Forex broker regulators: which ones publish a live warning list, and how often it actually updates

A licence register tells you who's authorised. A separate, less-checked list tells you who's actively impersonating someone who is. Six regulators that publish one, how often each updates it, and where to actually find it.

Last verified 26 October 2026 · how we check

A licence register answers “is this firm authorised.” It does not answer a different, equally common question: “is someone currently pretending to be this firm, or operating without any authorisation at all while targeting this jurisdiction.” Six regulators relevant to forex trading publish a separate, live list for exactly that second question, and almost nobody checks it before checking the register itself.

The six lists, and how they differ

None of these lists overlaps with the others in coverage. A firm cleared by the FCA list has said nothing about whether ASIC or CySEC has flagged it, because each regulator only tracks activity it has reason to believe targets its own jurisdiction. A brand operating across several English-speaking retail markets at once, which describes a large share of the forex and CFD sector, can show up on one jurisdiction’s list months before another one catches the same pattern, simply because complaints and detection work reach each regulator on its own timeline.

What the CFTC’s list is actually checking for

The RED List’s standard is narrower and more specific than “scam”: the CFTC adds a firm when it determines the entity “is acting in a capacity that appears to require registration, but it is not registered with the CFTC,” typically while “soliciting and/or accepting funds from U.S. customers.” That’s a registration test, not a fraud finding, which is why a RED List entry and an active CFTC fraud case are two different things that sometimes apply to the same firm and sometimes don’t. The list has carried close to 250 names at once in past updates, added in batches of dozens of firms rather than one at a time, and a firm can sit on it for months before any further regulatory action follows.

This isn’t a theoretical list; it already caught a firm on this site

FSCA’s own 2026 warnings named EagleFX directly, among a list of entities flagged for unauthorised financial services business. Our own review of EagleFX covers the brand independently, through its own closure notice and domain history. The FSCA listing is a second, independent confirmation that regulators were actively warning the public about the same brand, through an entirely different channel than a closure notice or a review site.

Reporting a suspected clone adds to the same list these checks use

Every regulator above that publishes a warning list also takes reports from the public that feed it. The FCA’s own reporting channel is a separate form from its warning-list lookup tool, specifically for flagging a firm or website that looks unauthorised or impersonates one that is. ASIC, CySEC, FSCA and the CFTC each run the equivalent: a reporting intake separate from the published list itself, which is how a brand-new clone, not yet added, gets onto the next batch. Checking the list tells you about firms already confirmed; reporting a suspicious one is the step that gets a firm not yet on any list investigated in the first place, and it’s available to anyone, not only someone who’s already lost money.

What counts as fast here, and what doesn’t

ASIC’s October 2026 week, 34 entries added, 29 of them “Unlicensed” and five “Imposter,” shows how much volume a single active regulator processes in days, not months. The CFTC’s RED List moves on a different rhythm entirely: entries can sit for extended periods, as True Forex Funds shows, listed in June 2023 and still operating for roughly eight months before an unrelated platform dispute ended the firm, with no RED List update forcing the closure directly. A fast-moving list and a slow-moving one both do real work; they just answer “how current is this warning” very differently.

A warning list is a floor, not a full safety check

Clearing every warning list above establishes that nobody has flagged impersonation or unlicensed activity yet. It says nothing about leverage caps, compensation schemes if the firm fails, or whether the specific entity holding your account actually carries the permissions it advertises. Leverage limits by regulator and the compensation-scheme comparison in best online trading platform cover those separately, and all three checks, warning list, leverage cap, compensation scheme, answer different questions. None of them substitutes for the others.

What happens after a warning, when a regulator goes further

A warning list entry is usually the earliest and lightest action a regulator takes. The same regulators escalate to formal enforcement when a licensed firm, rather than an unlicensed impersonator, is the problem. Plus500 carries an FCA Final Notice and a £205,128 fine on its own record, a different and heavier action than appearing on a warning list, reserved for a firm the FCA had already authorised rather than one impersonating someone else. The SEC’s $65 million action against a US retail broker over order-execution disclosures is the same pattern again in a different jurisdiction: warning lists catch impersonation and unlicensed activity; formal enforcement catches a licensed firm’s own conduct. Reading only the warning list tells you about the first category and nothing about the second, which is why a firm with a completely clean warning-list record can still carry a real enforcement history worth checking separately.

How to actually check

Search the regulator’s warning list by brand name, not just the licence register. The two are different documents serving genuinely different questions, and checking only one answers only half of what actually matters here.

Check the list for the regulator covering where you actually are, not just where the firm claims to operate. A firm targeting South African clients can appear on FSCA’s list while never showing up on the FCA’s at all, and the reverse holds just as often in practice.

Treat a clean result as current only for today. Every list on this page updates on its own schedule, from ASIC’s weekly batches to CySEC’s roughly monthly ones, so a firm cleared today isn’t guaranteed to stay that way next month, and a result checked before a large deposit is worth rechecking right before sending it, not relying on a search done weeks earlier.

Match the list to the right regulator for the right activity, the same principle covered for the UAE’s two separate regimes in forex broker in Dubai: a warning list from the wrong jurisdiction’s regulator answers a question that wasn’t actually asked.

None of these six lists requires a paid tool, an account, or a login to search. Every one of them is a public page a browser can open directly, and the entire check across all six takes longer to describe in an article than it actually takes to run through once, name in hand, before a deposit rather than after one.

Sources

• FCA — Warning List of unauthorised firms
• ASIC — Investor Alert List
• CySEC — investor warnings
• FSCA — unauthorised financial services business warnings
• DFSA — alerts
• CFTC — RED List
• Our review — EagleFX, named on FSCA's 2026 warning list