Japan Forex Trading Brokers

Written by Miro Nikolov

Miro Nikolov

Miro Nikolov is the co-founder of TradingPedia.com and BestBrokers.com. His mission is to help people make profitable investments by giving them access to educational resources and analytics tools.

, | Updated: January 6, 2026

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• Jump to:
• Main features of the best Japan Forex brokers
• Forex Legislation
• Financial Regulators
• Payment Methods
• Trading Software
• Mobile Trading
• FAQ
›

Our team of expert traders has tested numerous regulated and trustworthy Forex brokers that accept clients from Japan and compiled a list of the very best. Each broker operating in Japan received a quality score based on several factors, including its Trustpilot rating, regulation, fees and commissions, available trading platforms, customer service, and more.

1. 

   Plus500 US

   Rating: 4.0

   This content applies only to Plus500 US and clients from the United States. Trading futures involves the risk of loss.

2. 

   eToro

   Rating: 4.2

   50% of retail investor accounts lose money

3. 

   Axi

   Rating: 4.2

   The vast majority of retail client accounts lose money

4. 

   XM Group

   Rating: 3.8

   72.82% of retail investor accounts lose money

5. 

   FBS

   Rating: 4.3

   72.12% of retail investor accounts lose money

6. 

   IG

   Rating: 3.9

   67% of retail client accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this investment provider.

Below is a comprehensive comparison table of Forex brokers for traders in Japan. We rank these companies based on several factors, including regulation, spreads and commissions, Trustpilot rating, trading instruments, trading platforms, and deposit and withdrawal methods.

Our team has thoroughly evaluated all brokers listed below using TradingPedia’s exclusive methodology.

Main Features of the Best Japanese Forex Brokers

Located in East Asia, Japan is one of the world’s largest financial centers, boasting a thriving economy and a gross domestic product of US$5.51 trillion in 2019. The country’s impressive rate of economic growth is driven primarily by aggressive export-trading policies. Its free-market economy relies largely on the manufacturing and service sectors.

Japan is among the biggest exporters of steel, consumer electronics, and automobiles, but it lacks natural resources such as fossil fuels and minerals, so the country depends on imports for most of its food needs.

The Land of the Rising Sun, as the country is frequently called, is also home to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), which has been operating since 1878. The TSE merged with the Osaka Stock Exchange in early 2013, creating one of the largest stock exchanges in the world based on market capitalization.

The most important stock market index on the TSE is the Nikkei Stock Average, established in 1950. Also known as the Nikkei 225, it tracks the performance of 225 of the largest publicly owned companies in the country across sectors such as retail, banking, securities, machinery, insurance, communications, mining, and manufacturing. Nikon, Yamaha, Toyota, Sony, Fuji, and Mitsubishi are among the largest Japanese companies included in this index.

Japan’s capital, Tokyo, is one of the major hubs for foreign exchange trading, along with New York, London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Zürich, Frankfurt, and Chicago. The country uses the Japanese yen (JPY, ¥), which is among the most traded currencies in the world together with the USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, and CHF.

As of April 2019, the JPY accounted for approximately 17% of global Forex market turnover, ranking in third place for the period, surpassed only by the EUR and the USD. The yen’s supply is controlled by the country’s central banking institution, the Bank of Japan.

The Forex sector is well regulated in Japan and falls under the oversight of the Japanese Financial Services Agency (JFSA). Japanese-licensed brokerages are considered some of the safest for trading due to the strict regulatory regime in the country.

Japanese Forex Legislation

The country’s financial watchdog, the JFSA, tries to restrict local traders from investing with brokers licensed in other jurisdictions. This is among the main reasons why many foreign trading companies looking to penetrate this thriving Forex market decide to set up offices in the Land of the Rising Sun. However, before they can do that, they must receive authorization from the local financial regulator.

Many of the rules outlined by the JFSA were influenced by the events of January 2015, when the Swiss National Bank (SNB) unexpectedly decided to scrap the peg for the EUR/CHF pair, provoking panic and chaos on the global financial market.

As a result of the rapid jump in the value of the CHF, many brokerages went out of business overnight and were unable to return their customers’ money. Traders’ balances worldwide plunged into negative territory because of the extremely high leverage offered on some products (up to 1:500 in certain cases). Many feared that their brokers would demand repayment to cover the massive losses.

These events caused financial regulators worldwide, including the Japanese one, to introduce restrictions on the maximum leverage retail customers can use. Many adopted negative balance protection policies to prevent retail traders from losing more than they have in their accounts. Unfortunately, Japan has yet to introduce negative balance protection for local retail customers.

Locally authorized brokerage companies must comply with certain leverage restrictions. Leverage in Japan was reduced on two occasions. The first change occurred shortly after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, when the JFSA decided to cut the maximum leverage threshold to 1:50.

The financial regulator then made further reductions to help mitigate the volatility associated with currency swings, lowering leverage to 1:25, the lowest such ratio worldwide.

All locally regulated brokers must comply with this reduction when servicing Japanese retail customers who trade the Forex markets with margin. The only entity exempt from the limitations is the Tokyo Financial Exchange (TFX), where futures are traded, because it does not deal in over-the-counter (OTC) products.

In 2017, the Japanese regulator took aim again at the local Forex industry and announced plans to reduce the cap on leverage from 1:25 to 1:10. However, these plans were abandoned in May the following year due to vehement opposition from traders and Forex trading operators alike.

Nevertheless, locally licensed brokers that offer margin trading are expected to undergo stress tests to make sure they have sufficient capital to withstand unexpected price movements like those in 2015.

Forex traders who use leverage have nothing to worry about for the time being, but the same cannot be said about those who trade cryptocurrencies on margin. In January 2020, the JFSA proposed a new measure aimed at cutting the leverage cap for cryptocurrency margin trading from 1:4 to 1:2. The regulator plans to enforce the measure in April of the same year.

Japanese Financial Regulators

The Forex trading sector in Japan falls under the vigilant regulation of the Financial Services Agency (JFSA). This strict watchdog was established in the early 2000s and reports directly to the Japanese Ministry of Finance.

The headquarters of the JFSA is located in the country’s capital, Tokyo, one of the largest foreign exchange trading hubs in the world and the home of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, or Tōshō. The JFSA is tasked with several major responsibilities relating to the Japanese financial sector.

Among those are issuing licenses to commercial banks based in the country, Forex brokerages, and insurance companies; ensuring a healthy national economy; protecting investors’ interests; and controlling Japan’s securities markets.

The watchdog performs regular audits on the financial companies it oversees and closely monitors their activities. It handles complaints on behalf of investors and actively takes part in their resolution. Locally authorized financial companies that fail to comply with the regulator’s requirements are penalized. In some instances, violating brokerage firms even have their accounts blocked by the JFSA.

The Japanese regulatory body is modeled on Great Britain’s governing regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). All Forex brokerages looking to conduct trading activities in the country must apply for licenses from the JFSA and supply all the necessary documents for verification.

The regulator prohibits its licensees from offering scalping and hedging to local customers. Japanese traders are also restricted from claiming welcome bonuses. This, along with the low cap on maximum leverage, is among the main reasons why some local Forex traders seek the services of offshore-licensed brokerages.

Japanese Forex Payment Methods

All Japanese brokers give local customers the option to practice with demo accounts. We believe this is the best course of action for Japanese traders who are just wading into the vast world of Forex trading.

Another benefit of opening a demo account is that it enables you to test new trading strategies without exposing any real money to risk. This way, you can also test the platform of the brokerage to determine whether it appeals to you.

Those who already have significant experience will probably want to skip the demo and open live accounts so they can make real-money investments on the Forex markets. Luckily, Japan-friendly brokerages work with a range of globally and locally available methods Japanese customers can use to fund their real-money balance.

The debit/credit card remains the leading payment method in the country and accounts for around 71% of all transactions. Local banks issued an impressive 278 million credit cards in 2017.

The good news is brokers commonly accept payments with Maestro, Visa, and Mastercard, although some also support cards issued by the local brand JCB. This company has more than 82 million cardholders across 190 countries worldwide. American Express is another option, albeit a less popular one.

Many brokers with a strong presence on the Asian market provide the option to deposit with cards from the Chinese company UnionPay. You can apply for UnionPay cards at the Japanese Mitsui Sumitomo Bank, which has received authorization to issue them.

The other broadly available payment options are bank transfer and e-wallets. The former can hardly be described as time-efficient since deposits take a couple of business days. Waiting times for withdrawals via standard bank transfers are even longer, at around three to five business days.

Many traders from Japan prefer to use e-wallets because they allow for faster and more anonymous transactions. Neteller, PayPal, and ecoPayz are among the most common e-wallet options. Skrill is unavailable in Japan. The United Kingdom-based payment services provider decided to exit the Japanese market in October 2016.

Popular Trading Software in Japan

Since the Japanese government does everything within its means to prevent local traders from accessing unauthorized foreign brokers, most licensed Forex companies choose to develop their platforms in-house.

This is because many turnkey trading platforms developed in foreign jurisdictions do not meet the requirements laid out by the JFSA. Of course, each proprietary platform has its own peculiarities in terms of features. You should test such platforms in demo mode to get a good feel for how they function.

Still, many brokers that service the Japanese Forex market continue to use third-party software, with the most broadly available option being MetaQuotes’ MetaTrader 4 (MT4). This platform is geared toward the needs of Forex traders in particular.

It appeals to traders worldwide because of its easy-to-use layout. There are numerous handy features that allow for in-depth analysis of discernible market trends, including 30 technical indicators.

Seasoned traders from Japan who want to diversify their portfolios often have the chance to install the more advanced version of this software, MetaTrader 5 (MT5). It enables them to trade futures, bonds, options, and stocks in addition to spot Forex.

This version is also richer in terms of features and analysis tools. It has 21 timeframes, 38 indicators, and over 40 graphical objects, plus three types of charts-candlesticks, bars, and lines. Both MetaQuotes platforms have dedicated mobile applications, available in the Japanese language.

A few Japan-friendly brokers use the less popular platform ActTrader. This feature-rich desktop software was designed by a development company called ActForex in the proprietary language ActFX. The software is fully customizable.

One of its biggest claims to fame is that it allows traders to pull price data into other programs such as Microsoft Excel. Other useful features of ActTrader include automated and single-click trading, mobile compatibility, and tools for advanced trading analysis.

Mobile Trading in Japan

Japan has a very well-developed technology sector, so it only makes sense portable devices have become ubiquitous in the Land of the Rising Sun. There is a rich mobile-phone culture in the country where such devices are called ‘keitai denwa’ by the locals.

The number of smartphone users in the country was quite impressive at 72.5 million in 2019, but it is expected to rise even further in the years to follow. Forecasts suggest that as many as 76.3 million Japanese people will own a smartphone by 2022.

The Japanese use their mobile devices for all kinds of activities, from gaming and browsing to making purchases and, of course, trading on the foreign exchange markets. We previously mentioned that most trading platforms are fully compatible with portable devices. You will experience no difficulties in finding a reliable Forex app if you live in Japan.

The MetaQuotes platforms MT4 and MT5 are most broadly used for trading on the fly. You can get them at no cost either from the App Store or Google Play, depending on what type of portable device you own.

That said, many reputable Forex brokers that operate on the Japanese market have designed their own native applications, with performance and features varying between different apps.

Using one such app is a great idea if you want nonstop access to the latest market prices. You will have real-time quotes at a glance so you can react and take advantage of favorable price movements.

The apps are usually available in Japanese as well, so language is not a barrier. Apart from trading, most of them are equipped with extra tools for market analysis, charts, and educational materials.