ℹ In short
The South African rand trades $78.3 billion a day worldwide, about 0.8% of global foreign exchange turnover, while dealers inside South Africa report $21.4 billion a day of their own. The FSCA has approved 310 crypto asset service provider licences, South Africa applies no statutory cap on retail leverage, and about 71% of retail CFD accounts lose money on the disclosures brokers elsewhere are required to publish.
South Africa forex and CFD statistics at a glance
| Statistic | Latest figure | Reference period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| How much South African rand is traded worldwide each day | $78.3bn | April 2025 | Bank for International Settlements |
| What share of the global foreign exchange market is the rand | 0.8% | April 2025 | Bank for International Settlements |
| How much foreign exchange is traded by dealers inside South Africa | $21.4bn | April 2025 | Bank for International Settlements |
| Where does the rand rank among emerging market currencies | 1st | April 2025 | Bank for International Settlements |
| What share of retail CFD accounts lose money | 71% | 2026 | EU and UK regulated brokers |
| How many crypto asset service providers has the FSCA licensed | 310 | to 31 March 2026 | Financial Sector Conduct Authority |
| How does retail leverage in South Africa compare with the EU and UK | No cap | 2026 | TradeAnswers reference data |
Market size
How much South African rand is traded worldwide each day?
$78.3bnper day, April 2025
Official statistic
Turnover in all OTC foreign exchange instruments with the rand on one side, net-net basis, covering both the domestic and the offshore market. This is global trading in the rand, not trading that happens in South Africa.
| Organisation | Bank for International Settlements |
|---|---|
| Document | Triennial Central Bank Survey 2025, detailed tables, Table 2.12 |
| Reference period | April 2025 |
| Published | 30 September 2025 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
According to the Bank for International Settlements 2025 Triennial Survey, average daily global turnover in the South African rand was $78.3 billion in April 2025.
How much foreign exchange is traded by dealers inside South Africa?
$21.4bnper day, April 2025
Official statistic
Turnover reported by sales desks located in South Africa, net-gross basis, in all currencies. It is a different measure from global rand turnover above: a rand trade between two London desks counts in that figure and not in this one.
| Organisation | Bank for International Settlements |
|---|---|
| Document | Triennial Central Bank Survey 2025, detailed tables, Table 6.1 |
| Reference period | April 2025 |
| Published | 30 September 2025 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
According to the Bank for International Settlements 2025 Triennial Survey, sales desks in South Africa reported average daily foreign exchange turnover of $21.4 billion in April 2025.
Where does the rand rank among emerging market currencies?
1stmost traded EME currency in OTC interest rate derivatives
Official statistic
Rand turnover in OTC interest rate derivatives grew 176% to $86 billion a day, a 1.1% global share, ahead of the Chinese renminbi. This is the interest rate derivatives market, which is separate from the foreign exchange market above.
| Organisation | Bank for International Settlements |
|---|---|
| Document | OTC interest rate derivatives turnover in April 2025 |
| Reference period | April 2025 |
| Published | 30 September 2025 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
According to the Bank for International Settlements 2025 Triennial Survey, the South African rand was the most traded emerging market currency in the OTC interest rate derivatives market in April 2025.
Outcomes and complaints
What share of retail CFD accounts lose money?
71%of retail CFD accounts, 2026
TradeAnswers calculation
Based on the loss rates that EU and UK regulated brokers are required to publish: a 71.0% mean across 49 EU and FCA brokers, and a 69.9% mean with a 71.0% median across 14 UK brokers in April 2026. South African brokers are not required to publish this figure, so no local equivalent exists. The brokers behind these disclosures are separate legal entities from their South African arms, and the measurement periods differ between them.
| Organisation | EU and UK regulated brokers |
|---|---|
| Document | Published retail loss rates, aggregated and a second broker survey |
| Reference period | 2026 |
| Published | 2026 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
TradeAnswers analysis of published broker risk disclosures found that about 71% of retail CFD accounts lose money.
Crypto
How many crypto asset service providers has the FSCA licensed?
310approved licences, as at 31 March 2026
Official statistic
Of 533 applications received since licensing opened on 1 June 2023, 310 were approved, 17 declined and 124 withdrawn. A CASP licence covers advice, intermediary and investment management services relating to crypto assets under the FAIS Act. It is not a uniform permission: licensed providers are authorised for different activities, and the licence does not make crypto legal tender.
| Organisation | Financial Sector Conduct Authority |
|---|---|
| Document | Update on licensing and supervision of crypto asset service providers |
| Reference period | to 31 March 2026 |
| Published | 15 April 2026 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
According to the FSCA, 310 crypto asset service provider licences had been approved in South Africa as at 31 March 2026.
International comparison
How does retail leverage in South Africa compare with the EU and UK?
No capno statutory retail leverage limit in South Africa
Official statistic
South Africa has no statutory cap on retail leverage; the level offered is at broker discretion. The European Union caps retail leverage at 1:30 on major currency pairs under ESMA rules, and the United Kingdom applies the same limit through the FCA. Leverage a South African broker advertises is a commercial decision, not a regulatory limit, and professional clients are subject to different rules in every one of these jurisdictions.
| Organisation | TradeAnswers reference data |
|---|---|
| Document | Leverage and Margin Limits Reference |
| Reference period | 2026 |
| Published | 2026 |
| Retrieved | 2 October 2026 |
| Last checked | 2 October 2026 |
Citation ready
South Africa applies no statutory retail leverage cap, while the EU and UK limit retail leverage to 1:30 on major currency pairs.
Figures we could not confirm
These belong on this page and are missing from it. Each one is here rather than filled with a number we could not stand behind. If you hold the source that closes one, tell us and we will add it with the attribution.
How many OTC derivative providers does the FSCA license?
No reliable current figure could be confirmed.
The FSCA publishes the ODP list as a searchable register rather than a dated count, and the secondary sources that quote a number disagree with each other by an order of magnitude. Publishing either would mean publishing a figure a reader cannot check.
What would settle it: A dated extract of the FSCA ODP register, counted on a stated day.
How many warnings does the FSCA issue about unlicensed forex and CFD providers?
No reliable current figure could be confirmed.
The FSCA publishes warnings individually as they are issued. No annual total broken down by product type could be found, and counting the public list by hand would produce a figure that depends on which warnings were judged to be forex or CFD related.
What would settle it: An FSCA annual report figure, or a counting rule agreed in advance and published.
How many forex and CFD complaints does the FAIS Ombud receive?
No reliable current figure could be confirmed.
The FAIS Ombud annual report groups complaints by category. Unless forex and CFD complaints can be separated reliably from the wider investment category, any number would be an estimate presented as a count.
What would settle it: The latest FAIS Ombud annual report, with the category breakdown it actually uses.
How many South Africans trade forex and CFDs?
No reliable current figure could be confirmed.
No regulator publishes this. Deriving it would mean combining broker disclosures that cover different entities and periods, which produces a number with a margin wide enough to make it misleading.
What would settle it: Broker client counts for South African entities, or an industry survey.
How has search interest in forex trading changed in South Africa?
No reliable current figure could be confirmed.
Google Trends was not accessible when this page was built. Trends reports a relative index rather than a number of searches, so it could not have been used as evidence of how many people trade in any case.
What would settle it: A Google Trends export for the term, country and period, with its retrieval date.
Methodology
Three labels are used on this page and never mixed.
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Official statistic | Published directly by a regulator, a government body or a recognised statistical organisation. We reproduce it and link the document. |
| TradeAnswers calculation | Worked out by us from source data you can check, with the arithmetic shown. |
| TradeAnswers estimate | Derived from several sources where no official figure exists. There are none on this page: where we would have had to estimate, we said so instead. |
Selecting sources
Primary sources are preferred in this order: South African regulators and government institutions, then international statistical organisations, then original broker regulatory disclosures. A media report is not used where the underlying document is available.
The rand share calculation
Rand turnover of $78,291 million was divided by total global turnover of $9,595,469 million, both from the BIS 2025 detailed tables. Currency shares sum to 200% because two currencies are involved in every trade. Running the same calculation on the US dollar and the euro reproduces the 89.2% and 28.9% the BIS publishes, which is how the method was checked.
The loss rate
Averaged from loss rates that EU and UK regulated brokers must publish, because South African brokers are under no such obligation. The brokers are separate legal entities from their South African arms and their measurement periods differ, so this is an indication of how retail CFD trading goes rather than a South African statistic.
Conflicting figures
Where sources disagreed and no primary document settled it, nothing was published. Those gaps are listed above.
Review
Reviewed at least once a year and whenever a source publishes an update. The URL does not change; the year in the title does.
How to cite this page
Reuse anything here with attribution. Original TradeAnswers tables and calculations are available under CC BY 4.0; the underlying data stays subject to the terms of the BIS, the FSCA and the other providers named above.
Website or news
TradeAnswers (2026). “Forex & CFD Trading in South Africa: Statistics 2026.” Retrieved 2 October 2026, from https://www.tradeanswers.co.za/forex-trading-south-africa-statistics.html
Academic, APA
Barosso, G. (2026). Forex & CFD Trading in South Africa: Statistics 2026. TradeAnswers. https://www.tradeanswers.co.za/forex-trading-south-africa-statistics.html
HTML attribution
<a href="https://www.tradeanswers.co.za/forex-trading-south-africa-statistics.html">Forex & CFD Trading in South Africa: Statistics 2026</a> by <a href="https://www.tradeanswers.co.za/">TradeAnswers</a>
Common questions about this page
Is this page an official FSCA or government publication?
No. It is a TradeAnswers page that reproduces official statistics and links each one to the document it came from. Every figure carries a label: official statistic, TradeAnswers calculation or TradeAnswers estimate.
Can I reuse these figures on my own site?
Yes, with attribution and a link back. Our tables and calculations are available under CC BY 4.0; the underlying data stays subject to the terms of the BIS, the FSCA and the other providers named on the page.
Why are some statistics missing a number?
Because no primary source confirmed one. A figure nobody can check is worse than an admitted gap, so those appear under Figures we could not confirm, with what would settle each of them.
How often is this page updated?
At least once a year, and whenever one of its sources publishes an update. The URL never changes; the year in the title does.
Is the 71% loss rate a South African figure?
No. South African brokers are not required to publish loss rates, so it is averaged from the disclosures EU and UK regulated brokers must publish. It indicates how retail CFD trading tends to go rather than measuring the South African market.
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