What Are XTB's Spreads?

What Do XTB's Spreads Look Like Right Now?

Here is the picture across the markets most UK traders actually use. Our figures were tested on a live account in August 2026; the published rates are XTB's own, from its comparison table of 13 January 2026 and its market pages, re-checked on 26 August 2026.

Two of those rows deserve a comment. The US500 at 0.6 points is a quietly excellent number for index traders, cheaper per point of exposure than most of the platforms I cover. And gold at a published 0.30 is one of the sharper headline rates in the UK market, though gold spreads everywhere breathe with volatility, so check the live panel before sizing a big position.

What Does That Cost in Actual Pounds?

Pips and points hide the bill. Pounds do not, so here is EUR/USD at 0.9 pips converted into what a round trip actually costs at the sizes people trade.

That last row is my favourite thing about XTB's pricing. Seven pence per round trip means you can trade a new idea live for a fortnight, with real fills and real feelings, for less than the price of a coffee. A demo teaches you the platform; 7p trades teach you about yourself.

Do You Pay Anything on Top of the Spread?

On CFDs, no. On real shares, only in one specific place. This is the full fee picture, and it is short:

The one to respect is the 0.5% conversion, which applies each way on US and European shares because they settle in dollars or euros. Buy and sell a £2,000 Apple position and the round trip costs about £20 in conversion against £0 of commission. For an occasional investor that is modest; for someone trading US shares daily it becomes the main cost on the account, and I have set out that arithmetic in full in our XTB review.

When Do the Spreads Tighten and Widen?

XTB's spreads are variable, so they move with liquidity, and the rhythm is predictable enough to use. The London and New York sessions are where the published floors live. Overnight, quotes drift wider as liquidity thins, and in the minute around a big data release every variable spread in the market stretches, XTB's included. The practical version: a EUR/USD round trip that costs about £7 a lot mid-session can cost double in the seconds around a payrolls print. Trade the calm windows and you keep the sharp pricing; that habit is worth more than switching broker ever will be.

What About Holding Positions Overnight?

Leveraged positions held past the daily rollover pay swap, at XTB as everywhere. The figures from our testing, per lot per night:

Day traders never meet these numbers. Swing traders should do the sums before a two-week hold, especially on gold, where the swap can quietly outgrow the spread. The tidy part of xStation's design is that each instrument's swap sits on the ticket next to the spread, so the overnight cost is in front of you at the moment you size the trade rather than buried in a PDF.

How Can You Check the Spread Before You Trade?

This is where xStation earns genuine praise. The spread is printed in three places: under the sell and buy buttons on the quote panel, in the market watch columns, and on the order ticket itself in both pips and pounds. You never have to work it out from the raw quote, and you never meet a surprise after the fill. Plenty of platforms make you dig for this; XTB puts it where your eyes already are.

If you want to go one step further, open the free demo, pull up the pair you trade, and watch the spread at your usual trading hour for a week. It costs nothing, takes minutes a day, and tells you precisely what your strategy will pay. That is the check I would run on any broker, and XTB makes it unusually easy to run.

How Do XTB's Spreads Stack Up Against Other UK Brokers?

UK brokers price in three broad ways, and knowing which model you are looking at matters more than any single number. Spread-only brokers like XTB fold everything into one figure. Raw-spread brokers quote near-zero spreads and charge a commission per trade instead, which suits very high-frequency styles. And a small handful fix their spreads to a timetable, trading a slightly higher average for predictability.

Within the spread-only camp, XTB sits at the sharp end. A 0.9-pip all-in EUR/USD beats most one-number rivals, and the US500 at 0.6 points is cheaper per point than the majority of platforms in our CFD platform rankings. A raw account with commission can still undercut it for someone trading tens of lots a week; for everyone else the difference is pennies, paid for with a second number to track. Our lowest spread forex brokers page ranks the whole field with the same measuring stick.

To make the models concrete, here is what a typical week costs at XTB's pricing for three different traders:

Three very different weeks, all cheap enough that the trading decisions matter far more than the trading costs, which is exactly how it should be. If your own week looks like none of these, the arithmetic takes thirty seconds: trades per week, times lot size, times about £7 a lot on the majors.

So, Are XTB's Spreads Any Good?

Yes. For forex majors and mainstream indices the pricing is properly competitive: EUR/USD at 0.9 all-in lands within a tenth of the advertised floor, the US500 at 0.6 points undercuts most of the field, and nothing gets added on top. Add zero commission on CFDs, and a cost structure simple enough to hold in your head, and you have one of the easier brokers in the UK to price a strategy on. The traders who might still look elsewhere are dedicated scalpers hunting raw accounts measured in tenths of a pip, and anyone who wants fixed spreads that ignore the clock, which is a different product entirely. For where XTB sits against the whole field, see our best forex broker rankings.

What Didn't I Test?

I did not test everything. My own work centred on EUR/USD during London hours; the index, metals and energy figures above combine our data with XTB's published rates rather than a full independent re-measurement of every market. Spreads through a scheduled news release and the exotic pairs were outside the scope. Rates, thresholds and published spreads move, so every figure here was checked against xtb.com on 26 August 2026 and this page is re-checked monthly.

FAQs

Does XTB have fixed spreads?

No, spreads are variable, moving with market liquidity. The figures XTB publishes are floors rather than constants, which is standard across most UK CFD brokers.

What is XTB's EUR/USD spread?

0.9 pips in our testing, against a published rate from 0.8. There is no commission on top, so that is the entire cost of the trade.

Is there a commission on top of the spread?

Not on CFDs. Real stocks and ETFs are commission-free up to EUR 100,000 of monthly turnover (0.2% with a £10 minimum beyond it), with a 0.5% currency conversion on non-GBP instruments.

Which XTB market has the tightest pricing?

Relative to how each market trades, the US500 at 0.6 points and oil from 0.03 stand out. On forex, EUR/USD and GBP/USD both price at 0.9 pips all-in.

Why is my spread sometimes wider than the published figure?

Published figures describe the most liquid hours. Overnight sessions and the minutes around major news widen variable spreads at every broker. Trade the busy sessions and the published floor is usually close to what you get.

Do I need a big account to get these spreads?

No. XTB runs a single account type with no minimum deposit, so the 7p microlot trader and the multi-lot trader see the same pricing. There are no spread tiers hidden behind deposit levels, and no premium account quietly getting a better price than yours.

Is there an inactivity fee?

Only if the account sits completely untouched for a year, which anyone actually trading will never meet. Deposits, withdrawals and the platform itself cost nothing.

Can I see the spreads without opening an account?

Yes. The free demo shows live pricing across the full market list, so you can watch your own instruments at your own trading hours before committing a penny.