Scalpers, short-term traders and professional traders prefer to trade the futures market with the best futures broker because of the volumes traded and the almost direct market access.
On the futures market, you buy or sell directly with another trader. The broker is only an intermediary and cannot trade against you, so what you win is what other traders lose, and vice versa.
Choosing the best futures broker is therefore an important question before you start trading. Since you are in constant competition with other traders and professionals, you need the best tools at your disposal to make the right decisions.
Here at Traderfrancophone.fr, we give you everything you need to choose the best futures broker, along with the brokers we recommend.
Futures Contracts
- Futures, forwards or futures contracts are financial instruments known as derivatives that give you the right and the obligation to buy or sell an underlying asset (an index, a commodity or any financial asset) at a price and on a maturity date set in advance. For example, if you buy an oil futures contract at $50 expiring in 3 months, you will buy the oil at $50 in 3 months, whatever the market price of oil.
- If in 3 months the price of oil is $60, then if you are an oil consumer you have got a good deal by buying the oil you need at a lower cost, or you can simply sell it on the market at $60 when it cost you $50. In the other scenario, if the price of oil in 3 months is $40, you have paid more, and if you want to sell it you will lose $10.
- Futures contracts were invented to protect farmers and producers from price volatility, since a futures contract can lock in or fix the price of a product. That is why hedge funds, institutions and large companies use futures to hedge.
- But recently, given the profit potential of futures markets, retail investors have started trading these products, which are traded on margin and offer many advantages to those who know them. In fact, several brokers have added futures to their trading offering.
- If you prefer to trade and specialise in a single asset, such as the French index, you need a CAC 40 futures broker. Don’t waste time looking for a futures broker on your own. Set your main priorities and use our list to find the best online futures broker for you.
To go further, also read our guides “Romania Broker 2026” and “Russia Broker 2026“.
Saxo Bank
 ★★★★★ 5/5 |
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Saxo Bank is a Danish bank founded in 1992 that provides investment banking services.
The company offers brokerage, online trading, private banking and other financial services. Saxo Bank serves clients worldwide.
Saxo Bank is an exclusive broker that requires a minimum deposit of USD 10,000 to open an entry-level “Classic” account. Saxo Bank’s Platinum and VIP accounts require USD 200,000 and USD 1,000,000 respectively. If the minimum deposit is too high, consider Tickmill or WH SelfInvest.
Apart from the minimum deposit, the Saxo Trader client experience is absolutely great. As well as access to 40,000 trading instruments, Saxo Bank offers reliable customer service and excellent pricing across the board. Better still, Saxo Bank’s flagship platform, SaxoTraderGO, is excellent and includes everything traders need to navigate the market.
Interactive Brokers
| ★★★★☆ 4.5/5 |
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Interactive Brokers was founded in 1978 and is one of the largest discount brokers based in the United States. The broker is regulated by several financial authorities worldwide, including top-tier regulators such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Interactive Brokers is considered safe because it holds licences from several top-tier regulators. Its long track record and the fact that it publishes financial information as a listed company are also good signs of its safety.
Interactive Brokers is aimed at expert-level active traders and institutional users, with low contract prices, low margin rates and a host of powerful tools to speed up time-sensitive futures trades, including programmable hotkeys and fully customisable watchlists with room for hundreds of different contracts.
WH SelfInvest
| ★★★★☆ 4/5 |
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WH SelfInvest is a Luxembourg-based broker founded in 1998. The company is now one of the largest forex and CFD brokers in Europe, with offices in Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich. The broker serves clients in more than 28 countries and offers a range of shares, CFDs and FX options.
Those interested in futures and options can open a futures trading account (with a deposit of at least 5,000 euros), giving them access to many futures exchanges. Clients have direct access to all the major futures markets, with more than 2,000 electronic futures and options on futures available. Futures traders can count on real tick-by-tick quotes, the best order-routing technology (CQG and Patsystems), direct market access (DMA) and high-speed order execution.
Tickmill
 ★★★★☆ 4.5/5 |
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Tickmill was created in 2014 after Armada Markets transferred its retail clients to the Tickmill entity in the Seychelles, where it is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Today, the Tickmill brand holds regulatory status in the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Malaysia. According to its website, the Tickmill group has more than 200 employees and more than 50,000 clients.
Tickmill strives to offer the best possible trading environment to help traders succeed.
- 5 globally regulated futures exchanges: CBOT, CME, COMEX, NYMEX and EUREX.
- Fast, reliable execution through robust centralised exchanges.
- Standardised order types for precise execution.
- Low deposit requirement of $1,000 (or the equivalent in another currency).
- Base currencies: USD, GBP and EUR.
- Competitive commissions.
- Tailored solutions for volume traders.
- A choice of leading trading platforms (multilingual).
- Free mobile app (multilingual)
TD Ameritrade 
| ★★★★★ 5/5 |
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Based in Omaha, Nebraska, TD Ameritrade was founded in 1975 as one of the first online brokerage firms in the United States. On 25 November 2019, Charles Schwab announced the acquisition of TD Ameritrade in an all-stock transaction valued at around $26 billion. The deal closed on 6 October 2020. At closing, the combined company had around $6 trillion in assets and 28 million brokerage accounts.
TD Ameritrade may well be the most beginner-friendly futures trading platform on this list. The secret: unrivalled educational content, technical resources and trading simulations designed to ease newcomers slowly and gently into the challenging world of futures trading.
Once you get going, you will have access to around 70 futures products: currency futures, metals, agricultural products, forest products, stock index derivatives and much more. And you will always be just a phone call or email away from expert support, 24 hours a day.
How to Find the Best Futures Broker in 2025
Futures are sophisticated financial instruments, yet easy to use once you understand how they work.
Traders who use futures are normally looking to make as much money as possible and earn profits over a fairly short period. Unlike shares and ETFs, whose prices take weeks to change significantly, futures allow large positions thanks to margin trading.
Most futures traders are scalpers or day traders who execute a large number of trades within a few minutes, so fast execution is essential, and the available information must be updated every millisecond.
Another very important point is risk management tools. A broker that offers relevant real-time tracking of positions and risk measures will be a crucial help to the trader.
Fees and commissions are also an important consideration. They must not hold back your trading and eat up all your gains.
Finally, and unfortunately, no futures broker in France is yet up to the task of offering attractive packages.
Criteria to Consider When Choosing the Best Futures Broker in November
We have identified important criteria that will help you choose the best futures broker.
You should take them into account before making your final choice and, of course, before opening a demo account.
Quality of Customer Service
With futures, the best futures broker’s customer service must be very responsive and anticipate any problem, because time is money, and with futures it is a lot of money.
Regulation
A well-regulated broker will protect you and look after your funds if there is a problem. To avoid scams too, you should choose a regulated broker.
Platform
Platform speed and smoothness are important for a futures trader. If the platform bugs or freezes often, that is money lost, so you need a platform worthy of the name.
Safety of Your Funds
In the event of disputes or problems, your funds must be protected and safe from theft or misappropriation.
Analysis and Analytics
Decisions are made very quickly on futures markets, so the availability of information and the quality of analysis tools will strongly affect the quality of your decisions.
Deposit and Withdrawal Methods
The best futures broker will let you deposit and withdraw money using the most popular and widely used online payment methods:
- Bank transfers
- Paypal
- Neteller
- Credit and debit cards
The Best Futures Broker by Amount Invested
Most futures brokers require a fairly high minimum deposit for individual investors, but this is fully justified given the volumes traded on futures markets.
A small amount of capital below 1,000 euros will quickly run out. For example, one point on the FDAX (the DAX futures contract) can be worth 10 euros depending on leverage on a single contract, while the FDAX generally moves 100 points a day on average.
- Tickmill is probably the best futures broker for small investments
- WH SelfInvest is better suited to investments between 2,000 and 5,000 euros
- TD Ameritrade works well for capital between 5,000 and 10,000 euros
- Saxo Bank is best for large investments of 10,000 to 50,000 euros
- Interactive Brokers is better for more professional clients, but with a minimum of 10,000
Financial market professionals use futures to hedge against adverse price movements, including large commodity companies, institutions and hedge funds.
But there is a category of professionals (proprietary trading arcades) who use futures markets solely for scalping and no longer use technical analysis, relying instead on order book and volume analysis.
Most amateurs are scalpers or, at worst, day traders, because holding a position for several days on a futures market comes at a high price.
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Beginner traders who like trading futures are generally scalpers. They try to profit from small price moves on fairly volatile assets such as oil or the Nasdaq.
The strategy involves taking many trades and trying to minimise losses by setting a stop loss, so that a losing position closes automatically with the small fixed loss, while maximising profits by leaving the position open as long as it is winning.
Starting trading with futures is not really advisable given their specific characteristics and loss potential. Even if the profits can be attractive, they are not easy to achieve.
But if you want to try futures trading, we advise you to start by opening a demo account. Several futures brokers offer free demo accounts, and in our view the best futures brokers for beginners are Tickmill and TD Ameritrade.
The most important points for beginner traders:
- How easy the interface and tools are to use
- Fees and commissions
- Education and customer service
For beginner traders, forex or shares are more accessible financial markets than futures, which are more suited to advanced traders.
The Best Futures Broker for Experienced Traders
Interactive Brokers and Saxo Bank are the best futures brokers for experienced traders thanks to their sophisticated, advanced platforms, the products on offer, the quality and speed of order execution and their affordable fees relative to the services provided.
More experienced futures traders are, in most cases, scalpers or day traders who place many trades, probably dozens or hundreds in a single day, so fees and speed of order execution are surely the most important points.
The accuracy of real-time information is crucial for a scalper, who makes decisions every second. They must be responsive to the available information flow and use it to their advantage.
Given the speed and number of trades made by futures scalpers, technical analysis is somewhat obsolete and order book trading takes over, since you can see in real time who is buying and selling and how much they want to buy or sell at certain prices.
The most important points for experienced traders:
- The speed and quality of order execution
- Information available in real time
- Decision-support tools and advanced features
The Best Futures Broker According to Reviews
It is also important to consider other clients’ reviews of futures brokers and, of course, to read as many reviews as possible from different sources to get an overall picture of a futures broker.
Why It Is Important to Choose the Best Broker
Choosing the best futures broker is vital for a trader, since your broker will be your partner through the good and bad times of your futures trading journey.
The best futures broker will give you a real edge, and thanks to its experience, you will find that the platform’s features and tools have improved over time, as the broker constantly tries to satisfy its clients.
Beginners often neglect choosing the best broker and end up switching brokers every three months, losing money and time they could have spent on training.
Most futures traders want to start trading with real money immediately and do not even consider the benefits of opening a demo account, which is often easy and free.
Choosing the best futures broker is an opportunity for you, not a burden. Many traders believe that if you have the best strategy, the result will be the same whatever the broker. That is completely wrong!
How to Tell Which Broker Is the Best
To recognise whether a broker is the best or not, simply read the reviews available online to get an idea of what independent specialist trading sites think of it, for example:
- Saxo Bank review
- Interactive Brokers review
- Tickmill review
- WH SelfInvest review
- TD Ameritrade review
After reading some of the reviews, you can open a demo account with the broker you think fits your goals and investor profile. Opening an account is simple: just sign up on the broker’s website with your email address, and you will generally get one or two months free with a demo account to try it out.
How to Decide Which Broker Is Best for You
Ultimately, depending on the trader, the feature of the best futures broker that matters to one investor may matter more or less to another. For example, traders’ platform preferences can vary considerably. Not all traders agree on what they want to see on a broker’s platform. (Remember that not all painters prefer the same brush, and the same goes for individual traders. Some don’t need all the bells and whistles.)
Commissions and margin rates are perhaps among the things that attract the most criticism. It can be unwise to choose a broker just because it is the cheapest, but, goodness, it is easy to overpay. It is important to work out from the start exactly how much money will go out on each trade.
Finally, customer service can make or break your experience with a broker. Set your personal priorities and use our guide to find the best futures brokerage platform for you.
Beware of Scams!
Although most futures brokers are well regulated, there are fraudulent sites offering unrealistic products or bonuses, so you need to be very careful not to fall into their trap. Always research the broker and check the AMF blacklist or our guide on how to avoid scams.
A Few Tips for Trading Futures Well
To trade futures better, we advise you to follow these 5 tips:
- Only trade markets or assets you know
- Always set a stop loss and a take profit
- Set yourself profit and loss targets
- Stick to your risk management tools
- Manage your emotions and know when to stop
And above all, keep learning consistently. Most beginner traders, especially young ones, neglect the importance of self-study or taking courses.
Futures Jargon
The futures market is different from forex or shares, so you need to know the technical terms and jargon used by futures brokers and traders.
- Arbitrage: the simultaneous buying and selling of similar products in different markets to profit from price differences.
- Backwardation: a futures market in which the current month is priced higher than later months. It is the opposite of contango.
- Basis: the difference between the current spot price and the futures price of the same asset.
- Futures exchange: a central market with established rules and regulations where buyers and sellers meet to trade futures and options on futures.
- Clearing house: an agency or company separate from a futures exchange that settles trading accounts, collects and holds margin funds, regulates delivery and reports trade data. Clearing houses act as a third party to all futures and options contracts, acting as buyer to every selling clearing member and as seller to every buying clearing member.
- Hedge: buying or selling a futures contract as a temporary substitute for a cash market transaction to be made at a later date. It usually involves opposite positions in the cash market and the futures market at the same time.
- Customer margin: funds required from buyers and sellers of futures and sellers of options to ensure that contractual obligations are met.
- Initial margin: the amount a futures market participant must deposit in a margin account when placing an order to buy or sell a futures contract. Also called the initial performance bond.
- Margin: the cash amount a client must deposit with the broker for each contract as a sign of good faith in fulfilling the contract terms.
- Maintenance margin: an amount generally lower than, but part of, the initial margin (performance bond) that must be kept on deposit at all times. If your account falls below the required maintenance margin, you will receive a margin call.
- Margin call: a call from a broker or firm to a client to bring margin deposits up to a minimum required level. Exchange rules state that margin calls must be met by bringing your account equity back to the initial margin level. If a margin call is not met immediately, the firm may liquidate all or part of the trader’s positions without prior notice.
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Which Futures Broker Do We Recommend?
At Traderfrancophone.fr, we consider Saxo Bank and Interactive Brokers to be the benchmark futures brokers, except that the minimum deposit is a little high, but they are worth it if you have the funds. Otherwise, for beginners, you can choose between Tickmill and TD Ameritrade, which offer intuitive platforms and relatively low fees.
WH SelfInvest is also a very good futures broker with a complete offering full of opportunities. What matters is that the futures broker suits you and fully meets your needs, so try it with a demo account and read reviews on independent specialist trading sites.
Every type of trader has their own needs, which is why we recommend several futures brokers that are the best depending on your needs.
Try the demo accounts of the different futures brokers listed for a month, then make your final decision.
Conclusion
Most small investors never take part in futures markets, at least not directly. They do not need to. Although futures are strategically important for many advanced traders, they are not an integral part of the typical buy-and-hold investor’s portfolio. Nor are they essential to achieving the kind of diversification that fiduciary financial advisers recommend to market participants with long-term investment horizons.
Nevertheless, seasoned traders seeking futures exposure deserve to work with low-cost online brokers they can trust. If you are one of them, you can be sure that all the futures brokers on this list are suited to your type of trading.