What is an overnight fee in forex trading?

What is a forex swap rate and how is it calculated?

Swap is the overnight financing charged or paid on a position held through the 17:00 New York rollover: swap = swap rate (points) × lots × value of one point. On a standard lot of a USD-quoted pair one point is USD 1, so an illustrative swap of -6.5 points costs USD 6.50 a night and USD 19.50 on Wednesday (three nights).

What is the best swap-free (Islamic) forex broker?

Exness, FxPro, and AvaTrade lead the swap-free forex market in 2026. All three offer Islamic accounts with no overnight swap (rollover) charges, compliant with Sharia law. Exness offers swap-free on all account types; AvaTrade has dedicated Islamic accounts via approval.

Is a swap-free account cheaper than a standard account?

Not for most traders. Swap-free (Islamic) accounts waive overnight interest but most brokers replace it with a fixed administration fee after 1-5 days of holding, plus wider spreads or higher commissions on certain pairs. For short-term and intraday traders the difference is negligible. For multi-week carry traders, swap-free can be more expensive than collecting positive swap on a standard account.

Article: Spread vs Commission — The Long-Run Math for Active Traders

The choice between a spread-only standard account and a raw-spread-plus-commission account looks like a binary preference. Over multi-year holding periods it compounds into a meaningful drag on returns. The math is more skewed than the headline suggests.