MT5 Now Handles 40% of Retail FX Volume — 4 More Brokers Make the Switch — 2026

MetaTrader 5 has crossed a critical threshold: 40% of retail forex trading volume now runs on the platform, up from 25% two years ago. The catalyst? Four major brokers — two FCA-regulated, two CySEC-regulated — added or fully migrated to MT5 this quarter.

MT4 isn’t dead. Far from it. But the direction of travel is clear.

Why Brokers Are Moving

The reasons brokers cite are consistent: better charting tools, 21 timeframes (vs. 9 on MT4), and improved backtesting. The MQL5 programming language is objectively more powerful than MQL4, enabling strategies that simply aren’t possible on the older platform. For brokers offering both, the maintenance overhead of supporting two platforms is increasingly hard to justify.

What Traders Should Do

If you’re on MT4, most brokers still support both platforms side by side — no urgent switch needed. But if you’re starting fresh or building new automated strategies, MT5 is the better long-term bet. New brokers are launching MT5-only, and the ecosystem gap is narrowing every quarter.

The practical difference: more order types (market, limit, stop, stop-limit), a built-in economic calendar, and 21 timeframes for finer technical analysis. If you rely heavily on MT4-specific Expert Advisors, check compatibility before switching.

For a full comparison of platforms offered by major brokers, read our broker reviews.