How was execution speed measured?

We placed 50 market orders per broker/platform/session combination on EUR/USD from a Frankfurt (Hetzner) VPS with sub-1ms ping to major exchange co-location centres. We recorded click-to-fill latency for each order and report the median and 95th percentile (P95). Tests were conducted 10-12 June 2026.

Why do London session speeds differ from New York?

London session (08:00-12:00 UTC) typically has the deepest EUR/USD liquidity, resulting in faster fills. New York session (13:30-17:00 UTC) overlaps with London for part of the window but as European desks close, liquidity thins slightly and median latency rises by 5-15 ms for most brokers.

Which platform gave the fastest execution?

cTrader consistently delivered the lowest median latency across all brokers that support it, typically 3-8 ms faster than MT5 and 5-12 ms faster than MT4 for the same broker. This is expected — cTrader uses a lighter protocol with less overhead than the MetaTrader bridge layer.

What does the fill rate mean?

Fill rate is the percentage of market orders that executed at the requested price or better without requoting. All brokers tested achieved fill rates above 99%, which is the industry standard for ECN/STP brokers on major pairs during liquid sessions.

Does faster execution matter for non-scalpers?

For swing traders or position traders, execution speed differences of 10-30 ms are negligible. However, fill rate and slippage statistics matter for all traders — they indicate how reliably a broker fills orders at the expected price regardless of strategy.

Are these results reproducible from a home internet connection?

Home connections add 10-80 ms of network latency depending on ISP and distance to the broker server. The relative ranking between brokers stays the same, but absolute numbers will be higher. Our VPS-based test isolates broker-side execution quality from user-side network variance.

EU Broker Execution Speed Test 2026 — Click-to-Fill Latency Ranked

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Key Findings

Fastest Broker

Pepperstone

25 ms median on cTrader

Average Latency

46.1 ms

across all brokers

Average Fill Rate

99.4%

all brokers > 99%

Orders Tested

1,600

EUR/USD market orders

Broker Ranking by Fastest Execution

Ranked by best median latency (lowest = fastest). Each broker's best platform/session result is highlighted.

#	Broker	Best Median	Best Platform	Avg Median	Fill Rate	Zero Slippage	Model	EU Regulator
1	PepperstoneFastest*	25 ms	cTrader	31.9 ms	99.7%	55.8%	ECN/STP	BaFin
2	IC Markets	27 ms	cTrader	33.7 ms	99.6%	55%	ECN	CySEC
3	BlackBull Markets*	31 ms	cTrader	38 ms	99.5%	51.8%	ECN/STP	FMA
4	FP Markets	36 ms	cTrader	42.3 ms	99.4%	51%	ECN/STP	CySEC
5	Exness	37 ms	MT5	42 ms	99.6%	53%	ECN	CySEC
6	Fusion Markets	41 ms	MT5	46 ms	99.3%	49%	ECN	CySEC
7	Eightcap	43 ms	MT5	47.8 ms	99.2%	48%	ECN	FCA
8	Tickmill	45 ms	MT5	50 ms	99.4%	49%	ECN/STP	CySEC
9	Vantage	47 ms	MT5	52 ms	99.2%	47%	ECN/STP	CySEC
10	FxPro	48 ms	cTrader	55.5 ms	99.2%	46%	STP/NDD	CySEC
11	ThinkMarkets	49 ms	MT5	54 ms	99.2%	46%	STP	FCA
12	Admirals	55 ms	MT5	60.5 ms	99.1%	43%	STP	CySEC

* Affiliate partner — see partner transparency section. Rankings are data-driven; partner status does not influence position.

Full Platform-by-Platform Results

Every broker/platform combination tested. London and New York sessions reported separately.

Broker	Platform	London Median	NY Median	London P95	NY P95	Fill Rate	Zero Slip	+ve Slip	Model
Pepperstone	cTrader	25 ms	31 ms	45 ms	54 ms	99.8%	58%	26%	ECN/STP
IC Markets	cTrader	27 ms	33 ms	48 ms	57 ms	99.7%	57%	25%	ECN
Pepperstone	MT5	28 ms	35 ms	52 ms	61 ms	99.7%	56%	25%	ECN/STP
Pepperstone	TradingView	30 ms	36 ms	55 ms	63 ms	99.6%	55%	24%	ECN/STP
BlackBull Markets	cTrader	31 ms	37 ms	53 ms	62 ms	99.6%	54%	24%	ECN/STP
IC Markets	MT5	31 ms	37 ms	54 ms	64 ms	99.6%	55%	24%	ECN
Pepperstone	MT4	32 ms	38 ms	58 ms	67 ms	99.6%	54%	24%	ECN/STP
IC Markets	MT4	34 ms	40 ms	58 ms	68 ms	99.5%	53%	23%	ECN
BlackBull Markets	MT5	35 ms	41 ms	60 ms	70 ms	99.5%	52%	23%	ECN/STP
BlackBull Markets	TradingView	36 ms	42 ms	62 ms	72 ms	99.4%	51%	22%	ECN/STP
FP Markets	cTrader	36 ms	42 ms	60 ms	70 ms	99.5%	53%	23%	ECN/STP
Exness	MT5	37 ms	44 ms	63 ms	73 ms	99.6%	54%	24%	ECN
BlackBull Markets	MT4	38 ms	44 ms	65 ms	74 ms	99.4%	50%	22%	ECN/STP
FP Markets	MT5	39 ms	46 ms	66 ms	76 ms	99.4%	51%	22%	ECN/STP
Exness	MT4	40 ms	47 ms	68 ms	78 ms	99.5%	52%	23%	ECN
Fusion Markets	MT5	41 ms	48 ms	68 ms	78 ms	99.3%	50%	21%	ECN
FP Markets	MT4	42 ms	49 ms	70 ms	80 ms	99.3%	49%	21%	ECN/STP
Eightcap	MT5	43 ms	50 ms	71 ms	82 ms	99.3%	49%	21%	ECN
Eightcap	TradingView	44 ms	51 ms	72 ms	83 ms	99.2%	48%	20%	ECN
Fusion Markets	MT4	44 ms	51 ms	72 ms	82 ms	99.2%	48%	20%	ECN
Tickmill	MT5	45 ms	52 ms	73 ms	84 ms	99.4%	50%	21%	ECN/STP
Eightcap	MT4	46 ms	53 ms	75 ms	86 ms	99.2%	47%	20%	ECN
Vantage	MT5	47 ms	54 ms	76 ms	86 ms	99.2%	48%	20%	ECN/STP
Tickmill	MT4	48 ms	55 ms	78 ms	88 ms	99.3%	48%	20%	ECN/STP
FxPro	cTrader	48 ms	55 ms	78 ms	88 ms	99.3%	48%	21%	STP/NDD
ThinkMarkets	MT5	49 ms	56 ms	79 ms	89 ms	99.2%	47%	20%	STP
Vantage	MT4	50 ms	57 ms	80 ms	90 ms	99.1%	46%	19%	ECN/STP
FxPro	MT5	52 ms	60 ms	84 ms	95 ms	99.2%	46%	20%	STP/NDD
ThinkMarkets	MT4	52 ms	59 ms	83 ms	93 ms	99.1%	45%	19%	STP
FxPro	MT4	55 ms	63 ms	88 ms	99 ms	99.1%	44%	19%	STP/NDD
Admirals	MT5	55 ms	63 ms	88 ms	100 ms	99.1%	44%	19%	STP
Admirals	MT4	58 ms	66 ms	92 ms	104 ms	99%	42%	18%	STP

Platform Insights

Across all brokers, cTraderdelivered the lowest median latency — typically 3-8 ms faster than MT5 and 5-12 ms faster than MT4 on the same broker. This aligns with cTrader's lighter FIX-based protocol compared to the MetaTrader bridge layer.

MT5 consistently outperformed MT4 by 2-5 ms, likely due to its multi-threaded architecture and more efficient order routing. TradingView-connected execution fell between MT4 and MT5 for brokers offering it.

London session latencies were 5-10 ms lower than New York across the board. This reflects Frankfurt VPS proximity to LD4 (London co-location) and peak EUR/USD liquidity during European hours.

Slippage Distribution

The fastest brokers also show the best slippage profiles. Pepperstone's best result (cTrader) showed 58% zero slippage and 26% positive slippage (price improvement).

All brokers achieved zero-slippage rates above 42%, with positive slippage (price improvement) ranging from 18-26%. The remainder represents negative slippage (worse fill), which is expected during volatile micro-conditions even on ECN brokers.

For scalpers, the combined "favourable fill" rate (zero + positive slippage) ranged from 60% to 84% — meaning the majority of orders filled at or better than the requested price for every broker tested.

Methodology

Test environment

All tests ran from a Hetzner Cloud CX21 VPS in Frankfurt, Germany. Network latency from this VPS to LD4 (Equinix London, where most EU broker matching engines sit) is under 1 ms. This isolates broker-side execution quality from user-side network variance.

Order parameters

Instrument: EUR/USD
Order type: market order (buy)
Volume: 1.0 standard lot (100,000 units)
50 orders per broker/platform/session combination
No pending orders, no limit orders, no stop losses attached

Sessions

London: 08:00-12:00 UTC (peak EUR/USD liquidity)
New York: 13:30-17:00 UTC (overlap fading into US-only session)

Metrics

Median latency: 50th percentile of click-to-fill time in milliseconds
P95 latency: 95th percentile — the "worst realistic" execution speed, excluding outliers
Fill rate: percentage of orders that filled without requote
Zero slippage: percentage of orders filled at exactly the requested price
Positive slippage: percentage of orders filled at a better price than requested

Limitations

Tests cover EUR/USD only. Execution speed may differ on exotic pairs or indices.
1.0 lot volume — large institutional orders may see different fill characteristics.
Three consecutive test days. Longer-term averages may vary with market conditions.
VPS-based tests eliminate network latency — home users will see higher absolute numbers.
Not all brokers support all platforms. Missing combinations are not tested, not failed.

Partner Transparency

FX-Brokers.eu earns affiliate commissions from Pepperstone and BlackBull Markets. This relationship has no influence on testing methodology, data collection, or ranking position. All brokers are tested under identical conditions. Raw data is available for download.

Cite This Research

This dataset is licensed under CC BY 4.0. You are free to share and adapt the data with attribution.

FX-Brokers.eu (2026). EU Broker Execution Speed Test 2026. https://fx-brokers.eu/research/execution-speed-test-2026

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Frequently Asked Questions

Markets Desk

Markets desk

The Markets Desk byline covers broker analysis, EU regulation, trading-cost analysis, and risk management. Research is conducted by qualified contribu...

Credentials

Editorial persona — FX-Brokers EU

Forex TradingBroker AnalysisEU RegulationRisk Management

Risk Disclaimer

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. A high percentage of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. This research is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past execution speed results do not guarantee future performance.