In 2025, Exness halted onboarding of new clients from India. The decision was not announced through a major marketing push and was not widely reported in mainstream forex comparison content, but was confirmed through the broker's onboarding flow itself — Indian residents attempting to register new accounts in 2025 and into 2026 are unable to complete registration. Existing Exness India clients retained their accounts and continued trading, with some operational adjustments. The block was driven by a combination of evolving SEBI guidance on UPI verification for cross-border financial services and the broader Indian regulatory environment for offshore retail forex, which has tightened steadily through 2024 and 2025.
The block matters for the XM-versus-Exness decision in 2026 because Indian retail forex is one of the largest single retail markets where the two brokers traditionally compete. With Exness no longer accepting new Indian clients, the comparison shifts: a new Indian retail trader in 2026 effectively cannot choose Exness even if they would prefer to. The choice narrows to XM, a small set of other offshore brokers still onboarding Indian retail, or domestic SEBI-regulated alternatives that operate within India's restricted retail forex framework (essentially INR-denominated currency derivatives on NSE and BSE, with no access to global FX pairs in the offshore CFD sense).
This piece walks through what triggered the Exness block, where XM's India posture sits in 2026, and what the realistic decision tree looks like for both new and existing Indian retail traders.
What Triggered the Block
Several regulatory developments converged through 2024 and 2025 to make Indian retail onboarding increasingly difficult for offshore CFD brokers.
SEBI's evolving stance on offshore brokers. SEBI does not regulate offshore forex brokers directly — its jurisdiction is over domestic securities markets — but its public commentary and regulatory positioning has consistently signalled concern about retail Indian flows to unregulated offshore platforms. Through 2024 and 2025, SEBI's enforcement coordination with payment system operators and banks tightened.
RBI Alert List expansion. The Reserve Bank of India maintains an Alert List of unauthorised forex trading platforms. The list expanded materially through 2024 and 2025; as of November 19, 2025, additions included Starnet FX, CapPlace, Mirrox, Fusion Markets, Trive, NXG Markets, and Nord FX. Notably, neither XM nor Exness is on the Alert List as of early 2026 — a fact that XM marketing has used carefully and that the Exness onboarding block may be partly designed to preserve, in that proactive cessation of new India onboarding may reduce the regulatory pressure that led other brokers onto the Alert List.
UPI verification tightening. The Unified Payments Interface, which became the dominant payment rail for retail Indian financial services through 2023-2025, tightened its verification framework for cross-border financial services through 2025. The specifics are technical, but the effect was that brokers relying on UPI as a deposit or withdrawal rail for Indian retail had to demonstrate compliance with progressively stricter framework requirements. Some offshore brokers chose not to invest in the necessary compliance infrastructure and instead exited new India onboarding.
FEMA cross-border compliance. The Foreign Exchange Management Act framework, administered by RBI, governs Indian residents' cross-border financial activity. The framework is permissive of legitimate hedging and trade-related activity but restrictive of speculative cross-border CFD activity. Enforcement has been historically uneven; through 2024-2025, signalling shifted toward stricter expectations.
The combined effect was that the cost of India onboarding compliance — to broker, to UPI partners, to banking partners, to KYC systems — rose. Exness chose to stop. XM chose to continue, with adjustments.
XM's India Posture in 2026
XM continues to accept Indian residents as retail clients in 2026, primarily through its IFSC Belize entity and other offshore pathways. Indian users can deposit through cards, bank transfers, and certain e-wallet routes. The platform is available, MT4 and MT5 are supported, and the standard XM account types (Standard, Ultra Low; Zero is now CySEC-only as covered separately) are available.
XM's India marketing is more cautious than it was in 2022-2023. The broker has reduced direct India-targeted advertising and shifted toward broader regional and global English-language marketing. The XM-vs-Exness India comparison content — which proliferated as a content category on broker comparison sites through 2022-2024 — has become asymmetric: XM is comparable to "what other offshore brokers does an Indian retail trader still have access to in 2026," not to Exness, because Exness is no longer onboarding.
XM's specific Indian retail experience in 2026 has these characteristics: registration is open through IFSC Belize entity, KYC requires standard Indian documentation (PAN card, Aadhaar typically), deposits and withdrawals work through cards and certain bank transfer routes (with UPI availability subject to the broker's specific banking partnerships), and customer support is available through standard channels in English.
The trader's risk in choosing XM in 2026 is largely consistent with the broader Indian retail offshore forex risk: the activity sits in the FEMA grey zone, the regulatory environment continues to tighten, and the broker may at any future point follow Exness's path and exit India onboarding. XM has not announced any such intention but the structural pressures that drove Exness's exit apply to XM as well.
What Existing Exness India Clients Are Doing
Indian residents who held Exness accounts before the block continued to trade through 2025 and into 2026. The broker did not force closures of existing accounts. Operational adjustments included: tighter verification requirements for deposits and withdrawals, some payment method changes, and increased scrutiny on KYC re-verification cycles.
Three patterns of behaviour are observable among existing Exness India clients in 2026.
Pattern one: maintain the Exness account, continue trading at the same broker. No migration. The legacy account remains operational. The trader's exposure is to whatever future operational changes Exness may make — including, conceivably, a broader exit that affects existing accounts. As of May 2026 no such broader exit has been announced.
Pattern two: open a parallel XM account, run two brokers. The trader keeps the Exness account for continuity and adds an XM account for new deposits and incremental trading. This pattern has been the most common observable response among active Indian retail traders.
Pattern three: migrate fully to XM or other offshore alternative. The trader withdraws from Exness, closes the account, and consolidates at the new broker. This pattern is more common among smaller-balance accounts where the operational friction of two brokers exceeds the perceived diversification benefit.
The pattern that is rare in 2026: migration to a domestic SEBI-regulated alternative. Indian retail traders accustomed to global FX CFD trading at offshore brokers do not, in general, find the SEBI-regulated currency derivative product (NSE/BSE INR-denominated, limited pair set, exchange-traded with margin, leverage and product structure substantially different from offshore CFDs) to be a satisfactory substitute. Some traders have moved partially toward NSE currency derivatives for the INR-denominated portion of their activity, but this is supplementary rather than substitutive.
The Decision Tree for a New Indian Retail Trader in 2026
For an Indian resident new to retail forex in 2026, the practical options are these:
Option A: open an account at XM. Available. Standard offshore retail offering. Subject to Indian regulatory grey-zone risk. Subject to whatever the future evolution of the regulatory environment brings.
Option B: open an account at another offshore broker still onboarding Indian retail. Several brokers are in this category as of 2026. Specific selections require independent diligence — counterparty risk varies materially across smaller offshore brokers and the brokers most aggressive in capturing Indian retail flow are not always the most operationally sound.
Option C: trade INR currency derivatives on NSE or BSE. SEBI-regulated. Domestic. Limited to INR pairs. Exchange-traded with standard derivative margin requirements. The legitimate domestic alternative.
Option D: do not trade retail forex at all. Underrated option. The offshore forex retail trade is not a uniquely attractive product, and the regulatory environment is genuinely uncertain.
For a trader who values the broker comparison framework that the XM-vs-Exness category was built around, Option A is the closest available substitute in 2026. The comparison between XM and Exness, as a meaningful retail decision in India, has been narrowed by Exness's exit to "XM versus other offshore brokers," with the Exness option no longer available to new clients.
Honest Limits
The Exness India new-client block is documented through the broker's onboarding flow and through industry reporting; the specific date of the policy change and the broker's internal rationale are not part of public disclosure. The XM India posture described here reflects observable broker behaviour and the broker's published account opening flow as of May 2026. Neither broker's posture is guaranteed stable through 2027; the regulatory environment for offshore retail forex in India continues to evolve and broker-side policy decisions can change at short notice. Indian retail traders contemplating any offshore broker should consult qualified advice on FEMA compliance, tax treatment of offshore forex P&L (treated as business or speculative income depending on activity classification), and the specific risks of relying on offshore platforms for activity that may not be fully aligned with the domestic regulatory framework. None of the above constitutes investment, tax, or legal advice.