Deriv review.

Overview

TrueBroker is a free broker safety checker, and this page is our review of Deriv, scored 7.6 out of 10 across regulation, fees, platform, support and reviews. Our previous review scored Deriv 7/10; this review restates that figure from current evidence, and the move to 7.6 reflects fees and platform sitting at 9 out of 10 while regulation, the criterion carrying the most weight in how the register checks came back, sits lower at 5.1.

Deriv is not a single company but a group trading under one brand across at least nine separate legal entities, each holding its own licence for a different territory. We read the firm’s own terms and conditions, which list Deriv (FX) Ltd (Labuan), Deriv (BVI) Ltd, Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited, Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd, Deriv (V) Ltd (Vanuatu), Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C (Dubai) and Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited (Malta), all sitting under a Guernsey holding company, Deriv.com Limited. Which entity actually opens a client’s account depends on where that client lives, and the terms document says explicitly that “additional terms and restrictions applicable to certain accounts” are published separately per entity, so two clients under the same brand can be bound by different rules.

What the registers show for Deriv

We searched 25 public registers directly. The BVI FSC lists Deriv (BVI) Ltd as regulated for Dealing as Agent and Dealing as Principal. The CIMA List of Securities Investment Business Licensees shows Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited under licence number 2108455, dated 10 April 2025, for Broker/Dealer activity. The FSC Mauritius Online Public Register shows Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd holding an SEC-2.1B Investment Dealer licence issued 14 June 2024. The VFSC Financial Dealers Licensee List shows Deriv (V) Ltd, company number 14556, licence class A, B, C, status Active, licensed since 23 December 2022. The UAE Capital Market Authority register shows Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C as CP-0000999, status Active, with deriv.com given as its website. The MFSA Financial Services Register shows Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited holding an Investment Firm licence, status “Licence Authorised”, issued 19 May 2015, with EEA passporting rights. We could not check the Labuan FSA Financial Institutions Directory against Deriv (FX) Ltd’s claimed licence there, because we have not yet captured that register; that is a gap in our coverage, not a finding about the firm. We also found conflicting registered addresses for the same entities across Deriv’s own pages: the address given for Deriv (BVI) Ltd, Deriv (FX) Ltd and Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited each differs depending on which of the firm’s own legal pages is consulted.

We ran a positive control on 34 registers before recording any absence, and we searched 1,438 warning-list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and FSC Mauritius. Deriv itself appears on none of them. Two look-alike names do turn up and are worth flagging precisely: CySEC’s List of Non-Approved Domains includes derivinvestments.com, which CySEC does not authorise under any Cypriot licence and does not itself name as impersonating anyone; and the FCA register lists an entity called “Deriv-Trades / deriv-trades.ltd” as Unauthorised, with the register recording it as impersonating Deriv. Neither of these is the firm reviewed here.

Fees and how Deriv trades

We read the firm’s published fee material rather than a summary of it. Deriv’s UAE fee page states no fees on Wallet deposits, and that “we pay your third-party transaction fees so you don’t have to.” Per-transaction deposit and withdrawal limits run from a minimum of 5 USD or 15 AED up to a maximum of 10,000 USD or 50,000 AED. The MT5 Standard account page advertises leverage up to 1:1000 with spreads from 0.6 pips and zero commission; the MT5 Swap-free account carries spreads from 2.2 pips and an administration fee once positions are held over five days. A dormant-account fee applies after 12 months of inactivity, charged again every six months until the account is reactivated, though the amount itself is not given on the pages we fetched. The risk disclosure we read is explicit that Deriv can sit on the other side of a client’s trade: section 3.4 describes Deriv operating as both Broker-Dealer and Exchange Services provider, and when acting as principal it may take the opposing side of a client’s trade.

Platform and support

Deriv’s own pages describe a spread of platforms: Deriv MT5 (MetaQuotes-built, multi-asset), Deriv cTrader, Deriv Trader (its proprietary platform for multipliers and options, contracts from one second to one year), Deriv Bot (a drag-and-drop strategy builder), SmartTrader, and TradingView connectivity. Support runs through 24/7 live chat, first answered by an AI assistant named Amy; the firm’s own contact page states that Amy processes message text via OpenAI (GPT-5) and Google Gemini and stores conversation history via Intercom, with Datadog and Twilio also named as supporting services, and that typing “live agent” routes a client to a human. Amy cannot place, modify or cancel a transaction. Beyond chat, support runs to email at support@deriv.com and a self-service help centre.

Overview Table

Facts List

• The BVI FSC register lists Deriv (BVI) Ltd as regulated for Dealing as Agent and Dealing as Principal.
• CIMA’s register lists Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited under licence number 2108455, dated 10 April 2025.
• FSC Mauritius lists Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd as an Investment Dealer, licensed 14 June 2024.
• VFSC lists Deriv (V) Ltd, company number 14556, licence class A, B, C, licensed since 23 December 2022.
• The UAE CMA register lists Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C as CP-0000999, status Active.
• The MFSA register lists Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited as an Investment Firm, “Licence Authorised” since 19 May 2015.
• We could not check the Labuan FSA register against Deriv (FX) Ltd’s claimed licence; we have not yet captured that register.
• Deriv appears on none of the 1,438 mirrored CySEC, FCA and FSC Mauritius warning-list entries we searched.
• The FCA register separately lists “Deriv-Trades / deriv-trades.ltd” as Unauthorised and as impersonating Deriv; that entity is not Deriv.
• Deriv’s own risk disclosure states the firm may act as principal and take the opposing side of a client’s trade (section 3.4).

Key Takeaways

Our previous score for this broker was 7/10; this review scores 7.6/10. The move is ours, from re-checking current evidence against our current criteria, not a claim that Deriv itself changed. Regulation sits at 5.1, fees at 9, platform at 9, support at 7.3 and reviews at 7.4, and those component scores are what the evidence below explains.

How Deriv is actually licensed

• The BVI FSC register lists Deriv (BVI) Ltd. as regulated for Dealing as Agent and Dealing as Principal (snapshot 28 days old).
• The CIMA List of Securities Investment Business Licensees shows Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited under licence number 2108455, licence date 10-Apr-25, permitted for Broker/Dealer activity.
• The FSC Mauritius Online Public Register shows Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd holding SEC-2.1B Investment Dealer (Full Service Dealer excluding Underwriting), licensed 14/06/2024.
• The VFSC Financial Dealers Licensee List shows Deriv (V) Ltd, company number 14556, licence class A, B, C, status Active, licensed since 23-Dec-22.
• The UAE Capital Market Authority register shows Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C as CP-0000999, status Active, listed since 2024, with deriv.com given as its website.
• The MFSA Financial Services Register shows Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited holding an Investment Firm licence, status “Licence Authorised”, issued 19-05-2015, MBR registration code C 70156.
• We could not check the Labuan FSA Financial Institutions Directory against Deriv (FX) Ltd’s claimed licence, since no capture of that register has been uploaded; that is a gap in our coverage, not a finding about the firm.
• Company-registry lookups confirm the underlying entities without confirming a financial licence: Vanuatu (DERIV (V) LTD, number 14556), Mauritius (Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd, file C209524), St Vincent and the Grenadines (DERIV (SVG) LLC, registration 273 LLC 2020), and Guernsey (Deriv.com Limited, CMP71479, the group’s holding company). We have not yet checked the Dubai, Malta, Labuan, Cayman or Samoa company registries.
• Deriv’s own pages disagree with each other on registered addresses for the same entities: Deriv (BVI) Ltd’s terms page gives Kingston Chambers, Road Town, Tortola, while its UAE terms and legal pages give Floor 4, Banco Popular Building, Road Town, Tortola. Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited’s address similarly differs between Campbells Corporate Services Limited and Conyers Trust Company (Cayman) Limited depending on which page is read.

Fees and payment limits at Deriv

• Deriv’s fee page gives deposit and withdrawal limits of 5 USD / 15 AED minimum and 10,000 USD / 50,000 AED maximum per transaction, and states the firm pays third-party transaction fees on deposits and withdrawals so the client does not.
• The same page states Deriv does not charge additional fees for currency conversion, though a client’s own payment provider may still charge one if depositing in a currency other than the Wallet’s currency.
• The firm’s contact page lists an MT5 Standard account with spreads from 0.6 pips and leverage up to 1:1000, and an MT5 Swap-free account with spreads from 2.2 pips, zero commission, and an administration fee once positions are held over five days.
• A dormant fee applies to accounts inactive for 12 months and is charged again every six months if the account stays inactive, though the help centre page refers readers to the terms rather than stating the amount.
• Deposit and withdrawal totals are capped at 10,000 USD cumulative per day across Wallet and trading-account transfers, up to 10 transfers a day, per the deposits and withdrawals FAQ.

Platforms and markets

Deriv’s own pages list Deriv MT5, Deriv cTrader, Deriv Trader, Deriv Bot, SmartTrader, a TradingView connection and a mobile Deriv app, spanning forex, stocks and stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, ETFs and Deriv’s own Derived Indices category. The UAE market page lists a narrower set, forex, stocks, commodities, cryptocurrencies, stock indices and ETFs, without Derived Indices, so what is actually tradable depends on which regional entity a client is onboarded through.

Support

Deriv’s contact pages describe 24/7 live chat, with first contact handled by an AI assistant named Amy; typing “live agent” routes the client to a human. Deriv’s own contact page states Amy processes client messages through OpenAI (GPT-5) and Google Gemini, stores conversation history and contact details via Intercom, and uses Weaviate, Datadog and Twilio for supporting functions, and that Amy cannot place, modify or cancel a transaction. The firm also lists email support and a self-service help centre.

Terms that bind a client

• The risk disclosure’s Conflict of interest clause 3.4 states Deriv operates as both Broker-Dealer and Exchange Services provider, and when acting as principal may take the opposing side of a client’s trade.
• Risk Disclosure 2.2 states a client “may lose the entire sum that you have invested, and in some cases, your loss may even exceed the sums you have invested and/or deposited with us,” which conflicts with the firm’s own help centre FAQ claim that negative balance protection means clients “don’t lose more than they deposit.”
• Risk Disclosure 2.5 states Deriv “does not guarantee” that open MT5 real-account positions will be closed once the margin level reaches or falls below the stop-out level.
• Risk Disclosure 1.13 states Deriv has “no responsibility to notify you” of positions closed for lack of available funds.
• Deriv’s promotions FAQ states an MT5 deposit bonus is forfeited entirely if any withdrawal is made while it is active, however small, or if account equity falls below the bonus value, and that the bonus itself is never withdrawable as cash, only profits made using it.

Warning-list search

We searched 1,438 warning-list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and FSC Mauritius, and Deriv appears on none of them. Two other names on those same lists belong to sites impersonating the brand, not to Deriv: derivinvestments.com is on CySEC’s List of Non-Approved Domains, and the FCA register lists “Deriv-Trades / deriv-trades.ltd” as Unauthorised. Neither entry is Deriv, and Deriv itself is not the subject of either warning.

Licenses & Regulation

Deriv trades through a cluster of separate companies rather than one licensed entity, and which company a client actually contracts with depends on where they sign up. We read the firm’s own terms and legal pages for each region and checked the regulators they name against the public registers.

What the registers confirm about Deriv’s regulated entities

The BVI Financial Services Commission lists Deriv (BVI) Ltd. as regulated for Dealing as Agent and Dealing as Principal, in a snapshot we took 28 days ago. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority’s List of Securities Investment Business Licensees (period ended 31 December 2025) carries Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited under licence number 2108455, dated 10 April 2025, for Broker/Dealer activity. The Financial Services Commission, Mauritius Online Public Register shows Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd holding an SEC-2.1B Investment Dealer (Full Service Dealer excluding Underwriting) licence, dated 14 June 2024; that register publishes the licence type and date but not a licence number, so we confirmed the company and its permission without a number to check. The Vanuatu Financial Services Commission‘s Financial Dealers Licensee List shows Deriv (V) Ltd, company number 14556, holding licence classes A, B and C, status Active, licensed since 23 December 2022.

For the EU-facing business, the Malta Financial Services Authority register lists Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited as an Investment Firm, status “Licence Authorised”, issued 19 May 2015, authorised for dealing on own account and execution of orders for both professional and retail clients across several derivative instrument categories, under MBR registration code C 70156. For the UAE, the Capital Market Authority (SCA) register lists Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C as active, listed since 2024, under company code CP-0000999, with deriv.com given as its website, which is the site this review covers. The firm’s own pages quote two separate licence numbers against that entity, 20200000243 for a Financial Products Dealer permission and 20200000199 for a Category 5 Financial Consultant permission; the register publishes the CP code rather than either of those numbers, so the company is confirmed and the two numbers are not.

What we could not check

Deriv (FX) Ltd, the entity the firm’s terms name for its Labuan business, is licensed according to those terms, but no Labuan FSA Financial Institutions Directory capture has been uploaded to check it against, so that licence is unverified on our end. Several company-registry numbers the firm quotes are also unchecked because those registries only answer a person browsing them directly: the Dubai company registration (2279721) for Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C, the Malta company number (C 70156) for Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, the Labuan company number (LL13394) for Deriv (FX) Ltd, the BVI company number (1841206) for Deriv (BVI) Ltd, and the Cayman company number (406695) for Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited. Membership of The Financial Commission, which the firm’s UAE legal page cites for the “Deriv (SVG) LLC group”, is also unchecked; that body is a dispute-resolution membership organisation rather than a regulator, so its absence or presence would not describe a licence either way.

Three entities in the group carry only company registrations, with no financial licence stated for them anywhere in the material we read. Deriv (SVG) LLC is confirmed on the St Vincent and the Grenadines FSA entity search, registration number 273 LLC 2020, status Active, but the SVG FSA registers companies rather than licensing forex or CFD brokers. Deriv.com Limited, the group’s Guernsey holding company, is confirmed on the Guernsey Registry as CMP71479, status Normal, but again as a company registration, not a licence. Deriv Capital International Ltd, the Samoa entity, could not be matched on the Samoa Companies Registry at all under its name or the number 85936; that registry only covers domestic and overseas companies, while Samoan international companies sit on a separate, non-public register, so the absence says nothing about the firm.

Deriv’s own pages disagree on the registered addresses of its regulated entities

The firm’s own legal pages give different registered addresses for the same regulated companies depending on which page is read. Deriv (BVI) Ltd appears as “Kingston Chambers, P.O. Box 173, Road Town, Tortola” on one page and “Floor 4, Banco Popular Building, Road Town, Tortola VG-1110” on two others. Deriv (FX) Ltd’s Labuan address similarly differs between pages, as does Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited’s registered agent, listed as Campbells Corporate Services Limited on some pages and Conyers Trust Company (Cayman) Limited on others. A reader trying to check any of these entities against its home registry would get a different starting address depending on which Deriv page sent them there.

Warning-list search and the lookalike sites

We searched 1,438 warning-list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and FSC Mauritius, and Deriv appears on none of them. Two similarly-named sites do appear and are not this firm: derivinvestments.com is on CySEC’s List of Non-Approved Domains, which does not name which firm it imitates; deriv-trades.ltd is listed on the FCA register as Unauthorised, with no clone marker on the entry. Neither is the company reviewed here, but both are worth knowing about for anyone searching the Deriv name.

Our previous score for this broker was 7/10; this review scores 7.6/10 overall, with regulation itself landing at 5.1 out of 10. That regulation figure reflects a spread structure where confirmed licences sit alongside a Labuan permission we have no register to check, five company-registry numbers we could not look up, three group entities with no stated financial licence at all, and a firm whose own pages cannot agree on the registered address of more than one regulated company. The move is this review’s own reassessment against that evidence, not a claim that Deriv’s regulatory standing has changed.

How to Trade

Deriv splits its trading offer across several platforms rather than one interface. Deriv MT5 carries the core CFD book: forex, stocks, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies and ETFs, with the firm’s own contact page quoting leverage up to 1:1000 and spreads from 0.6 pips on the MT5 Standard account. Deriv cTrader is pitched as the multi-asset platform for copy trading, limit and stop orders and chart trading. Deriv Trader, SmartTrader and Deriv Bot sit apart from the CFD side and are used for options and multiplier contracts, including the firm’s own in-house asset class, Derived Indices (Basket, Synthetic and Tactical Indices), which the group’s about page describes as tradable 24/7. A TradingView connection is also offered for charting and order entry, and the firm says a free TradingView account is enough to link it, with no extra fee for the connection.

What is actually available depends on which page, and by extension which licensed entity, a client lands on. The UAE market page lists Forex, Derived Indices, Stocks, Stock Indices, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies and ETFs under “Markets,” while the UK-facing pages list Derived Indices alongside Forex, Stocks, Stock Indices, Commodities and Cryptocurrencies under “Markets.” The UK terms also state that options trading and Deriv P2P are unavailable to clients resident in the EU, and that products from Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, the Malta-licensed entity, are sold to EEA residents only. A reader should treat the instrument list on any one Deriv page as a description of that entity’s offer, not the group’s.

How Deriv fills a trade

Deriv’s own risk disclosure sets out the dealing model plainly. Section 3.4, headed Conflict of interest, states that Deriv “operates as both a Broker-Dealer and Exchange Services provider” and that “when operating as principal (B-book), Deriv may take the opposing side of your trade.” Section 1.12 adds that Deriv is “both the manufacturer and distributor of its products.” Put together, the firm that designs the contract can also be the party profiting when a client’s position loses, without an independent intermediary between the two. This is disclosed rather than hidden, but it is worth reading as a description of how a fill actually happens on a Deriv account, not just a boilerplate warning.

Margin, stop-outs and forced closes

The margin mechanics carry the same edge. Section 3.7.5 of the risk disclosure says that if a client’s margin level falls below the required minimum, Deriv may force-close a position without prior notice, and that positions can also be closed through an Auto-Deleveraging mechanism triggered by another client’s unrelated position. Section 2.5 goes further: Deriv “does not guarantee” that open positions will be closed once the margin level reaches or falls below the stop-out level on Deriv MT5 real accounts, so the stop-out is not a hard backstop a client can rely on to cap a loss. Section 1.13 places the monitoring burden squarely on the client, stating Deriv has “no responsibility to notify you of any instances where your positions are closed due to the unavailability of funds.” Against this, Deriv’s UAE root page advertises gold and silver spreads “from 15 points” at leverage up to 1:800, and zero-commission MT5 trading at leverage up to 1:1000 with no swap fees, so the leverage on offer is high even where the stop-out mechanism protecting it is explicitly not guaranteed.

Multipliers, deal cancellation and swap-free positions

Outside standard CFDs, Deriv’s contract terms list a deal cancellation fee on multipliers trades, charged for using the cancellation feature, which the firm says “may vary for every trade contract.” Traders who want to avoid overnight financing can use a Deriv MT5 Swap-Free account, but the firm’s terms and its Reading contact page both note that an administration fee applies once a position on that account has been held for longer than five days, after an initial five-day grace period. MT5 Standard spreads are quoted from 0.6 pips against 2.2 pips on the Swap-free variant, so the exemption from swap charges is priced into the spread rather than given free.

Account types on offer

Deriv’s UAE contact page lists a CFDs account (Financials and Derived Indices), a Zero Spread account for traders who want fixed costs calculable ahead of execution, a Swap-free account, a Financial account aimed at high-volume trading in financial instruments only, a Gold account for metals, and a Crypto account. Alongside these sits the MT5 Standard and MT5 Swap-free split described above, plus a demo MT5 account funded with AED 10,000 in virtual funds. None of the account-type pages we read frame these tiers as promotional; they describe them in terms of spread type, swap treatment and instrument access.

Our previous score for Deriv’s trading conditions sat inside a 7/10 overall rating; this review scores the firm 7.6/10 overall, built from a platform figure of 9, a fees figure of 9 and a regulation figure of 5.1. The platform and fee evidence above, wide execution range across MT5, cTrader and the in-house Deriv Trader stack, and fee terms the firm itself publishes rather than obscures, is what supports the platform and fee side of that number; it is our assessment being restated against the current evidence, not a change in how Deriv trades.

Account Types

What Deriv actually sells across its sites

Deriv’s UAE account page lists six named account types rather than a single tiered ladder: a CFDs account described as a flexible option covering Financials and Derived Indices; a Zero Spread account “designed for traders who prefer fixed trading costs, allowing for precise cost calculations before trade execution”, also spanning Financials and Derived Indices; a Swap-free account “tailored for traders who want to avoid overnight swap fees”; a Financial account “optimised for trading financial instruments, with a focus on efficiency for high-volume traders”, restricted to Financials only; a Gold account built around gold and precious metals; and a Crypto account for cryptocurrency trading.

The MT5 accounts, where the numbers actually show up

Deriv’s contact page for MT5 gives two account tiers with real figures attached. The MT5 Standard account is quoted at leverage up to 1:1000, spreads from 0.6 pips, zero commission, and the full product range: forex, stocks, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies and ETFs. The MT5 Swap-free account carries the same 1:1000 leverage ceiling and zero commission but wider spreads, from 2.2 pips, in exchange for no swap charges on open positions; the trade-off is that the instrument list is limited to what the firm classes as swap-free assets, and the terms and conditions page states that an administration fee applies once a position on this account has been held for longer than five days, after a five-day grace period. We did not find that administration fee’s amount stated on either page we read.

A third option, the Demo account, is credited with AED 10,000 in virtual funds on the full MT5 platform and can be opened before identity verification or Wallet activation. It is practice money only: the deposits and withdrawals FAQ states demo funds cannot be withdrawn … since no actual deposit was made.

What it costs to move money in and out

Deriv’s fees page sets deposit and withdrawal limits per transaction at USD 5 to USD 10,000, or AED 15 to AED 50,000, on whichever currency the Wallet is held in. The same page states “we pay your third-party transaction fees so you don’t have to” for deposits and withdrawals, and separately that Deriv “does not charge additional fees for conversion”, though it adds that a client’s own payment provider may still charge a conversion fee if the deposit currency differs from the Wallet’s currency. A client wanting to move more than the per-transaction maximum in one go has to split it across multiple transfers rather than sending it as one.

What Deriv charges an account that goes quiet

The firm’s terms state a dormant fee applies to any Deriv trading account inactive for a year, and if the account is still inactive after that first deduction, the fee is charged again every six months until the client trades again. Deriv’s own help centre page confirms the fee exists but does not give the amount, referring the reader back to the terms instead; we did not find the figure stated on any page we read. Multipliers trading carries a separate deal cancellation fee, charged for using the deal-cancellation feature on a multipliers trade, which the terms say “may vary for every trade contract” rather than being fixed.

The deposit bonus, and what forfeits it

Deriv’s promotions FAQ describes a 20% first-deposit bonus on MT5 accounts, and the conditions attached to it are tighter than the headline figure suggests. Withdrawing any funds from the MT5 account while the bonus is active removes the entire bonus immediately, even if the withdrawal amount is smaller than the bonus itself, and the same page states the bonus is also stripped out automatically if account equity falls below the bonus value. The bonus itself is never withdrawable or usable as cash outside trading; only profits generated using it can be withdrawn. A client who wants to keep the bonus in place has to leave the account untouched and keep equity above the bonus amount for as long as it remains active.

Negative Balance Protection

Deriv’s own risk disclosure sets out what happens when a losing trade runs past the money in the account, and the answer it gives is blunter than the marketing pages around it. Section 2.2 of the disclosure states plainly: “You may lose the entire sum that you have invested, and in some cases, your loss may even exceed the sums you have invested and/or deposited with us.” That is the firm’s own wording, not a paraphrase, and it sits in the same document that governs CFD trading risk generally.

What Deriv’s risk disclosure says about losing more than the deposit

The line above is hard to square with the negative balance protection Deriv advertises elsewhere on its Help Centre, where the firm’s own FAQ describes protection that means clients do not lose more than they deposit. Both statements come from Deriv’s own published pages, and they point in opposite directions: one document promises a floor at zero, the other explicitly reserves the right for a client’s loss to exceed what was deposited. A reader relying on the Help Centre summary should read section 2.2 of the risk disclosure before assuming the floor is guaranteed.

The stop-out level is not a guarantee

The mechanism that is supposed to close a losing position before it wipes out the account is called a stop-out, and Deriv’s risk disclosure does not promise it will work. Section 2.5 states that Deriv “does not guarantee” open positions will be closed once the margin level reaches or falls below the stop-out level on Deriv MT5 real accounts.

Section 1.13 adds that Deriv has “no responsibility to notify you of any instances where your positions are closed due to the unavailability of funds,” and puts the burden on the client to make sure they can access their account while a contract is open. Between the two clauses, a client cannot treat the stop-out as a hard ceiling on losses, and cannot assume a warning will arrive before a position is closed for lack of margin.

Force closures and Deriv’s own side of the trade

The UAE risk disclosure, at section 3.7.5, describes what happens once margin does fall below the required minimum: Deriv may force-close a position without prior notice, and separately, a position can be closed through what the disclosure calls an Auto-Deleveraging mechanism, one that can be triggered by another client’s position rather than the account holder’s own trading. A client can therefore be liquidated by margin conditions elsewhere in Deriv’s book, not only by their own losses.

That is worth reading alongside section 3.4 of the same disclosure, on conflict of interest, which sets out that Deriv operates as both a Broker-Dealer and an Exchange Services provider, and that when it operates as principal, meaning it takes the trade in-house rather than passing it to the market, Deriv may take the opposing side of a client’s position. A firm that can be the counterparty to a client’s loss, and that also runs the deleveraging mechanism that can close that client’s position early, is disclosing a structural conflict rather than hiding one, but it is a conflict a client should weigh before assuming the platform’s interests and their own line up during a fast move.

Deriv MT5 Swap-Free and the admin fee on open positions

Away from liquidation risk, the terms and conditions add a separate mechanic that erodes an open position over time on one account type: on the Deriv MT5 Swap-Free account, an admin fee applies to overnight positions once a five-day grace period has passed. It is not a margin call or a loss limit, but it is a recurring charge against a position that a client planning to hold a swap-free trade for more than a few days should account for, since it applies specifically because the account is built to avoid the usual overnight swap charge in the first place.

Terms differ by which Deriv entity holds the account

Deriv’s own terms and conditions note that “additional terms and restrictions applicable to certain accounts” are published separately for Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd, Deriv (V) Ltd, Deriv (BVI) Ltd, Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited and Deriv (FX) Ltd. Because the group onboards clients through different licensed entities depending on where they sign up, the exact margin, stop-out and liquidation terms a given client is bound by depend on which of those entities holds their account, rather than being a single uniform policy across the Deriv brand.

Trading Instruments

Deriv’s own pages describe several trading account types rather than one universal offering, and the split matters because what a client can trade depends on which of these accounts, and which Deriv group entity, they end up with. The UAE contact page lists a CFDs account, a Zero Spread account, a Swap-free account, a Financial account, a Gold account and a Crypto account, each tagged with the markets it covers: Financials for most of them, Financials plus Derived Indices for the CFDs, Zero Spread and Swap-free accounts. Separately, the UK-facing contact page describes MT5 Standard (leverage up to 1:1000, spreads from 0.6 pips, zero commission, and access to forex, stocks, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies and ETFs) and MT5 Swap-free (same leverage ceiling, spreads from 2.2 pips, zero commission, no swaps, but restricted to a swap-free subset of instruments and an administration fee once a position runs past five days).

What Deriv actually lists as tradable

Across the pages we fetched, the instrument categories named are forex, commodities (the terms and conditions specifically mention Brent crude oil and West Texas Intermediate), stocks and stock indices, cryptocurrencies (the terms name Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin as examples), ETFs, and Deriv’s own Derived Indices category, which the firm’s terms describe as covering Basket Indices, Synthetic Indices and Tactical Indices. The UAE markets page adds that its forex offering runs to over 50 major, minor and exotic pairs, and describes cryptocurrencies there as tradable 24/7.

The UAE-facing pages are the clearest case of a gap between the marketing page and what’s on offer elsewhere in the group. The firm’s UAE home page lists Forex, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies, Stock Indices and ETFs under Markets, and only “CFDs” under Trade, with no Derived Indices and no Multipliers or Options. The UK-facing about page and the AE terms page, by contrast, list Derived Indices and Multipliers/Options alongside the same core categories. The firm’s own help centre also confirms that Derived Indices are unavailable in some countries due to regulatory requirements, without naming which. Taken together, the pages we fetched describe different instrument lists for the UAE entity than for the group’s other regional pages, and a client onboarding through Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C. in Dubai should check what their specific account actually shows rather than assume the group-wide list applies to them.

Platforms and how they carve up the asset list

The firm spreads its instruments across several platforms rather than one: Deriv MT5 (the MetaQuotes-built multi-asset platform, described on the firm’s UK terms page as covering forex, stocks and indices, cryptocurrencies, commodities, ETFs and derived indices), Deriv cTrader (multi-asset, with copy trading, limit and stop orders and chart trading), Deriv Trader (the firm’s own platform for multipliers and options, contracts running from one second to one year on more than 70 assets according to the AE contact page), Deriv Bot (a drag-and-drop builder for digital options), SmartTrader (browser-based digital options trading) and a TradingView integration that the AE contact page says needs only a free TradingView account with no extra connection fee. Which of these a client can reach again depends on their entity: the EU/EEA is carved out from Deriv P2P and from options trading entirely under the group’s own terms and conditions, and products from Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, the Malta-licensed entity, are restricted to EEA residents only.

The CFD-specific terms that shape what gets traded

Deriv’s UAE risk disclosure states, at section 3.4, that the firm “operates as both a Broker-Dealer and Exchange Services provider” and that when acting as principal it may take the opposing side of a client’s trade, meaning Deriv can be the direct counterparty on the other side of a client’s CFD position. The same document, at section 3.8, states that Anonymity-Enhanced Cryptocurrencies, including privacy coins, “are not accepted as collateral” and are “absolutely prohibited across all activities,” so the crypto category available for margin purposes is narrower than the general cryptocurrencies asset class the marketing pages list. Section 2.5 adds that Deriv “does not guarantee” open positions will be closed once the margin level reaches or falls below the stop-out level on Deriv MT5 real accounts, which matters for CFD traders relying on that mechanism to cap losses. The UAE root page separately advertises “leverage up to 1:800” with spreads “from 15 points” on gold and silver trading, and “zero commission” up to 1:1000 leverage with no swap fees on Deriv MT5, both stated on the firm’s own page rather than in the regulated terms.

This review’s score moves from a prior 7/10 to 7.6/10 overall. The evidence behind that includes a fees score of 9 and a platform score of 9, both consistent with what the firm’s own pages show here: a spread of six distinct account types split by asset focus, a wide platform lineup (MT5, cTrader, Deriv Trader, Deriv Bot, SmartTrader, TradingView), and fee material we read directly rather than summarized secondhand. Regulation sits lower at 5.1, reflecting the mixed register picture set out elsewhere in this review rather than anything about the asset range itself. This review restates the score from the current evidence; we cannot attribute the change to the firm rather than to our own reassessment.

Education & Analysis

Deriv is not a single-platform broker. Across the pages we fetched, the firm names six distinct trading applications under its own brand plus a TradingView integration, and which ones a client sees depends on which regional site and which underlying licensed entity they land on.

Deriv MT5 and Deriv cTrader for CFDs

Deriv’s UAE homepage describes Deriv MT5 as offering leverage up to 1:1000, zero commission, no swap fees, “80+ indicators” and “multi-timeframe charts”, plus built-in risk management tools. The firm’s UK-facing account page gives two MT5 variants: a Standard account with spreads “from 0.6 pips” and zero commission across forex, stocks, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies and ETFs, and a Swap-free account with spreads “from 2.2 pips”, zero commission and no swap charges, restricted to a narrower list of swap-free assets and carrying an administration fee once a position has been held for more than five days. A demo version of MT5 is also available, seeded with AED 10,000 in virtual funds, accessible before identity verification or wallet activation.

Deriv cTrader is described, on the firm’s own terms pages, as a multi-asset CFD platform with copy trading, limit and stop orders, chart trading and custom indicators. Deriv’s UAE markets page files cTrader specifically under a “copy trading” category rather than alongside MT5’s CFD listing, which is a difference in how the firm itself categorises the same platform between pages rather than a difference in the platform.

TradingView access through Deriv

The UAE contact page states that a Deriv account can be connected to TradingView for charting and trading, that a free TradingView account is sufficient, and that there are “no extra fees for connecting.” Deriv’s UAE terms describe the resulting combination as offering “professional-grade charting” and “real-time analysis”, alongside access to the firm’s own 24/7 Derived Indices. We have not fetched TradingView’s own terms for what a free-tier account does and does not unlock there, so the scope of what “professional-grade” covers rests on Deriv’s own wording.

Deriv Trader, Deriv Bot and SmartTrader for options

For clients trading options and derivatives rather than CFDs, Deriv describes Deriv Trader as its “flagship platform,” offering contracts on more than 70 assets with expiries “from 1 second to 1 year” and requiring no installation. Deriv Bot is described as a web-based drag-and-drop strategy builder for digital options trading, and SmartTrader as a “user-friendly” digital options platform accessible through desktop and mobile browsers without installation. On the UAE markets page these three sit under an “Options trading platforms” grouping, separate from the CFD and copy-trading categories that hold MT5, cTrader and TradingView.

What Deriv’s own pages say differs by region

The platform and instrument lists Deriv publishes are not identical across its own pages. The firm’s UAE homepage lists Deriv MT5’s tradable markets and, separately, lists the firm’s overall “Markets” as Forex, Stocks, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies, Stock Indices and ETFs, with Derived Indices absent from that list; under “Trade” on the same page only “CFDs” is named, with no mention of Multipliers. By contrast, the firm’s UK-facing “About” page and its UAE terms and conditions both list Derived Indices and Multipliers/Options alongside the CFD instruments. We are reporting what each of Deriv’s own pages states rather than resolving the difference, because the pages disagree with each other on what is on offer, and a client checking only one of them would come away with a different product list than a client checking another.

The mobile Deriv app is described on the firm’s own pages as letting a client manage accounts, transfer funds and access markets, with the explicit caveat that availability depends on country of residence. No page we fetched sets out a feature-by-feature comparison of what the mobile app can do relative to the desktop MT5, cTrader or Deriv Trader platforms, so we cannot say from this evidence whether charting or order types on mobile match the desktop tools.

Deriv P2P sits outside the charting and execution stack

Deriv P2P is listed among the firm’s platforms but functions as a peer-to-peer deposit and withdrawal service protected by escrow, not a trading or analysis tool, and the firm’s own terms state it is unavailable to clients residing in the EU.

Special Offers

The pages we fetched for Deriv do not include a dedicated promotions page. The one promotional mechanic we found sits inside the Promotions FAQ on Deriv’s UAE site, covering a first-deposit bonus on the Deriv MT5 account. Beyond that, the account and fee pages we read describe standing pricing structures rather than time-limited offers, and we report those separately below rather than assume Deriv runs no other promotions.

Deriv’s MT5 first-deposit bonus

Deriv’s Promotions FAQ describes a 20% bonus on a first deposit into a Deriv MT5 account. The same FAQ sets out two ways the bonus is forfeited: withdrawing any funds at all from the MT5 account while the bonus is active removes it immediately, even if the withdrawal amount is smaller than the bonus itself, and the bonus is also removed automatically if account equity falls below the bonus value. The FAQ further states that the bonus itself cannot be withdrawn or used as cash outside trading; only profits made using the bonus are withdrawable, so the 20% credit functions as trading capital rather than money a client can bank.

Taken together, those two conditions mean a client who deposits, trades, and then withdraws even a small sum before generating profit on the bonus loses the credit outright.

What Deriv’s fee pages describe instead of a discount code

Outside that one bonus, the material we read frames cost reduction as a standing feature of the account rather than a limited-time offer. Deriv’s deposits and withdrawals page states “we pay your third-party transaction fees so you don’t have to”, meaning Deriv itself absorbs the fee a payment provider would otherwise charge on a deposit or withdrawal, and the same page states Deriv “does not charge additional fees” for currency conversion, while noting a client’s own payment provider may still apply one if they deposit in a currency different from their Wallet’s currency. Neither of these is presented on the page as a promotion with an end date; both read as a standard part of the Wallet’s payment terms.

The UAE account-types page lists CFDs, Zero Spread, Swap-free, Financial, Gold and Crypto accounts. It describes the Zero Spread account as built for traders who “prefer fixed trading costs” and the Swap-free account as built to avoid overnight swap fees, and prices the accounts through their spread and fee structure rather than through any credit or cashback mechanic; the page says nothing about promotional pricing for these account types.

The demo account is not a cash offer

Deriv’s UAE contact page describes a demo MT5 account loaded with AED 10,000 in virtual funds, available before identity verification or Wallet activation, giving full access to the MT5 platform. Deriv’s own deposits and withdrawals FAQ is explicit that demo funds cannot be withdrawn … since no actual deposit was made, so however large a demo balance grows, none of it converts to real money. It is a practice tool, not a promotional credit.

Conditions worth reading before opting in

Where Deriv does run a bonus, the terms we found tie it tightly to account behaviour: any withdrawal at all cancels it, and it exists only as tradeable capital rather than a cash credit. A client weighing the MT5 deposit bonus against a no-bonus account should factor in that taking the bonus effectively locks them out of withdrawing until they have either generated bonus-derived profit or are willing to give the 20% up. We found no separate terms document for the bonus beyond the Promotions FAQ language quoted above, so the conditions above are the complete set of published detail available to us.

Opening an Account

Deriv sells access through separate legal entities depending on where an applicant lives, and the account application itself asks for the applicant’s country of residence before anything else. Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited handles EEA residents under its Malta Financial Services Authority licence, confirmed on the MFSA Financial Services Register as an Investment Firm since 19-05-2015; Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C runs the separate UAE platform, confirmed on the UAE Capital Market Authority register as CP-0000999; and the remaining Deriv (BVI) Ltd, Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited, Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd and Deriv (V) Ltd entities cover other regions, each confirmed on its own register (the BVI FSC, CIMA, the FSC Mauritius register and the VFSC list respectively). The firm’s UK contact page states that the UAE platform requires a separate account even for someone who already holds a Deriv account elsewhere, because it operates under a different SCA licence.

Who Deriv will not open an account for

The firm’s help centre states that account creation is refused for applicants under 18 years old and for residents of countries where Deriv services aren’t available. The site-wide disclaimer on the UK about page adds that products offered by Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited go only to EEA residents, and the UK terms state that options trading and Deriv P2P are both unavailable to clients residing within the EU. The help centre also states that only one account per client is allowed. Separately, the products the Malta entity offers are described on the same about page as “complex products” that “carry a significant risk of potential loss and may not be appropriate for retail clients,” a warning the firm gives about its own regulated offering.

Verification and identity checks

The risk disclosure read for this review sets out an AML and counter-terrorist financing regime under which Deriv may be required to freeze, suspend, or terminate a client’s account, or report transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), without prior notice, at section 3.10.2. The same document states at section 3.10.1 that transactions of AED 3,500 or more trigger Travel Rule compliance, meaning identification and verification of both the originator and the beneficiary before the transaction can proceed. A demo account is available before any of this: the UK contact page describes AED 10,000 in virtual funds on MT5, open before identity verification or Wallet activation, though it functions only as a preview since the fee page states demo funds are for practise only and cannot be withdrawn … since no actual deposit was made.

Funding a new Deriv account

Once verified, the firm’s fee page sets a deposit minimum of 5 USD or 15 AED per transaction, with a maximum of 10,000 USD or 50,000 AED per transaction, and states the same minimums and maximums apply to withdrawals. The same page states that all payment methods used on the account must belong to the client, and the help centre is explicit about what happens otherwise: using a card or e-wallet that isn’t the client’s own is “strictly prohibited,” and Deriv will suspend your Deriv account for security purposes if it happens. Payment options listed on the UAE contact page include cards (Visa or Mastercard), e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller, bank transfer, and a set of cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD Coin, Litecoin, eUSDT, USDT and XRP), alongside Deriv P2P, the firm’s escrow protected peer to peer transfer service, which the UK terms state is unavailable to clients residing in the EU.

What binds an account holder from the start

The risk disclosure states at section 3.4 that Deriv “operates as both a Broker-Dealer and Exchange Services provider,” and that when acting as principal it may take the opposing side of a client’s trade, a disclosed conflict of interest that applies from the moment an account goes live. Section 3.8 of the same document states that Anonymity-Enhanced Cryptocurrencies, including privacy coins, are “absolutely prohibited” as collateral across all activities. New MT5 account holders taking up the firm’s deposit bonus should also note a term from the promotions FAQ read for this review: withdrawing any funds while the 20% first deposit bonus is active removes the bonus immediately, even if the withdrawal is smaller than the bonus itself, and the bonus is removed automatically if account equity falls below the bonus value.

A lookalike worth knowing before signing up

Searching 1,438 warning list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and FSC Mauritius turned up no listing for Deriv itself. It did turn up two names close enough to confuse an applicant. CySEC’s List of Non-Approved Domains includes derivinvestments.com, which CySEC states is not authorised to provide investment services under any Cypriot licence; CySEC does not say which firm the domain imitates. Separately, the FCA register lists deriv-trades.ltd as Unauthorised and names it as impersonating Deriv. Neither entry is the firm reviewed here, and an applicant searching for Deriv’s real sign-up page should be careful not to land on either by mistake.

Deposits & Withdrawals

Deriv’s own fee page gives a single set of transaction limits across both deposits and withdrawals: minimum 5 USD or 15 AED, maximum 10,000 USD or 50,000 AED, per transaction. A client moving a larger sum has to split it across multiple withdrawals rather than taking it out in one go. The same page states that Deriv does not charge additional fees for currency conversion, though it notes a client’s own payment provider may still charge a conversion fee if a deposit is made in a currency different from the Wallet’s currency. Deriv’s UAE contact page separately states there are no fees for deposits into a Deriv Wallet, and that “we pay your third-party transaction fees so you don’t have to” on that same fee page, meaning the transaction-cost promise is Deriv’s fee page speaking, not a general claim we’re extending to every payment rail.

What Deriv charges to withdraw

Withdrawal fees are rail-dependent rather than fixed: the UAE contact page states that the selected withdrawal payment method may charge withdrawal fees and that this depends on which method a client chooses, without listing figures for each one. The Reading, UK office page lists card payments (Visa, Mastercard), e-wallets (Skrill, Neteller) and Apple Pay as processing instantly in AED or USD, while the UAE contact page adds bank transfer and cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD Coin, Litecoin, eUSDT, USDT, XRP) to the list of funding methods. None of these pages we fetched gives a per-method fee table, so a client choosing between them has to check the fee at the point of transacting rather than from the page we read.

A funding route specific to Deriv is Deriv P2P, a peer-to-peer deposit and withdrawal service the firm describes as protected by escrow, which is unavailable to clients residing in the EU under Deriv’s own terms. The risk disclosure we read states that Deriv acts only as a platform provider for P2P transactions and is not a party to, or guarantor of, any P2P transaction beyond the escrow mechanism described in its Funds and Transfers Terms (section 5.3), and separately that once a P2P sell order is placed, the seller cannot cancel it (section 5.2). Deriv P2P also carries its own throughput limits, tiered by account standing: Bronze 500 USD, Silver 5,000 USD, Gold 8,000 USD and Diamond 11,000 USD in daily buy or sell volume, with advancement between tiers based on time on the platform, turnover, dispute record and completion rate. A new or low-activity P2P user is capped at the lowest tier until those conditions are met.

Moving money between Wallets and trading accounts

Deriv’s structure routes money through a central Wallet before it reaches a trading account, and that internal transfer step has its own cap: the UAE FAQ page states a daily transfer limit of 10,000 USD (cumulative) between a Wallet and trading accounts, and between Wallet currencies, capped at 10 transfers per day. That limit sits on top of, not instead of, the per-transaction deposit and withdrawal caps quoted above, so a client funding or draining an account in a single day is bound by both.

Fees that erode a balance over time

Deriv’s terms describe a dormant account fee applying to accounts inactive for a year; if the account stays inactive after that first deduction, the fee recurs every six months until the client trades again. The Help Centre FAQ page confirms the same fee exists but refers the client to the terms for the amount, so we can report that the fee is charged and how often it repeats, but not what it costs, since neither page we read states a figure. Separately, the MT5 Swap-free account carries an administration fee once a position has been held for longer than five days, again with no amount given on the pages we fetched; the standard MT5 account has no such fee, so the swap-free structure trades away the overnight swap in exchange for this five-day-grace admin charge instead.

Demo funds and promotional credit

Deriv’s fee page is explicit that demo account funds cannot be withdrawn… since no actual deposit was made, which is a statement about how the practice account works rather than a withdrawal restriction on real money. On the promotional side, the UAE Promotions FAQ describes a 20% first-deposit bonus on MT5 accounts with conditions that bind any later withdrawal: withdrawing any amount from the account while the bonus is active removes the entire bonus immediately, even if the withdrawal is smaller than the bonus itself, and the bonus is also stripped automatically if account equity falls below the bonus value. The same FAQ states the bonus itself is never withdrawable or usable as cash outside trading; only profits generated using it can be taken out. A client who takes even a small withdrawal while running this bonus loses the whole credit, not a proportional share of it.

Who a client is actually dealing with

Which entity processes a deposit or withdrawal, and which terms apply to it, depends on where the client is onboarded: Deriv’s own terms state that additional terms and restrictions are published separately per entity, covering Deriv (Mauritius) Ltd, Deriv (V) Ltd, Deriv (BVI) Ltd, Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited and Deriv (FX) Ltd. The BVI FSC register lists Deriv (BVI) Ltd as regulated for Dealing as Agent and Dealing as Principal, and the CIMA register lists Deriv Investments (Cayman) Limited under licence number 2108455 for Broker/Dealer activity, so the money-handling entity behind a given account is a checkable, licensed one in at least those two cases, even though the fee schedule that applies isn’t uniform across the group.

The score

Our previous score for Deriv was 7 out of 10; this review scores it 7.6 out of 10. We’re not attributing that move to any change at the firm; the scoring criteria and the evidence base both changed between reviews, and this review restates the score from what we hold now. On this pass, the fees criterion sits at 9: Deriv’s own fee page states no charge for Wallet deposits, no added conversion fee, and that Deriv absorbs third-party transaction costs, which is a stronger set of stated terms than the rail-dependent withdrawal fees and undisclosed dormant-fee amount would suggest on their own.

Customer Support

Deriv’s front line is not, in the first instance, a person. The firm’s own contact pages describe a chat widget staffed by an AI assistant called Amy, available 24/7. Typing “live agent” to Amy routes the conversation to a human team member; until a client does that, they are talking to an automated system that, by the firm’s own description, “cannot provide financial, investment, tax, or legal advice” and cannot “place, modify, or cancel any transaction or order.” Anyone contacting Deriv about a live trade or a margin call needs to get past Amy to reach someone who can actually touch the account.

Behind that chat window sits more machinery than the widget lets on. Deriv’s own contact page states that Amy processes client message text through two outside AI providers, OpenAI (GPT-5) and Google Gemini, stores conversation history and contact details via Intercom, and relies on Weaviate for knowledge retrieval, Datadog for logging and Twilio for phone verification. A client messaging support about an account issue is, on the firm’s own account, having that conversation handled by several named third-party vendors before a human ever sees it.

How to reach Deriv

Alongside the chat, Deriv’s contact pages list a self-service help centre. The firm’s UK-facing contact page lists registered offices across a wide spread of countries: London and Reading in the UK, Paris, Berlin, Birkirkara in Malta, Limassol in Cyprus, Guernsey, Cyberjaya, Labuan, Ipoh and Melaka in Malaysia, Singapore, two addresses in Dubai, Amman, Kigali, two in Paraguay, George Town in the Cayman Islands and Port Vila in Vanuatu. The UAE-facing entity, Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C, gives a separate registered office at 2402, One by Omniyat, Business Bay, Dubai, with its place of business at 2201 in the same building.

Two other sites carrying the Deriv name are worth flagging to anyone searching for that support address. Our search of 1438 warning-list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and FSC Mauritius turned up no match for Deriv itself, but it did turn up two look-alikes. CySEC’s List of Non-Approved Domains names derivinvestments.com as not authorised to provide investment services under any Cypriot licence, though CySEC does not say in that listing which firm it imitates. The FCA register lists deriv-trades.ltd as Unauthorised and identifies it as impersonating Deriv. Neither of those sites is the firm reviewed here, and a client typing a support query into a search engine should make sure they land on deriv.com rather than one of these.

What Deriv’s terms say when a client complains

Several clauses in Deriv’s risk disclosure narrow what a client can hold support responsible for. Section 6.2.3 states Deriv bears no responsibility for losses arising from communications sent to a client’s registered contact details that are not received, provided Deriv used the contact information supplied and made reasonable delivery efforts, so a missed margin call is the client’s problem if the message was sent to the address on file. Section 4.6 goes further, saying Deriv is “not responsible for losses resulting from your failure to protect your access credentials or to properly respond to known cyber threats,” including phishing, malware or social engineering; the firm’s own help centre FAQ puts the same point in plainer terms: “Will Deriv compensate for my loss if my account falls under a scamming/phishing trap? No, your account safety is your sole responsibility.”

The help centre FAQ also describes a hard line on payment ownership: using a card or e-wallet that does not belong to the client is “strictly prohibited,” and if it happens anyway, Deriv will suspend your Deriv account for security purposes. That is worth knowing before a client funds an account with a partner’s or family member’s card while sorting out a support query. Two other operational details sit alongside these client-facing pages rather than in the risk disclosure itself: a dormant fee applies to accounts inactive for 12 months, though the help centre page does not disclose the amount and instead refers the client back to the terms; and Deriv’s Deriv P2P peer-to-peer deposit and withdrawal service, protected by escrow according to the terms, is stated as unavailable to clients resident in the EU.

Our previous review scored Deriv 7 out of 10 overall; this review scores it 7.6, with support specifically assessed at 7.3 out of 10. That move is ours, made against the evidence gathered this time, not a claim that Deriv’s support has changed: 24/7 live chat, a self-service help centre, an AI first responder that can escalate to a human on request, and a documented network of offices are what the firm’s own pages show today, set against the liability carve-outs quoted above that a client would run into if a complaint went wrong.

Prohibited Countries

Deriv’s own Help Centre FAQ states that account creation is refused to applicants under 18 years old, or residents of countries where Deriv services aren’t available. That sentence is the only general eligibility rule the firm publishes on this point, and it does not name a single country. The pages we fetched describe country-specific carve-outs tied to particular products and entities rather than a published blacklist, so what follows is those carve-outs, not a list of banned nations, because the evidence does not give us one.

EU residents get a narrower Deriv, not a blocked one

Deriv’s terms and conditions state that options trading is unavailable to clients residing within the EU, and that Deriv P2P, its peer-to-peer deposit and withdrawal service, is also unavailable to EU residents. Separately, the firm’s about page states that the products offered by Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, the Malta-licensed entity, “are only offered to EEA residents.” The MFSA register confirms this entity, Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, as an Investment Firm with the status “Licence Authorised,” issued 19-05-2015, with EU passporting rights and permissions covering dealing on own account and execution of orders across a named list of derivative instrument classes. The same about page discloses that these EEA products are classed as “complex products” that “carry a significant risk of potential loss and may not be appropriate for retail clients,” a warning the firm applies to the very entity it uses to serve EEA clients.

Deriv’s UAE platform is fenced off to UAE residents

Deriv’s UAE-facing contact page states that “Deriv UAE platform services” are restricted to UAE residents only, describing this as a regulatory requirement of the SCA licence. The same page states that an existing Deriv account holder wanting to use the UAE platform must open a separate account, because it operates under a different SCA licence to the rest of the group. The entity behind that licence, Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C, is confirmed on the UAE Capital Market Authority register as CP-0000999, status Active, listed since 2024, with deriv.com given as its website. So the restriction runs in the direction of keeping the UAE-licensed product inside the UAE, not of excluding UAE residents from the group’s other entities.

Two claims about UK and UAE access that the evidence does not support

An earlier version of this catalogue’s review of Deriv listed the UAE and the UK among the countries where the firm was prohibited from offering services. The pages fetched for this review do not support that: Deriv operates a dedicated, CMA-licensed UAE entity, Deriv Capital Contracts & Currencies L.L.C, confirmed on the UAE Capital Market Authority register as set out above, and a Malta-licensed entity, Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited, confirmed on the MFSA register with EU passporting rights that extend to UK-facing operations under its own country-specific risk warnings. Whatever was true when that earlier line was written, it does not match the firm’s currently published regulatory structure, and we are not carrying it forward.

What else the terms restrict

Outside the EU and UAE carve-outs, Deriv’s Help Centre FAQ states that only one account per client is allowed, a rule that applies across all clients rather than by country. The same FAQ states that Derived Indices, the firm’s in-house synthetic asset class, are unavailable in some countries due to regulatory requirements, again without naming which countries. Where an applicant is under 18, or resident somewhere Deriv has decided not to serve, the FAQ states account creation is refused, but as with the Derived Indices line, the firm does not publish the underlying list on the pages we read.

Put together, the documented picture is narrower than a country list: EU residence removes options trading and Deriv P2P and channels a client toward the Malta-licensed entity for anything Deriv still offers there; UAE residence locks a client into the CMA-licensed UAE platform and a separate account from the rest of the group; and everywhere else, the firm reserves the right to refuse an application by country or by age without saying, on the pages fetched, which countries that reservation currently covers.

Conclusion

Deriv scores 7.6 out of 10 in our assessment, up from the 7/10 we gave it previously. That move is ours, not the firm’s: this review rests on the same register checks and document reads described throughout, and the scoring criteria have themselves changed since the last pass. Regulation sits at 5.1, the weakest of the five scores, which fits what the register checks actually returned. The VFSC and the UAE Capital Market Authority confirm the entity trading under their licence, and the MFSA confirms Deriv Investments (Europe) Limited’s “Licence Authorised” status. But the Labuan Financial Services Authority entry is marked unchecked in our coverage, because no Labuan FSA directory capture has been uploaded, and several company registrations, including the Cayman Islands, Malta and BVI company registries and the Dubai licence register, are also unchecked because those registers only answer a person in a browser. None of that is a mark against Deriv. It is a gap in what we could verify, and it is why regulation carries the lowest of the five scores rather than a higher one.

What Deriv’s own terms put on the client

Fees score 9, and the firm’s own fee page supports that: no fee for deposits into a Deriv Wallet, third party transaction fees on deposits and withdrawals covered by Deriv rather than passed on, and no additional currency conversion fee charged by Deriv itself, though a client’s own payment provider may still charge one. Deposits and withdrawals run from 5 USD or 15 AED up to 10,000 USD or 50,000 AED per transaction, so a client moving a larger sum has to split it across more than one transaction. Platform also scores 9, and the range on offer is wide: Deriv MT5 with leverage up to 1:1000, Deriv cTrader, the proprietary Deriv Trader, SmartTrader, Deriv Bot, a TradingView connection and the Deriv P2P payment service, though P2P is not available to clients resident in the EU.

The risk disclosure we read is where the score has to sit alongside the contract, not just the marketing. Section 2.2 states plainly that “you may lose the entire sum that you have invested, and in some cases, your loss may even exceed the sums you have invested and/or deposited with us,” which cuts directly against the firm’s own Help Centre claim elsewhere that negative balance protection means clients “don’t lose more than they deposit.” Section 2.5 adds that Deriv “does not guarantee” that open positions will be closed once the margin level reaches or falls below the stop out level on Deriv MT5 real accounts. Section 3.4 of the UAE risk disclosure describes Deriv operating as both a Broker Dealer and Exchange Services provider, and when it takes the opposing side of a client’s trade as principal it can be the direct counterparty profiting from that client’s loss, a disclosed conflict of interest rather than a hidden one. Clients on the MT5 Swap free account face an administration fee once a position has been held for more than five days, per the firm’s own contact page.

Support and how Deriv actually gets read

Support scores 7.3. The firm offers 24/7 live chat and an email address, but the first line of that chat is Amy, described on Deriv’s own contact page as a fully automated AI assistant that cannot give financial, investment, tax or legal advice and cannot place, modify or cancel a transaction or order, with a client needing to type “live agent” to reach a person. The same page states that Amy processes client messages through OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google Gemini, stores conversation history and contact details through Intercom, and uses Weaviate, Datadog and Twilio for retrieval, logging and phone verification, meaning a support conversation, and for account holders their Deriv user ID, account and KYC status, passes through several named third party vendors before a human ever sees it. Reviews sits at 7.4. We searched 1,438 warning list entries mirrored from CySEC, the FCA and the FSC Mauritius, and Deriv appears on none of them, a clean result worth stating plainly. Two lookalike names do turn up on those same lists and are not this firm: derivinvestments.com, which CySEC lists as a non approved domain without naming who it imitates, and deriv-trades.ltd, which the FCA register lists as Unauthorised and identifies as impersonating Deriv. A reader searching for Deriv and landing on either of those is not looking at the firm reviewed here.

Deriv is a multi entity CFD and derivatives broker holding confirmed licences with the VFSC, the UAE CMA and the MFSA, charging no Deriv-side fee on deposits or currency conversion while its own risk disclosure warns that losses can exceed a client’s deposit and that stop out is not guaranteed, and TrueBroker scores it 7.6 out of 10.

FAQ