tastyfx review: the IG Group forex broker built for US residents, and what it drops
tastyfx is IG Group's US forex arm: NFA-registered, spot forex only, with Standard, Zero+ and Prime accounts and MetaTrader 5 or TradingView. We compare its pricing with rivals and with IG outside America.
7.4/10
For a US resident who wants a large, NFA-registered forex dealer owned by a listed group, tastyfx is one of the few real options. The Standard account is commission-free from 0.8 pips, Zero+ offers 0.0 pips at $5 a lot, and MetaTrader 5, TradingView and its own platform are all supported. The negatives are structural: spot forex only, first-in first-out closing with no hedging, and a 0.5% charge on non-USD quote pairs. Outside America, IG is the broader product.
Best for
US-based forex traders who want an NFA-registered dealer with MT5 or TradingView
Price
No minimum on Standard and Zero+; Prime from $50,000
Part of IG Group, a listed company, with US registration as an NFA member
Standard account is commission-free with spreads from 0.8 pips on 85+ pairs
Zero+ account offers 0.0 pips for $5 a lot on 13 pairs
No minimum deposit listed on Standard and Zero+ pricing
Monthly rebates of up to 15% of spreads or commissions paid
What does not
Spot forex only; the US pages list no CFDs or options
First-in first-out closing under NFA rules, and hedging is not allowed
0.5% currency conversion charge when closing pairs quoted in non-USD currencies
Prime account with the 0.6 pip spread needs $50,000
Leverage is capped at 50:1 on majors and 20:1 elsewhere under US rules
Specs
Standard account
Spreads from 0.8 pips, no commission, 85+ pairs, $0 minimum
Zero+ account
From 0.0 pips plus $5 per lot; 7 USD majors and 6 crosses
Prime account
Spreads from 0.6 pips, no commission, $50,000 minimum
Platforms
tastyfx, TradingView, MetaTrader 5 (Zero+: tastyfx and MT5 only)
Leverage
Up to 50:1 on majors and 20:1 on other pairs, per US rules
Extra costs
Overnight funding after 5pm ET; 0.5% conversion on non-USD quote pairs
Regulation
CFTC-registered retail foreign exchange dealer, NFA member 0509630
Rebates
Up to 15% of spreads or commissions paid, monthly
The IG you cannot have in America
Trade with IG from London, Sydney or Singapore and you get thousands of CFD markets, spread bets in the UK, and a very deep product shelf. Trade from the United States and none of that is legally on offer. What IG Group sells to American residents is tastyfx: a narrower, more regulated business that does one thing, retail spot forex.
That is the premise of this review. tastyfx is not a lesser IG so much as the piece of it that US rules allow, and the useful question is how good that piece is.
The homepage leads with a claim of being voted the number one overall broker and advertises commission-free spreads from 0.6 pips. Both are marketing lines worth reading with the footnotes attached: the 0.6 pip figure belongs to the $50,000 Prime account, not to the account most readers will open.
Three accounts, three ways to pay
The pricing page compares three accounts.
Standard: 0.8 pips minimum spread, no commission, 85+ pairs, no minimum deposit.
Zero+: 0.0 pips plus $5 per lot, but only 7 USD majors and 6 popular crosses.
Prime: 0.6 pips, no commission, $50,000 minimum, and a promotional interest offer on idle cash.
tastyfx.com
The Standard account page: commission-free trading and spreads from 0.8 pips on majors.
An independent US review translates the advertised minimums into money: 0.8 pips on EUR/USD is $8 per round turn on one lot, and 0.6 pips is $6. Zero+ looks cheaper on the chart but the $5 commission pushes a round turn to roughly $10 once you add a typical spread, so it wins only when the raw spread is truly near zero.
tastyfx.com
The pricing comparison page: the three account models side by side.
The independent figure quoted for the average Standard EUR/USD spread is 1.15 pips, higher than the headline. Advertised minimums describe the quietest moments, not the London open.
The costs that are not on the headline
Two charges catch people out. First, positions held past 5pm ET pay or receive overnight funding based on interest rate differentials plus a small admin fee. Second, closing a pair whose quote currency is not the dollar costs a 0.5% conversion charge. Applied to a $50,000 position, a 0.5% charge would be $250, far more than the spread itself, so check how it is calculated on your pair before you rely on it. If you trade crosses, that single line changes which account is cheapest.
Offsetting this, every account qualifies for monthly rebates of up to 15% of spreads or commissions paid, scaled to volume. Heavy traders will feel it; occasional traders will not.
US rules shape the trading
These are not tastyfx choices. They come from the NFA. Positions close first-in, first-out, so you cannot hold offsetting positions in the same pair. Leverage tops out at 50:1 on majors and 20:1 on everything else. The US pages list no CFDs and no options, so anything beyond currencies is off the table. We could not confirm a gold product from what tastyfx publishes, so treat metals as unavailable until you check inside an account.
Platforms
The platforms page pitches "best-in-class platforms" and offers a route to TradingView, MetaTrader 4, ProRealTime and MetaTrader 5. In practice, the pricing page assigns them by account: Standard and Prime get tastyfx, TradingView and MetaTrader 5, while Zero+ gets tastyfx and MetaTrader 5 only. That last restriction matters if you chart on TradingView and want raw pricing.
tastyfx.com
The platforms page. Which platform you can use depends on the account you choose.
How it differs from IG elsewhere
The quickest way to see the gap is to list what the US entity lacks. There are no CFDs, no options, no spread betting and no long tail of share and index markets. What remains is a currency dealer with a clean rulebook. That is a benefit to anyone who wants to know exactly which regulator can be complained to, and a limit to anyone who hoped for a multi-asset account under one roof. A US trader who wants stocks or futures will need a second broker alongside it.
The verdict
For a US trader, the peers are FOREX.com, OANDA and a handful of others, and tastyfx belongs in that group. Its edge is the parent: IG is listed, long established and regulated in eight tier-one jurisdictions. Its weakness is that spreads on Standard sit above raw-spread pricing and the conversion fee complicates cross trading.
Pick Standard if you trade majors occasionally, and Zero+ if you scalp the seven USD majors. Skip it if you want hedging, gold, or CFDs. Leveraged forex trading carries a real risk of loss, and nothing here is personal advice.
7.2
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