The spread is the one cost every trader pays on every trade and almost nobody measures. We measured it: 1,122,433 matched bid/ask observations across 25 instruments, sampled through a full year. The headline is not the raw number — it is that the spread is worst at exactly the hours the market moves least.
Key takeaways
- EUR/USD averages 0.45 pips — about $4.50 per round turn on a standard lot, or $1,170 a year at five trades a week.
- Measured against how far each market actually moves, NVDA is cheapest at 0.27% of its daily range and Silver (XAG/USD) dearest at 7.57%.
- On EUR/USD the spread consumes 1.2% of the hourly range at 13:00 UTC but 26.7% at 21:00 UTC — a 22× swing in relative cost.
- Across the forex pairs measured, spread averages 1.68% of the daily range — roughly $12.75 per lot per round turn.
average spread
1 lot, 5/week
across the day
measured
Read this as a floor, not as your broker's price. These are Dukascopy bank-feed spreads. A retail broker adds its own markup on top, so whatever your platform quotes above these numbers is the cost of your broker rather than the cost of the market. That makes this table useful for a purpose the broker comparison sites cannot serve: a neutral baseline to measure your own broker against.
Spread by instrument
Ranked by the only comparison that means anything — the spread as a share of the average daily range. A 2-pip spread is trivial on a market that travels 150 pips a day and punitive on one that travels 40.
| # | Instrument | Class | Avg spread pips | Median | 90th pct | Cost per lot round turn | Share of daily range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NVDA | Stock | 2.79 | 2.60 | 3.80 | $2.79 | 0.27% |
| 2 | EUR/USD | Forex major | 0.45 | 0.40 | 0.60 | $4.50 | 0.50% |
| 3 | USD/JPY | Forex major | 0.68 | 0.40 | 0.80 | $5.44 | 0.74% |
| 4 | US30 (Dow) | Index | 2.68 | 2.11 | 5.41 | $26.80 | 0.74% |
| 5 | US100 (Nasdaq) | Index | 1.46 | 1.17 | 3.40 | $14.60 | 0.74% |
| 6 | GBP/USD | Forex major | 0.93 | 0.70 | 1.10 | $9.30 | 0.84% |
| 7 | AUD/JPY | Forex cross | 1.00 | 0.70 | 1.00 | $8.00 | 1.05% |
| 8 | EUR/JPY | Forex cross | 1.24 | 0.90 | 1.40 | $9.92 | 1.07% |
| 9 | TSLA | Stock | 13.78 | 11.60 | 24.80 | $13.78 | 1.09% |
| 10 | US500 (S&P) | Index | 0.60 | 0.65 | 0.72 | $6.00 | 1.27% |
| 11 | AUD/USD | Forex major | 1.02 | 0.90 | 1.20 | $10.20 | 1.32% |
| 12 | GER40 (DAX) | Index | 2.95 | 2.62 | 4.76 | $29.50 | 1.36% |
| 13 | AAPL | Stock | 5.52 | 4.80 | 8.80 | $5.52 | 1.37% |
| 14 | GBP/JPY | Forex cross | 2.29 | 1.70 | 2.40 | $18.32 | 1.52% |
| 15 | EUR/GBP | Forex cross | 0.90 | 0.70 | 1.00 | $9.00 | 1.58% |
| 16 | USD/CAD | Forex major | 1.41 | 1.20 | 1.60 | $14.10 | 1.67% |
| 17 | EUR/CHF | Forex cross | 1.20 | 0.90 | 1.30 | $12.00 | 2.08% |
| 18 | Brent crude | Commodity | 5.23 | 5.00 | 5.00 | $52.30 | 2.41% |
| 19 | Gold (XAU/USD) | Commodity | 66.25 | 63.00 | 82.30 | $66.25 | 2.44% |
| 20 | BTC/USD | Crypto | 50.24 | 50.00 | 50.00 | $50.24 | 2.92% |
| 21 | CAD/CHF | Forex cross | 2.02 | 1.50 | 2.00 | $20.20 | 2.97% |
| 22 | NZD/CHF | Forex cross | 2.11 | 1.60 | 2.00 | $21.10 | 3.20% |
| 23 | AUD/CAD | Forex cross | 2.37 | 2.00 | 2.50 | $23.70 | 3.28% |
| 24 | ETH/USD | Crypto | 4.30 | 4.00 | 5.10 | $4.30 | 3.94% |
| 25 | Silver (XAG/USD) | Commodity | 60.78 | 38.00 | 91.00 | $303.90 | 7.57% |
Note how badly raw pip figures mislead. Gold's 66-pip spread looks enormous next to EUR/USD's 0.45, yet it consumes 2.44% of gold's daily range against 0.50% for EUR/USD — under three times the relative cost, not a hundred. See average daily range across 25 markets for the denominator.
The finding that matters: cost by hour
Spread is not constant through the day, and it does not move in your favour. It widens when liquidity thins — which is precisely when the market stops moving. Each cell below is the spread expressed as a percentage of that hour's average range, so it answers the only question that counts: how much of the available movement does it cost me to enter?
| Instrument | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EUR/USD | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 27 | 15 | 5 |
| GBP/USD | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 42 | 27 | 8 |
| USD/JPY | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 45 | 18 | 4 |
| USD/CAD | 11 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 14 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 40 | 32 | 18 |
| AUD/USD | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 31 | 17 | 9 |
| EUR/JPY | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 49 | 25 | 8 |
| GBP/JPY | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 69 | 34 | 10 |
| Gold (XAU/USD) | 16 | 13 | 16 | 20 | 22 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 18 | 25 | 23 | 24 |
| US30 (Dow) | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 7 |
| US100 (Nasdaq) | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 7 |
This is the compounding effect. At 21:00 UTC the EUR/USD spread widens to 2.24 pips and the average hourly range collapses to 8.4 pips. Two independent effects, both pointing the wrong way, at the same hour. Trading that hour is not slightly worse than trading the London/New York overlap — on cost alone it is roughly 22 times worse.
The movement side of the same story is measured in forex volatility by hour of day.
What it costs over a year
Spread feels negligible per trade, which is exactly why it goes unmeasured. Annualised at a normal trading frequency it stops looking negligible.
| Instrument | 0.10 lot | 0.50 lot | 1.00 lot |
|---|---|---|---|
| EUR/USD | $117 | $585 | $1,170 |
| GBP/USD | $242 | $1,209 | $2,418 |
| USD/JPY | $141 | $707 | $1,414 |
| AUD/USD | $265 | $1,326 | $2,652 |
| Gold (XAU/USD) | $1,722 | $8,612 | $17,225 |
| US30 (Dow) | $697 | $3,484 | $6,968 |
| US500 (S&P) | $156 | $780 | $1,560 |
On a $10,000 account, trading one standard lot of EUR/USD five times a week hands over about 11.7% of the account per year in spread alone — before commission, before swap, before a single losing trade. That is the hurdle your edge has to clear first. If you are unsure what your edge actually is, start with expectancy.
Methodology
- Source: dukascopy free feed, matched BID/ASK m1 — matched bid and ask one-minute candles, differenced to a spread per minute.
- Sampling: 3 weekdays/month over the last 12 months, giving roughly 2,000 minute observations per hour bucket per instrument. A full ask-side mirror would need ~90,000 requests against a throttled feed; a profile only needs enough observations per bucket to be stable.
- Units: pips (pipSize per public/app/js/config.js), so the figures match what the simulator's spread input expects.
- Cost per lot: average spread × the instrument's pip value per standard lot (contract size × pip size), representing one full round turn.
- Share of daily range: average spread ÷ average daily range, both in the same pip units.
- Important limit: this is a bank/ECN feed. Retail broker spreads are higher, often materially. Treat every number here as a floor.
- Also excluded: commission, swap/financing and slippage. Real all-in cost is higher again.
- Generated: 2026-07-27.
Spread cost FAQ
What is the average spread on EUR/USD?
Measured across 51,075 minute observations sampled through the year, EUR/USD averaged 0.45 pips with a median of 0.40 and a 90th percentile of 0.60. On one standard lot that is about $4.50 per round turn. This is a Dukascopy bank feed, so treat it as a floor — a retail broker's spread sits on top of it.
How much does the spread actually cost per year?
At five round-turn trades a week — 260 a year — one standard lot of EUR/USD costs roughly $1,170 a year in spread alone, before commission or slippage. On gold the same trade count costs about $17,225. Scale linearly with position size.
Which instrument has the cheapest spread relative to its movement?
NVDA is cheapest, with the spread consuming 0.27% of its average daily range. Silver (XAG/USD) is the most expensive at 7.57%. Comparing raw pip spreads across instruments is misleading — what matters is the spread as a share of how far the market actually travels.
Does the spread change during the day?
Substantially, and it moves against you. On EUR/USD the spread widens from about 0.31 pips in the active European and US hours to 2.24 pips around the daily rollover, at exactly the hour when the average range is at its thinnest. The two effects compound.
What is the worst hour to trade on cost?
For EUR/USD it is 21:00 UTC, where the spread eats 26.7% of the hour's average range, against just 1.2% at 13:00 UTC — a 22-fold difference in relative cost for the same pair on the same day.
Where does this spread data come from?
Matched bid and ask one-minute candles from the Dukascopy free feed, sampled on 3 weekdays/month over the last 12 months and reduced to a per-instrument, per-hour profile. It is the same spread table the FxBacktest simulator uses to charge realistic costs on simulated trades.
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