Fixed vs Floating Spread
Costs & FeesA floating spread tracks the market and a fixed one is held by the broker — what each costs on average, and the conditions that suspend a fixed spread.
A floating (variable) spread moves with the underlying market: it tightens when liquidity is deep and widens around news, rollover and session gaps, so the cost of a given trade is only known once it fills. A fixed spread is held at a stated number by the broker regardless of what the underlying market is doing, which means the broker absorbs the difference and prices that risk into the level it fixes. Fixed spreads are therefore usually wider than the average floating spread on the same pair.
Fixed is not the same as guaranteed. The terms behind a fixed spread almost always reserve the right to widen it in abnormal market conditions, around scheduled news and outside the main sessions — which are precisely the moments a trader would want the guarantee to hold. Read the condition attached to the number: a fixed spread that suspends when it matters is a floating spread with better marketing, while a genuinely fixed one buys predictability at the price of a higher average cost.