TNFX vs AvaTrade: six regulators against one

AvaTrade's own help centre lists six authorised entities, from the Central Bank of Ireland to the Japanese FSA, with the licence numbers printed in its footer. TNFX lists one: SD133 from the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles. That gap is the first thing you should know about us, and on one measure it is not even in our favour - AvaTrade publishes more leverage on indices than we allow.

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The entity lists, both quoted from the firms' own pages

Read this before anything else on the page. The six AvaTrade entries below are quoted from the footer of their own help centre on 3 October 2026. The TNFX entry is the whole of our list.

We hold no FCA, ASIC, CySEC or Central Bank of Ireland authorisation, and no licence in Iraq or anywhere in the Gulf. If that is where your decision ends, it should end with them.

Leverage: where their number is bigger than ours

On indices, AvaTrade's help centre states that clients can use up to 200:1 on instruments such as the US500, US30 and Tech100 for professional traders and non-EU accounts, and that the leverage for EU, ADGM and ASIC retail accounts is 20:1. Our indices and energy are capped at 1:100 on every account type, with no exception and no professional route around it. On that market they publish twice what we allow.

On forex our ladder goes higher, and we are not going to quote an AvaTrade currency cap we could not read: their article pages refused our requests, so the only leverage figures on this page are the indices ones above, which we did read. If you want their forex cap, read it on their site and note which entity the page belongs to - their own wording divides the world into EU, ADGM and ASIC retail on one side and non-EU and professional on the other, and the numbers move with it.

Minimums: the question to ask, and our own answer

We are not going to put an AvaTrade minimum deposit on this page. Their help centre publishes one, but the article itself refused our requests and we could only see it quoted in their own search results - and a minimum deposit is exactly the kind of figure that moves, and that differs by entity and base currency. So ask them the question instead, and ask it in the form that actually gets you a usable answer: what is the minimum first deposit for the entity that would hold my account, in my currency, and what is the smallest amount I can add after that?

Our own answer, so you have something to measure their reply against: the minimum first deposit on a Standard account is $100. Underneath that, the funding rails start at $5 through an Ovadot wallet and $10 by card, USDT, Payeer or Ptop, with an international wire from $100 - and in Iraq, ZainCash, Qi Card and local bank transfer on top of those six. Accounts are USD-denominated only. Zero needs $500 and VIP needs $100,000.

Withdrawals are paid only to a method in the account holder's own name, never to a third party. That is an anti-money-laundering requirement rather than a policy choice, so fund through the route you actually want to be paid back through.

Where AvaTrade is the better answer

Choice of supervisor, and a regulated presence in the Gulf. Ava Trade Middle East Ltd is authorised by the ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority in Abu Dhabi under number 190018. If you want a regionally regulated entity rather than an offshore one, that is a door we do not have.

Breadth of jurisdiction is the other point. Ireland, Australia, Japan, South Africa, Abu Dhabi and the BVI means they can usually onboard you somewhere appropriate to where you live. We have one entity in Seychelles and one answer.

Where we are the better answer

Local funding and local language. ZainCash, Qi Card and local bank transfer are the rails most of our clients actually use, and the desk answers in Arabic, Kurdish and English. The platform clock is UTC+3, which is Iraqi time all year with no daylight saving, so a candle stamped 15:00 opened at 15:00 where you are.

Forex leverage on the Turbo account, if you want it and understand it. It is a ladder tied to your equity rather than a flat cap: 1:3000 on forex and 1:1000 on gold while equity is under $1,000, stepping down to 1:100 at $100,000. Gold never reaches 1:3000 on any account.

• Equity $10 to $999: 1:3000 on forex, 1:1000 on gold.
• Equity $1,000 to $2,999: 1:2000 on forex, 1:500 on gold.
• Equity $3,000 to $4,999: 1:1000 on forex, 1:500 on gold.
• Equity $5,000 to $49,999: 1:500 on forex, 1:300 on gold.
• Equity $50,000 to $99,999: 1:300 on forex, 1:200 on gold.
• Equity $100,000 and above: 1:100 on forex, 1:100 on gold.

Swap-free on both sides, arranged differently

AvaTrade's help centre carries articles titled "Do you offer Swap-free accounts?" and "How do I open a Swap-free Account?", so a swap-free account exists there, and the same excerpt notes that conditions and limitations attach to it. We could not open those articles, so read the terms on their site rather than from us.

Swap-free at TNFX is granted on request, per individual account, by moving that account into a swap-free group. It is not a property of an account tier and it is not switched on by default. It is available on any of the five client account types, and on an account that has it no overnight financing is charged and none is earned. No time-based administration fee replaces the swap. The useful thing to do is confirm it is live on your account number before you hold a position over the daily close.

The five client account types here are Standard ($100 minimum first deposit, up to 1:500), Cent ($100, micro lots, up to 1:500), Turbo ($100, the ladder above), Zero ($500, raw spreads plus a per-lot commission, up to 1:500) and VIP ($100,000, up to 1:100). There is no Fix, Pro or ECN account: ECN is a legacy platform group, not a product, and accounts in it cannot be made swap-free.

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