Islamic (Swap-Free) Forex Accounts: How Exness, XM and HFM Handle Them

What a swap is, and what “swap-free” changes

A swap (also called rollover) is an amount added to or taken from your account when you keep a position open from one trading day to the next. On a currency pair, it reflects the difference between the two currencies’ interest rates, plus the broker’s charge. On gold, oil or indices, it reflects the cost of financing the position. Held over many nights, swaps add up, and they can be larger on exotic pairs.

On a swap-free account (often called an Islamic account), the broker doesn’t charge or pay the swap on eligible instruments. That’s the only thing it removes. Brokers differ on:

• who gets it (automatically, by country, or on request);
• which instruments it covers;
• whether another charge replaces the swap after a few days;
• when the broker can take it away.

What swap-free doesn’t change

• Spreads and commissions still apply. On commission accounts, such as Exness Raw Spread and Zero, you pay per lot as usual.
• Leverage and the risk of loss are the same. A swap-free account can be emptied as quickly as any other. See leverage and margin.
• Non-eligible instruments still carry swaps.

What to check before you rely on a swap-free account

1. Is it automatic or do you have to ask? And does it cover every trading account in your profile, or only one?
2. Which instruments are covered? Look for a published list. Check the symbols you actually trade, such as XAUUSD.
3. Is there a replacement charge? Read the terms for words like “administration fee”, “carry charge” or “commission on positions held longer than”.
4. After how many days does that charge start?
5. Can the broker withdraw the status, and on what grounds?
6. Which company holds your account? Conditions can differ between a broker’s companies, for example between its Kenyan company and its offshore one.
7. Check in the platform. Open the instrument’s specification in MetaTrader and look at the swap long and swap short values. After your first overnight position, check your history to see whether a swap was charged.

Exness

Exness’s help-centre pages blocked our direct access, so the points below come from search extracts of two official articles. They are listed in our checks for a live account.

• “Islamic countries.” Clients registered in the countries on this list get swap-free status automatically. The list we saw has 33 countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Niger, Chad, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It doesn’t include Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa or Ghana.
• Everyone else. Exness says other clients’ accounts are swap-free by default on a published list of instruments. That list includes the major currency pairs, a set of minor pairs, USDZAR, gold (XAUUSD and two other gold pairs), silver, platinum, US and UK oil, cryptocurrencies and indices. Swaps are charged on other metals, energies, minor and exotic pairs, and stocks.
• Whole profile. The status applies to your whole Personal Area, and you can see it under Exness benefits > Trading conditions.
• Withdrawal of the status. Exness says you may lose the status if you don’t mostly trade during market hours and regularly hold large positions overnight. If that happens, swaps apply to your current and future positions. The Islamic-country status and the general status can’t be converted into each other.

In practice, a trader in Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg who registers with their real country would, on Exness’s description, have no swap on EURUSD or XAUUSD, but would pay swaps on an exotic pair. Our Exness review covers the rest of its conditions.

HFM

HFM’s website also blocked direct access, so these points come from search extracts of hfm.com pages and HFM’s terms:

• Availability. HFM describes swap-free as available on its Premium, Zero, Cent, Pro and InfinityX accounts for clients who observe Sharia law, on specific instruments only. Its rollover policy says swap-free is also available to some other clients on specific accounts and instruments.
• Charges. HFM’s rollover policy says several instruments “may face Carry Charges” after a position has been rolled over for a number of days in a row. Its terms say the charge table is in the Client Area under Fees, and that commission may be added to Islamic-account positions, including ones open longer than a month.
• Withdrawal of the status. HFM says it monitors trading and can revoke swap-free status at its discretion.
• A conflict to note. One HFM FAQ says swap-free carries no extra fees, but the terms allow charges. Go by the charge table in your Client Area.

XM

We couldn’t load xm.com’s pages when we wrote this guide, so we can’t describe XM’s current Islamic-account terms from an official source. If you’re considering XM, look in its Members Area or terms for:

• whether the Islamic option must be requested and for which account types;
• which instruments it covers;
• any fee that replaces swap, and when it starts;
• what can lead XM to cancel it;
• which XM company holds your account. In Kenya that’s TPXMGLOBAL Kenya Limited (CMA licence 233); elsewhere it’s usually an offshore company.

We’ll fill this section in once we’ve checked XM’s own pages.

Side by side

	Exness	HFM	XM
How you get it	Automatic: by country (Islamic-country list) or by default on listed instruments	Offered on its account types for clients who observe Sharia law; how to apply not confirmed	Not confirmed from official pages
Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa	Not on the Islamic-country list; default swap-free on listed instruments	Not stated by country	Not confirmed
Instruments covered	Published list (majors, gold, oil, indices, crypto and others)	“Specific instruments”	Not confirmed
Replacement charge	None mentioned in the extracts we saw	Carry charges after consecutive rollovers; possible commission	Not confirmed
Can be withdrawn	Yes, for heavy overnight holding outside market hours	Yes, at HFM’s discretion	Not confirmed
Sources	Exness help centre (search extracts)	hfm.com and HFM terms (search extracts)	None official available to us

On what we could confirm, Exness’s swap-free status is the simplest for traders in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa: there’s nothing to apply for, and it covers gold and the major pairs. HFM’s terms are less clear about costs. We can’t rank XM until we’ve read its terms.

The religious question

We describe what each broker’s swap-free feature does. We don’t say whether trading with it is permissible. Scholars differ on forex and CFD trading. Their questions go beyond swap: for example, how positions are settled, the use of leverage, and trading gold. A qualified scholar you trust can advise you on those questions. It’s also worth asking them before you open an account that depends on the answer.

If you’re comparing brokers on other points, see Exness vs HFM, our XM review and how to choose a forex broker.