Plus500: wide CFD catalogue on a simple proprietary platform? My 2026 review

Plus500 operates through a network of regulated subsidiaries, each tied to a real supervisory authority: Plus500CY Ltd under CySEC in Cyprus (licence no. 250/14), Plus500UK Ltd under the FCA in the United Kingdom, Plus500AU Pty Ltd under ASIC in Australia, plus further licences with the FMA (New Zealand), FSCA (South Africa), MAS (Singapore), DFSA (Dubai) and CIRO (Canada). Client money sits in segregated accounts, kept apart from the company's own capital, and the group's negative balance protection policy caps a client's loss at their account balance. For Switzerland specifically, Plus500 holds no FINMA licence. Swiss residents are onboarded on a cross-border basis through the CySEC-regulated entity, which means the Swiss depositor protection scheme (esisuisse) and FINMA supervision do not apply to funds held with Plus500. The company is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange (ticker PLUS), which brings a layer of financial disclosure that private brokers do not have, but it does not replace a local licence.

Plus500 does not charge a separate commission on trades. The cost of a position sits in the spread, which starts around 0.6 pip on EUR/USD and roughly 0.35% on crypto CFDs, plus an overnight funding charge applied to positions still open at the end of the trading day. Deposits are free, and a currency conversion fee of about 0.7% applies when your account currency does not match the instrument you trade.

The one fee to watch is the $10 monthly inactivity charge, which starts after three months without any trading activity on the account. Compared with brokers that charge a fixed per-lot commission, Plus500's all-in-spread model is easy to understand but harder to compare instrument by instrument, since the effective cost moves with market conditions rather than staying fixed.

The catalogue runs past 2,800 instruments: 60+ forex pairs, 1,800+ share CFDs across major global markets, 100+ ETF CFDs, 30+ indices, 20+ commodities and around 20 cryptocurrency CFDs, from Bitcoin and Ethereum to smaller altcoins. Every position is a CFD, which means you never hold the underlying share, ETF unit or coin directly, only a contract that tracks its price.

That structure suits a trader who wants exposure across many asset classes from one account, without the complexity of MetaTrader plugins or third-party charting. It is a poor fit for an investor who wants a conventional securities account with real share ownership, dividend rights or direct crypto custody: for that need, a broker such as XTB, which offers a genuine 0% commission stock and ETF account, is a better match.

Plus500 covers a genuinely wide range of CFD markets from one simple platform, backed by a public listing and several established regulators. On pure catalogue breadth and platform simplicity, it holds its own against the market. Where it falls short for a Swiss trader is the absence of a FINMA licence, the lack of MetaTrader or TradingView support, and a $10 monthly fee that kicks in after three months of inactivity.

For a Swiss resident who wants leveraged CFD exposure across a wide instrument set and is comfortable with a broker regulated abroad, Plus500 delivers on breadth and simplicity. For anyone who wants a FINMA-regulated broker, MetaTrader compatibility, or a real securities account for direct ownership, our partners XTB and Vantage cover that ground better.