The Best Prop Firms in the UK for 2026, Compared

Can a UK trader be paid in pounds by the three firms in the table?

None of the three firms says on the pages read on 29 October 2026 that it sends payouts in pounds sterling. What each one does say:

• FTMO: its FAQ says accounts can be denominated in USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, CZK, CAD or AUD, but that the account currency does not determine the currency in which a reward is sent. Its withdrawal FAQ lists bank wire, Visa Direct and Mastercard Send, Skrill and crypto, and says FTMO charges no extra commission on reward withdrawals.
• Alpha Capital Group: its terms say payment is requested in fiat ($) or cryptocurrency from the dashboard, and that every "$" on its site means US dollars. Its help centre lists Rise, Wise and bank transfer (wire, ACH or SWIFT), with crypto through Rise, and its terms say the payment provider's exchange-rate fee applies.
• Topstep: its payout policy says Wise is available again for traders in China, Canada and the United Kingdom, with no Topstep fee, and that international wire (SWIFT) takes 5 to 10 business days and carries a fee. Your bank or the service may charge its own fees.

Where a firm pays in dollars, the conversion to pounds happens at the payment service or your bank, at their rate and fees. Check the firm's current payout page before you buy, because payout methods change.

Can you trade the FTSE 100 at these firms?

• Alpha Capital Group: its tradeable-assets page (dated 6 July 2026) lists UK100 among its index CFDs, next to GER30, NAS100 and US500.
• FTMO: its trading update of 23 April 2026 names a UK100.cash symbol, closed for the UK bank holiday on 4 May 2026. Its instruments FAQ lists indices and points to its symbols page for the full list.
• Topstep: its list of tradable products is CME Group futures only (CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX), and it has no FTSE or other UK index contract. The UK-linked products on it are the British pound futures 6B and M6B.

Neither FTMO nor Alpha Capital Group uses the name FTSE 100 on the pages read, so open the UK100 symbol's specification on the platform to confirm what it tracks and its trading hours.

When do the main trading sessions line up on a UK clock?

The session times below assume a working day of 08:00 to 17:00 in each centre, which is a convenient assumption and not an official timetable. Each figure is plain arithmetic from standard UTC offsets.

London is the reference clock. Its session runs 08:00 to 17:00 UK time all year, because the convention is defined in London time and the UK moves between GMT (UTC+0) and BST (UTC+1).

New York is five hours behind London for most of the year, so its session runs about 13:00 to 22:00 UK time and overlaps London from about 13:00 to 17:00. The United States moves its clocks earlier in March and later in the autumn than the UK does, so for about four weeks a year the gap is four hours and the overlap widens to about 12:00 to 17:00.

Tokyo is the awkward one: its session runs about 23:00 to 08:00 UK time in winter and 00:00 to 09:00 in summer, so a UK trader who wants that session is working through the night.

Readers living outside the UK mainland clock should shift each time by their own difference.

How do you check a firm with the FCA?

The FCA's Financial Services Register is its public record of firms, individuals and other bodies that are, or have been, authorised by the FCA or the Prudential Regulation Authority. The FCA says that in the UK nearly all financial service activities must be authorised or registered by it.

The Register also lists firms the FCA has been told are providing regulated products or services without the correct authorisation, or running scams, including firms falsely claiming to be a genuine authorised firm (clone firms). For every firm it has published a warning about, the FCA points readers to its Warning List.

Some firms on the Register are appointed representatives, which carry out activities on behalf of another firm, their principal, and the principal is responsible for that business.

Checking the Register tells you whether a firm is authorised for regulated activities. A prop firm's evaluation is sold as a simulated trading service, and this page cites no FCA statement on whether that is a regulated activity, so a firm's absence from the Register is not by itself a finding about it.

What do the FCA's CFD rules for retail clients say?

In policy statement PS19/18 the FCA finalised rules on how contracts for difference (CFDs) and CFD-like options are sold, marketed and distributed to retail consumers. They applied from 1 August 2019 for CFDs and 1 September 2019 for CFD-like options.

Firms offering CFDs to retail consumers must:

• limit leverage to between 30:1 and 2:1, depending on the volatility of the underlying asset
• close out a customer's position when their funds fall to 50% of the margin needed for their open positions
• guarantee that a client cannot lose more than the total funds in their trading account
• stop offering cash or other inducements to encourage retail consumers to trade
• give a standardised risk warning showing the percentage of the firm's retail client accounts that make losses

The rules apply to firms that sell CFDs to retail clients in or from the UK. The policy statement does not mention prop firms or simulated evaluations, so this page does not say whether these limits apply to a prop firm's account.

What does the FCA's guidance on financial promotions say?

The Financial Conduct Authority's Handbook includes the perimeter guidance PERG 8, on financial promotion and related activities. PERG 8.2.1 summarises section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000: an unauthorised person must not communicate an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity, unless an exemption applies or an authorised person has approved it for the purposes of section 21.

PERG 8.3.1A adds that an authorised person is unable to approve the content of a communication unless it is a permitted approver or an approver permission exemption applies. PERG 8.2.3 says an authorised person does not breach section 21 when communicating a financial promotion of its own.

PERG 8.2.4 says a person who carries on activities in breach of section 21 commits a criminal offence under section 25, with a maximum of two years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine, and that it is a defence to show the person took all reasonable precautions and used all due diligence.

The part of PERG 8 read for this page does not mention prop firms or simulated evaluations, and this page cites no FCA statement about them. It gives no view on whether any firm's marketing is within these rules, and nothing here is legal advice.

What does HMRC say about the trading allowance, foreign income and spread betting?

HMRC's guidance gives individuals a trading allowance: a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year on trading income. If your gross trading income is £1,000 or less you may not have to tell HMRC, though there are cases where you must still register; if it is over £1,000 you must register for Self Assessment, and you can then deduct the £1,000 allowance instead of your actual expenses.

On foreign income, GOV.UK says UK residents normally pay UK Income Tax on income from outside England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, unless they qualify for Foreign Income and Gains relief, and usually report it on a Self Assessment return.

HMRC's Capital Gains Manual (CG56105) describes financial spread betting as gambling on the future direction of prices or indices, and says no assets are acquired or disposed of and no chargeable gains or allowable losses arise from it.

These pages describe your own trading income, your own spread bets and your foreign income in general. None of them mentions prop firms. A payout from a prop firm is a payment from the firm for trading its account, so this page does not say which of these treatments, if any, applies to it. Speak to a UK tax adviser before you file.

How does HMRC's guidance describe the badges of trade?

HMRC's Business Income Manual page BIM20205 is the summary of the badges of trade, the indicators used to judge whether an activity is a trade. It says the courts decide questions of trade on the basis of the overall impression from reviewing all of the badges, and that the presence or absence of a particular badge is unlikely, by itself, to provide a conclusive answer.

The summary table names nine badges:

• profit-seeking motive
• the number of transactions
• the nature of the asset
• existence of similar trading transactions or interests
• changes to the asset
• the way the sale was carried out
• the source of finance
• interval of time between purchase and sale
• method of acquisition

On profit-seeking motive the page says an intention to make a profit supports trading but by itself is not conclusive. The page carries the date 4 August 2026.

This page cites no HMRC statement about payouts from a prop firm, so it does not say how any payout is classified or taxed. Treat this as background reading rather than tax advice, and speak to a UK tax adviser before you file.