Oil Spread Comparison UK: 10 Brokers Tested (2026)

Which broker offers the lowest spread on WTI or US Crude?

Ok, this spread comparison was messy… why? Well, oil is a pretty broad term.

You’ve got WTI (West Texas Intermediate) and Brent. These are the two main types of oil traded and have different prices.
Not only that, but a lot of brokers offer rolling cash contracts and futures (via a CFD or a spread bet) 

But wait, that’s not all… to add to the confusion, they all seem to call oil different things:

WTI
US Crude
US Oil
US Light Crude
Spot Crude

The naming convention does not make it easy…

But luckily, I’ve been around the markets for many decades, so I can work out what’s what to give you a decent oil spread comparison. (although it didn’t quite go to plan as you’ll see below)

So my method tries to replicate a typical trader’s decision flow.

See a trade opportunity, open a dealing ticket, and execute. 

With that in mind, I checked the spreads of ten top brokers on a regular Friday afternoon.
Friday 1st May at 19:18 BST to be exact.

The brokers I chose were:

CMC Markets
Pepperstone
IG
City Index
Plus 500
FX Pro
FXCM
Forex
Capital
Oanda

Oil was trapped in a range most of the afternoon when I did the check, so spreads should have been pretty competitive. 

Oil spreads checked during typical price action

Lowest Oil Spreads

I actually had a bit of a glitch when I was testing…

It seemed like the Forex and City Index oil feed was down; they are both owned by StoneX so perhaps they had a problem with the price feed? 

So top ten becomes erm, top eight… I’ll try and include more when I update next month.

In no particular order, these were the oil spreads:

CMC 2.5pts
Oanda 4pts
IG 4.8pts
Plus500 9pts
FXCM 3.4pts
Pepperstone 4pts
Capital 4pts
FX Pro 3pts

Now, unlike a lot of the other markets, most of these brokers were on variable spreads. Which does make the whole ‘screenshot at a certain time’ thing a bit of pot luck… but it is what it is.

I watched the oil spreads for around a minute after the spread capture and, honestly, they were all over the place!
Most of the time when I’m watching price, there are a few brokers shifting spreads, and it’s usually only by a bit.
But on oil? They were all at it! 

IG 2.8 – 4.8pts
CMC 2.5 – 3pts
Pepperstone 4 – 5 pts
Oanda 3 – 5.1pts 

Yeah, someone at Oanda decided they needed that extra 0.1pt on top of 5!

So it was a bit of a bun fight tbh…

But I have the results.

CMC Markets Oil Spread (Cash)

Oil Spreads: Brokers ranked from best to worst

Bearing in mind what I’ve told you about the spreads, the two brokers that went down. This is one market’s spread you definitely have to double-check…

Oil spreads ranked from best to worst:

  1. CMC 2.5pts
  2. FX Pro 3pts
  3. FXCM 3.4pts
  4. Pepperstone, Oanda and Capital 4pts
  5. IG 4.8pts

Plus 500 9pts (On further inspection, I’m fairly sure this was a futures contract, higher spread but no daily rollover charge, not good for daytrading)

So CMC took the top spot, 2.5pts during the test, but were variable.

If you want to see my other spread tests:

Indices: 
Dow, Dax, FTSE, Nasdaq, S&P 500

Forex:
USD/JPY, EUR/USD, GBP/USD

Commodities:
Gold

Or see my spread checker comparison table to get a view of everything in one place.

Oh, and if you’re from the UK wondering if spread betting really is tax-free, I wrote a super in-depth article covering everything you need to know, including extracts from HMRC themselves…