What One Trade on Exness Costs, Measured - in Dollars and Shillings (Uganda)

Exness costs at a glance

• The spread is paid once per completed trade; commission is charged per side, so it counts twice. Round turn = one spread + two commissions.
• Standard, Standard Cent and Pro carry $0 commission, so the spread is the entire trading cost.
• Raw Spread and Zero trade from 0.0 pips and charge a commission per side instead; both bounds are in the account table below.
• A pip is the smallest standard step in a quote - the fourth decimal on EUR/USD - and on a USD-quoted major it is worth $10.00 per lot, so a commission account's whole round-turn charge comes to well under one pip.
• A commission account only wins where the Standard spread is wider than its own commission - and that holds at every position size, because spread and commission both scale with lot size.
• Measured on this site's MT5 Standard feed on 25 July 2026: EUR/USD median 0.8 pips ($8.00 per lot round turn), GBP/USD 1.0 ($10.00), USD/JPY 1.0 (about $6.10).
• Gold measured 24 pips, which is $24.00 per lot: a gold pip is $0.01 of the price and a lot is 100 ounces, so one pip is $1.00 per lot.
• At 0.01 lots those round turns cost cents: $0.08, $0.10, about $0.06 and $0.24 - a EUR/USD round turn is about UGX 300 and a gold one about UGX 900 at an illustrative UGX 3,700 to the dollar.
• Only the Standard feed was measured here; the raw-side spread was not, so what follows is the bar a commission account has to clear, not a verdict on which account wins.
• On a $50-$200 balance the conversion in and out is very likely the largest single cost: an illustrative 2% gap on a $100 deposit is $2.00 - about twenty-five complete 0.01-lot EUR/USD round turns - and it lands again on the way out.
• Overnight swap dwarfs the spread on a multi-night hold: gold measured about -$48.28 per lot per night long against a $24.00 round-turn spread, and Wednesday night is charged three times on forex and gold (Friday for the index and crypto CFDs sampled).
• CFDs are complex, leveraged products. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone. Costs are the smallest numbers on this page; the market decides the rest.

Where the cost sits by account

What the spread measured - and what it looks like on an East Africa Time clock

'From 0.3 pips' describes the tightest end of a range across instruments and conditions, not the typical reading. Across the 24 hours to 25 July 2026 this site's MT5 Standard feed recorded a median of 0.8 pips on EUR/USD - the middle reading, with half the sample tighter and half wider - and 1.0 on GBP/USD and USD/JPY, and 24 pips on gold. A pip is the smallest standard step a quote moves in: the fourth decimal place on EUR/USD, and on gold $0.01 of the price, so with 100 ounces to a lot one pip is $1.00 per lot and 24 pips is $24.00 per lot, $0.24 an ounce. The full percentile spread per instrument is in the table below. Read the 99th percentile as: 99 readings out of 100 were at or below that figure.

Across the sampled window - 07:00-20:00 server, i.e. 10:00-23:00 EAT, which covers London, the overlap and the New York afternoon - EUR/USD averaged 0.8 pips in every one of the fourteen hours and GBP/USD 1.0 in all fourteen. That is the stretch a trader in Kampala actually uses. The hours outside it, roughly 23:00-10:00 EAT, are not in this sample, and thin-liquidity widening is normally found there, so treat the 0.8 median as a daytime-EAT figure and check live spreads before trading an early-morning setup. Inside the window what varies is not the hour but the spike - the distance between a 0.8-pip median and a 6.1-pip worst reading. Budget for the median and size the stop for the spike; the full distribution is on spread stability and the hour-by-hour series on trading hours.

The platform's server clock ran at UTC in this sample, so server hours convert to EAT by adding three, and the daily rollover at server midnight falls at about 03:00 EAT. That +3 held on the measurement date. Uganda never changes clocks, so if the server offset shifts for European daylight saving the whole EAT column shifts with it - the server clock sits in the Market Watch window, and that reading decides, not this page. Read it once and convert it once; the trading day that clock produces, session by session, is set out on forex trading in Uganda. The two hours in which gold's spread spiked from $24.00 to $34.00 per lot were 13:00 and 15:00 server - 16:00 and 18:00 EAT. The 13:00 bucket holds the New York open, 13:30 server on that date; the 15:00 spike was not tied to a scheduled release in this sample.

For a trader here that collision is the whole point: the hours free after work are the hours gold costs most to enter. The difference is $34.00 against $24.00 per lot, about $10.00 more per lot or $0.10 at 0.01 lot - small in money, large as a share of a tight stop. The answer is not to avoid the overlap, which is where the movement is, but to place gold entries in those two hours with limit orders rather than market orders. A limit order can also go unfilled, and chasing it with a market order once the move has gone is worse than either - decide in advance which outcome you accept. Widening the stop by the spike rather than the median works only if the position still fits: at 0.01 lot, one ounce, a stop wide enough for the spike already risks $10-$19 against the $2-$4 a 1-2% guideline allows on a $200 balance - see account types. Gold cost is broken down further on gold trading.

Converting money in and out is the bigger number on a small balance

An account is denominated in the base currency chosen when it was opened, and money arriving in another currency is converted at the rate applied on the day - outside the broker's trading-fee schedule, and applied twice: once on the way in, again on the way out. On a balance of $50 to $200 that is the largest number on this page.

Give it a magnitude first. Look up the mid-market rate for UGX against the account base currency, then compare it with the rate actually applied; on small sums that gap is usually wider than expected, and it is worth checking before any of the per-lot arithmetic below.

Then keep the two cost shapes apart. A gap quoted as a percentage costs the same whether the money moves once or ten times: two $50 transfers at a 2% gap cost the same $2.00 as one $100 transfer. What makes small transfers worse is a fixed charge on the transaction itself - a flat $1 is 2% of a $50 transfer and 0.5% of a $200 one. So the answer is not 'transfer more'; it is to check the client area for a fixed charge on the route before splitting a deposit, because that is the only part consolidation actually removes.

For scale, an illustrative 2% gap on a $100 deposit is $2.00 - about twenty-five complete 0.01-lot EUR/USD round turns at the measured spread, which is more spread than most small accounts pay in their first month, and it lands again on the way out. The currency converter here exists for exactly that comparison, and every shilling figure on this page is illustrative at roughly UGX 3,700 to the dollar.

Any charge applied to a transaction itself is shown in the client area before it is confirmed, and it can differ by route and by location. Charges applied to an account rather than to a trade - anything tied to an account left unused, for example - are not part of the per-trade arithmetic on this page either; the current schedule for the account sits in the same place, and that is what to read before funding. The majority of withdrawals are processed automatically, providing quick, 24/7 access to funds. Processing times may vary depending on the chosen payment method.

The round turn: one spread, two commissions

The spread is paid once per completed trade, not twice: you enter at one side of the quote and leave at the other, so a 0.8-pip spread starts the position 0.8 pips behind. Commission is the part charged twice, once per side, so any per-side figure doubles for a completed round turn. The comparable number for any account is therefore one spread plus two commissions in dollars per lot, and both commission bounds sit in the account table above.

Worked at the size these accounts actually trade: one pip on EUR/USD is worth $10.00 per lot, so $0.10 at 0.01 lots. The measured median of 0.8 pips makes a 0.01-lot round turn $0.08, and the trade is level 0.8 pips from entry. The same trade on Raw Spread pays $0.035 per side - $0.07 round turn - on top of a 0.0-0.1 pip spread, so it breaks even at roughly the same distance. At 0.01 lots the difference between the two accounts is under one cent per trade: at this balance the account type is not the decision, the instrument and the holding period are. The line-by-line version is in the table below, and the continuously updated series is on trading costs.

Commission is quoted per lot and so is the spread, so both scale with position size in the same proportion: there is no size above which a commission account suddenly wins, and none below which it is disqualified. What decides it is the spread differential in dollars. Two of the figures in that table are bounds rather than prices - Raw Spread's commission is an upper limit and is lower on many instruments, Zero's is a lower limit and higher on many - and every comparison below takes the top of the Raw Spread range and the bottom of the Zero range, which reads conservatively for Raw Spread and optimistically for Zero. Before switching, read the commission actually shown for the symbol in the client area and re-run the one line of arithmetic.

Put the measured numbers through that test and the answer changes by instrument, never by size. On USD/JPY the measured Standard round turn was about $6.10 per lot - less than Raw Spread's $7.00 of commission on its own, so Standard came out cheaper there whatever the lot size. On EUR/USD, $8.00 against $7.00 plus a near-zero spread is close to a tie. On GBP/USD, $10.00 against $7.00 leaves about $3.00 per lot of room. On gold at $24.00 per lot on Standard, a commission account has to bring its own gold spread below $17.00 per lot - more than $7.00 tighter - before the $7.00 round-turn commission is paid for: a Raw Spread gold quote of $15.00 per lot plus $7.00 comes to $22.00 and wins by $2.00 per lot, while $20.00 plus $7.00 loses by $3.00.

Only the Standard feed was measured here. The raw-side spread was not, so what these figures give is the bar a commission account has to clear on each instrument, not a verdict on which account wins. The tiers themselves are compared on account types.

Overnight swap is the cost that compounds

Swap is applied to a position still open at the daily rollover and reflects the interest differential between the two sides of the instrument. It is quoted per lot per night, and unlike the spread it is charged again every night, which is where a small balance quietly loses the arithmetic. Measured from the same Standard contract specifications: EUR/USD costs about $6.00 per lot per night to hold long and nothing at all to hold short; GBP/USD about $1.30 either way; USD/JPY nothing long and about $8.91 short; gold about $48.28 per lot per night long and nothing short.

Set that against the round turn. Ten consecutive nights long on gold cost between nine and twelve charge-units of swap, depending on which night the position was opened - the tripled Wednesday is what moves the total. At twelve that is about $579 against $24.00 of spread, where a straight count of ten rollovers would suggest about $482.80. EUR/USD long over the same stretch is about $72.00 against $8.00 of spread. At 0.01 lots the same ratios hold in cents: about $0.48 a night on gold, roughly UGX 1,800, and about $0.06 a night on EUR/USD. Direction matters as much as instrument - the measured short side of EUR/USD and the long side of USD/JPY were both zero, so the same view expressed the other way round changes the holding cost more than any account switch would.

In the measured contract specifications, forex pairs and gold roll three nights of swap on Wednesday, covering the weekend value dates, while the index and crypto CFDs in the same sample roll theirs on Friday. A position opened on Wednesday morning and closed before that night's rollover never meets the charge; a position opened Tuesday and carried through Wednesday pays it. Per-instrument figures are on swap rates.

Swap-free status removes that overnight interest on eligible instruments and may substitute a fixed administration fee after several days; the conditions and that fee are set out on the swap-free account page.

Slippage, and the number that is not a fee

The price that fills is not always the price that was clicked, and that difference is a real cost that never appears as a line item. Measured on 27 round trips through this site's own terminal at 0.01 to 1.00 lots, nothing was rejected and fills sat close to the screen price at these sizes. That is a small sample from one ordinary session, and it says nothing about the conditions where slippage stops being symmetrical - a scheduled release, the Monday open, the rollover minute. Delays and slippage may occur. No guarantee of execution speed or precision. The running series is on execution.

Slippage widens where the spread spikes: the same news minutes, the same rollover hour. And a spread spike does more than raise the entry cost - it can close the trade. A stop on a long position is checked against the bid and a stop on a short against the ask, so when the quote widens the side facing the stop moves toward it even if the mid price never gets there. On the measured worst readings that is 6.1 pips of one-sided room on EUR/USD, 12.3 on GBP/USD and 34 pips, $0.34 an ounce, on gold. What these numbers imply in practice: keep the stop further from entry than the worst reading recorded on that instrument, and treat the two minutes around a scheduled release and the rollover hour - about 03:00 EAT - as periods where a tight stop is a spread bet, not a risk control.

Every number on this page is small next to the position itself. CFDs are complex products. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone, and it is possible to lose money rapidly. The spread decides how far a trade starts behind; the market decides the rest. Past performance is not an indication of future results.

Working out what one trade will cost, with the numbers filled in

1. Take the live spread on the instrument at the hour you intend to trade rather than the headline figure. On 25 July 2026 the measured median on EUR/USD was 0.8 pips, not the 0.3 on the rate card - current readings are on live spreads.
2. Convert it into money. One pip on a USD-quoted major is $10.00 per lot, so $0.10 at 0.01 lots: a 0.8-pip spread is $0.08 for the round turn. On gold one pip is $1.00 per lot, so 24 pips is $24.00 per lot and $0.24 at 0.01 lots. The trading calculator does this from live contract specifications for anything not listed here.
3. If the account charges commission, add it twice - once per side. Raw Spread at 0.01 lots is $0.035 per side, $0.07 for the completed trade; Zero is from $0.002 per side, from $0.004 completed.
4. If the position will be held overnight, add the measured swap for each night and check whether a Wednesday falls inside the hold - that night is charged three times on forex and gold. Figures are on swap rates.
5. Add it up and divide by the pip value to express the total as a distance. Two nights long on 0.01-lot EUR/USD is $0.08 of spread plus $0.12 of swap, which at $0.10 a pip is 2.0 pips the trade must travel before it is level.
6. Compare that distance with the stop. A 25-pip stop at 0.01 lots risks $2.50, so $0.20 of cost is 8% of the risk. If cost passes roughly a fifth of the money at risk - a working line, not a measurement - it is the instrument or the holding period that is wrong for the balance, not usually the account type.

Measured figures are a snapshot of the feed on the dates given and refresh on a schedule; shilling figures are illustrative at roughly UGX 3,700 to the dollar. The platform shows the exact spread, commission and swap applied to your own order.

Measured round-turn cost per lot - MT5 Standard feed, 24 hours to 25 July 2026

Server hour, EAT hour and the measured spread - sampled window, 25 July 2026

One EUR/USD trade worked through - 0.01 lot, two nights long: the two accounts finish within a cent

Measured overnight swap, per lot per night, and the triple-swap night

Cost as a share of the balance - one 0.01-lot round turn

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