The Best Prop Firms in Australia for 2026, Compared

When do global trading sessions align with an Australian day?

This section takes each major centre's session as 08:00 to 17:00 local time. That is a convention, not an official schedule, and every time below is arithmetic from standard UTC offsets.

The Tokyo and Sydney sessions overlap inside the Australian business day: 09:00 to 17:00 AEST (UTC+10) from roughly April to September, and 10:00 to 17:00 AEDT (UTC+11) from roughly October to March.

The London and New York overlap falls late at night. It runs about 22:00 to 02:00 AEST in the Australian winter and about 00:00 to 04:00 AEDT from roughly November to March. For parts of March and October the window starts about 23:00, and the weeks around the northern clock changes can add an hour to its length.

If your local clock is not on Sydney time, shift each time by the difference.

What does ASIC's CFD product intervention order cover?

ASIC's media release 22-082MR says it extended its product intervention order, which imposes conditions on the issue and distribution of contracts for difference (CFDs), for a further five years to 23 May 2027.

The release says the order has applied since 29 March 2021 and has strengthened protections by reducing the CFD leverage available to retail clients and by targeting product features and sales practices that amplify retail clients' CFD losses.

Restrictions the release names for CFDs issued to retail clients include:

• leverage ratio limits ranging from 30:1 to 2:1
• standardisation of margin close-out rules
• negative balance protection
• prohibitions on offering or giving certain inducements

The release concerns CFDs issued to retail clients. It does not mention prop firms or simulated evaluations, and this page cites no ASIC statement about them. This is general information, not legal advice.

How does the ATO tell a share trader from an investor?

The ATO's page on share investing versus share trading (last updated 22 June 2026) says determining whether you are a share trader is the same as determining whether your activities amount to carrying on a business for tax purposes. It lists the factors courts have used:

• the nature and purpose of your activities;
• the repetition, volume and regularity of your activities;
• whether your activities are organised in a business-like way;
• the amount of capital invested.

The page says an intention to make a profit is not on its own enough to establish a business, and that the higher the volume of share transactions, the more likely it is that a business is being carried on. For a share trader, gains are treated as ordinary income and losses are deductible against income. For an investor, shares are assets subject to capital gains tax (CGT) when sold, and losses can offset capital gains but not income from other sources.

The page is about shares. It does not mention CFDs, forex, simulated accounts or payouts from a prop firm, so this section does not say which treatment, if any, applies to a payout. Ask a registered tax agent.

What does the ATO say about foreign income and converting it to Australian dollars?

The ATO's page for Australian residents (last updated 15 June 2026) says you must declare income you earn anywhere in the world in your Australian tax return, which it calls your worldwide income. It says this can include payments received from platforms hosted overseas, giving content creators and influencers paid from overseas as its example, and that income from services provided to an organisation outside Australia is declared as if it were earned in Australia.

The same page says all foreign income, deductions and tax offsets must be converted to Australian dollars in the tax return, using either the exchange rate at specific times or an average rate published by the ATO, depending on the income. It notes that you may pay tax on the same income in Australia and in the other country, and points to the foreign income tax offset.

The page does not name prop firms or trading. A payout from a firm abroad is a payment from overseas, but the page does not say how it is classed, so this section stops at the declaration and conversion rules.

What does the ATO's ruling on contracts for difference say?

Taxation Ruling TR 2005/15 covers the income tax consequences of financial contracts for differences, which it says include contracts on share prices, share price indices, financial product prices, commodity prices, interest rates and currencies. It does not apply to products marketed in Australia as financial spread betting.

• A gain is assessable income under section 6-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 where the contract is entered into as an ordinary incident of carrying on a business, and a loss is then deductible under section 8-1.
• Otherwise, a gain from a contract entered into in a profit-making undertaking or scheme is assessable under section 15-15, and a matching loss is deductible under section 25-40.
• A gain or loss from a contract entered into for recreation by gambling is neither assessable nor deductible.

The ruling is about a person's own contracts with a CFD provider. It says nothing about simulated accounts, profit splits or payouts from a prop firm, so this page does not say that it applies to them.