GLOSSARY
Ask price
The higher of the two prices your broker shows — the one you buy at.
By FirstPip editorial team · Updated 2026-09-09 · Educational content · No broker owns this site
Quick answer. The ask price is the price at which the market will sell a currency pair to you, and therefore the price at which you can buy. It is always the higher of the two prices quoted.
The ask — also called the offer, asking price or asked price — is the higher of the two prices in a forex quote. It is what the market is asking in order to sell to you, so it is where you buy.
When do you trade at the ask?
- Opening a long. Going long means buying, so you enter at the ask.
- Closing a short. You sold earlier at the bid; to get out you must buy back, so you exit at the ask.
Worked example. EUR/USD is quoted bid 1.08420 / ask 1.08430 and you buy one mini lot — 10,000 euros:
- Cost: 10,000 × 1.08430 = $10,843.00
- Value if you closed instantly at the bid: 10,000 × 1.08420 = $10,842.00
- Position opens showing −$1.00
Every position starts underwater by exactly the spread. That is not an error and not a hidden fee — it is the structure of a two-sided market. Price has to move your way by the spread before you are level.
Does the ask move independently of the bid?
Yes, and it matters. The two prices are quoted separately and the gap between them widens and narrows with conditions — typically tightest when a pair is busiest, and wider around major news releases, at the daily rollover, and in thin weekend-adjacent hours. A pair showing a 1 pip spread in the London session can show several times that around a central bank announcement.
This is also why charts can mislead slightly. Most platforms plot the bid line by default, so the price you see on the chart is not the price you buy at — the ask sits above it, invisibly.
The mistake beginners make
Setting a buy entry at a level read off the chart and being confused when it does not fill. If the chart plots the bid, the ask is already above that level, and a buy order references the ask. The order fills a fraction later than the chart suggests, or not at all. On tight scalping entries this is the difference between a trade and a missed trade — check whether your platform charts bid, ask, or mid before blaming the execution.
Why is the ask different at every broker?
Because there is no single ask. Retail off-exchange forex has no central marketplace and no central clearing, so each dealer publishes its own two prices — and the number it adds on top is not always visible.
- The mark-up can live inside the spread. The SEC’s forex bulletin says there are "very limited rules" on how a dealer charges for its services: some charge a per-trade commission, some charge a mark-up by widening the spread they quote, some do both, and some apply a different mark-up on the buy side than on the sell side. It may therefore not be clear how much of the spread is the dealer’s mark-up — that is the SEC’s own wording.
- "Commission-free" is a claim about one fee only. The SEC warns against assuming a commission-free transaction will be executed at no cost to you. In the US, NFA Interpretive Notice 9053 goes further: a member may not represent that its services are commission free "without prominently disclosing how it is compensated in near proximity to that representation". That obligation binds NFA members — it is not a global rule.
- In the US, your broker is your counterparty. The same NFA notice forbids a member from claiming a customer has direct access to the interbank market, "because the Member is actually the counterparty to every customers’ forex transactions". The SEC makes the same point from the investor’s side: because individual investors often lack access to pricing information, it is hard for them to judge whether an offered price is fair.
None of this makes the ask a trick. It makes it a number worth comparing across two or three brokers before you fund an account — which is what spreads vs commissions and the broker due-diligence checklist walk through.
Related terms
- Bid Price — the other half of the quote — where you sell
- Spread — the gap between bid and ask
- Exchange Rate — the mid-price these two sit around
- Pip — the unit the gap is measured in
Every term above is part of the same idea: how a forex price is written down and what it costs you to trade on it. Start at currency pair if you are reading these for the first time, or browse the full glossary.
Frequently asked questions
What is an ask price in forex?
The ask is the price you buy at — in the SEC’s words, "how much you will need to spend in order to purchase a currency". It is almost always the higher of the two prices quoted and it is also called the offer. Most charts plot the bid, so the ask sits just above the line you can see.
What does “ask price” mean?
Investor.gov, the SEC’s investor-education site, defines the ask as "the lowest price at which a seller will sell" and notes that the bid "will almost always be lower than the ask or ‘offer’ price". The definition is written for shares, but the ask plays the same role in a forex quote.
Do I buy at bid or ask price?
At the ask. Every buy — whether you are opening a long or closing a short — fills at the higher of the two prices, and every sell fills at the bid. In the US, NFA Interpretive Notice 9053 says Forex Dealer Members "should provide both the bid and the offer when the customer enters an order"; that guidance applies to NFA members only.
Why is ask so much higher than bid?
A wide gap tends to signal thin liquidity rather than an error: exotic pairs, news releases, the daily rollover and the hours around the weekend can all widen it. Part of the gap can also be the dealer’s mark-up — the SEC notes that some firms charge by widening the spread instead of a commission, and some mark up each side differently.
What is a bid price and ask price example?
Take EUR/USD quoted 1.08420 / 1.08430. You sell at 1.08420 and buy at 1.08430, a spread of one pip. Buy one mini lot — 10,000 euros — and you pay $10,843.00; sell it straight back and you receive $10,842.00. The $1.00 difference is the spread, paid with no market move at all.
Is the ‘asked price’ the same as the ask price?
Yes. ‘Asked price’ and ‘asking price’ are informal ways of saying the ask — the price you buy at, also called the offer. All of them point to the same number: the higher of the two prices quoted. Whichever spelling you search, it means the price the market will sell to you at.
Keep going
Sources
- BabyPips — What is a Pip in Forex?
- SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy — Investor Bulletin: Foreign Currency Exchange (Forex) Trading for Individual Investors
- Investor.gov (U.S. SEC) — Glossary: Bid Price/Ask Price
- NFA Interpretive Notice 9053 — Forex Transactions (under NFA Compliance Rule 2-36)