Forex Glossary
What Is Swap?
The interest-differential cost or credit of holding a position overnight.
Holding overnight applies the interest differential to your account, positive or negative; swap-free (Islamic) accounts avoid it.
Risk warning. Leveraged forex trading carries high risk and in Türkiye may only be offered by SPK-authorised intermediaries; leverage is capped at 1:10 (half of that may apply if the initial margin at account opening is below TRY 50,000). This content is not investment advice; user statements belong to their authors.
How is swap calculated?
Swap is the cost of holding a position overnight and arises from the interest differential between the two currencies you trade. If you bought the higher-yielding currency and sold the lower-yielding one, swap is credited; the reverse is debited.
Three details matter in practice: swap accrues daily and applies if the position is held past the daily rollover; Wednesdays are usually charged triple to cover the weekend; and the rate follows the broker's own schedule, not the market rate one-for-one.
Why it belongs in your cost line
Swap is irrelevant for intraday trading, but for anyone holding positions for days it is as real a cost as the spread and commission — and it repeats every day. Total trading cost should weigh all three together.
On exotic pairs the interest differential is large, so swap is large. Holding a pair such as USD/TRY for an extended period can consume a significant share of the expected profit.
What is a swap-free (Islamic) account?
Some brokers offer an account type without swap so that no interest is involved. The religious assessment is personal and FXŞikayetvar issues no ruling; we summarise the debate neutrally in our is forex halal article.
A practical warning: removing swap usually does not remove the cost, it moves it — it can reappear as a fixed "account maintenance fee", a widened spread or a carry commission. Read how the item is defined in the broker's fee schedule before opening an account.
Beware promises built on swap
"Risk-free return through positive swap" is a common hook. Positive swap is real, but it does not remove currency risk: when the price of the position you carry moves against you, the swap income is small next to the loss.
A guaranteed-return promise is a claim an SPK-authorised firm cannot make. If you meet one, check the firm's authorisation status and whether the domain appears in our SPK bulletin archive.