access to the Market: Retail traders like you and me can’t directly access the interbank market.
Forex brokers have the licenses and relationships to do so, and they provide you with a platform to place your buy and sell orders. For example, on the backend, the access different providers to get the prices.
2) Order Execution: Your broker takes your order and finds a counterparty to match it with on the interbank market. They handle the execution of the trade, ensuring it’s done efficiently and at the best available price.
You can see this process play out on their forex trading platforms.
The brokers have access to liquidity providers, or a market maker may act as the counterparty themselves to your trades.
Let’s understand through an example. Let’s assume that you want to buy GBP/USD. First of all you need quote (Bid & Ask prices), which you can check on the broker’s platform. When you place a ‘market order’, the broker finds the fill for you by send it to their liquidity providers or directly acting as the counterparty.
All of this happens in real time within a few micro seconds. Without a forex broker, retail or professional traders cannot trade currencies directly.
Yes, forex trading is legal in Tanzania and is regulated by the Capital Markets and Securities Authority.
Exness is not locally regulated in Tanzania. However, they are regulated with some African regulatory bodies
Research brokers that accept Tanzanian traders, assess their trading conditions, and regulations, open a trading account and fund it.