Is Forex Trading Legal in Pakistan? SBP and SECP Rules

At a glance

SBP view (2022 letter)

Residents buying offshore: a FERA breach

Payments

Banks told to stop them

Local protection

None for offshore accounts

Regulated route

PMEX, via licensed brokers

Is forex trading legal in Pakistan?

For the kind of online forex trading most people mean, an account with an overseas forex or CFD broker, the answer from Pakistan’s central bank is no. In EPD Circular Letter No. 08 of 2022 to banks, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) says:

• offshore forex, margin and CFD trading platforms, naming OctaFX and Easy Forex as examples, are offering their products to residents of Pakistan;
• buying such products by residents of Pakistan is a violation of section 4(1) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 (FERA), which bars residents other than authorised dealers from buying or selling foreign exchange outside Pakistan without SBP permission;
• remittances to these platforms through any payment channel are not allowed, because the SBP has given no permission under section 5(1) of FERA.

The SBP told banks to stop payments to all such platforms, to inform customers about the risks and illegality of this trading, and to keep monitoring so the platforms stay blocked. This summary reflects SBP and SECP publications as of October 2026; it is general information, not legal advice.

What the SECP says about online forex platforms

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has issued several public warnings. In April 2025 it warned that offshore platforms offering forex, securities, commodities and options trading operate without licensing or oversight from any Pakistani regulator, named one such platform and referred it to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), including to block access.

Later warnings in 2025 add that trading in securities of listed companies and commodities may only be carried out through SECP-licensed securities brokers and futures brokers, and that lists of authorised brokers are published on the Pakistan Stock Exchange and PMEX websites. Several warnings concern fake platforms that impersonate licensed brokers, so a broker’s name should be checked against those lists, not against the platform’s own claims: forex scams.

Who does the rule apply to?

The SBP’s letter calls buying from offshore platforms a FERA violation by residents, and it enforces the rule through banks by stopping payments. The SECP’s actions target the platforms. The published SBP and SECP documents do not describe penalties imposed on individual traders, and this page does not assess them; a lawyer in Pakistan can advise on personal risk.

Two practical consequences follow for a resident who opens an offshore account anyway:

• Payments can be blocked: banks are instructed to stop transfers to these platforms through any channel. Separately, the SBP limits card-based cross-border transactions to personal needs, within an annual limit set in 2022 of USD 30,000 per individual.
• No local protection: an offshore entity licensed elsewhere is outside the SECP’s oversight, so Pakistani complaint and investor protection channels do not apply: how to choose a forex broker. Brokers that take clients from Pakistan, and the entity that serves them: forex brokers that accept clients from Pakistan. Prop firms that accept traders from Pakistan, and how the SBP rule may apply to them: prop firms for traders in Pakistan.

The regulated route: PMEX

The Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (PMEX) is a futures exchange overseen by the SECP. Its contracts, which in 2017 included gold, silver, crude oil and US equity index futures according to the SECP, are traded through futures brokers licensed by the SECP. Product lists, contract sizes and trading hours change, so check them on the PMEX website and confirm a broker on the SECP or PMEX list before opening an account. Global forex session times in PKT: forex market hours in Pakistan.

Is legal trading in Pakistan safe?

Legal does not mean safe or profitable. Futures use margin, so a small price move can cause a loss larger than the margin posted: what is leverage. Size each position so a stop loss costs only a planned amount of the account: position sizing.