The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Admirals (formerly Admiral Markets) is an online trading broker headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, giving retail and professional clients access to forex and CFDs across indices, commodities, shares, ETFs, bonds and cryptocurrencies. It offers more than 8,000 tradable instruments through the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms plus its own web and mobile trading tools, and separately runs a direct, non-leveraged stock and ETF investing line (Admiral Invest, delivered through an MT5 Invest account) that accepts deposits from as little as one unit of account currency. The firm differentiates itself from CFD-only competitors by pairing leveraged forex and CFD trading with genuine share and ETF ownership under one brand, rather than derivatives exposure alone. It operates through a group of separately licensed entities across jurisdictions instead of a single regulator: historically the UK's FCA, Cyprus's CySEC, Australia's ASIC, the Seychelles FSA, South Africa's FSCA, Canada's IIROC and Jordan's JSC, among others, which lets it tailor client eligibility and leverage limits by region. As of 2026 its EU business is consolidated under Admirals Europe Ltd, a Cyprus-licensed investment firm that passports services across the bloc, including cross-border service to Estonian clients. The company was founded on 26 February 2003 in Tallinn by Alexander Tsikhilov, a former internet service provider owner who moved into online trading; it operated under the Admiral Markets name until rebranding to Admirals in March 2021. Tsikhilov returned to the CEO role in 2023 following a sharp revenue decline. For 2023 the group reported revenue of about 40.9 million euros and roughly 90,000 active clients, employed more than 400 staff, and reached clients in over 145 countries. It has issued bonds listed on the Nasdaq Baltic Bond List since 2017. Admirals has been reshaping its regulatory and geographic footprint in 2025 and 2026: it agreed in December 2024 to sell its ASIC-licensed Australian subsidiary (obtained 2011), completing the sale in mid-2025 to offshore broker PU Prime, and on 28 April 2026 the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority revoked Admiral Markets AS's original Estonian investment firm license at the group's own request, part of a plan to consolidate EU investment services into the single Cyprus-licensed Admirals Europe Ltd entity while keeping Tallinn as group headquarters, where roughly 60 staff remain.
