Free Forex Historical Data: Sources and What Their Terms Say
Three free forex data sources and the wording of their terms on use, quoted, with what each leaves unsaid.
3 Nov 2026 · 5 min read
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Free forex history is easy to find. What each provider says about using it is much harder to find, and often absent. This page quotes the wording of three free sources and says where a page states nothing. It does not tell you what you are allowed to do: it is not advice and not a legal opinion. Terms change, so read the current ones yourself.
Three free sources and what they say
| Source | What it offers | What it says about use |
|---|---|---|
| Dukascopy historical export | Forex, commodities and indices, "from tick-by-tick to monthly", as CSV. No earliest date is stated. |
The quotes are from the terms of use. The page that hosts the export carries no licence or terms of its own, only trading-risk disclaimers. The terms say changes "shall be effective immediately". |
| TrueFX historical downloads | Historical tick-by-tick data "at zero cost to you", behind a free login. Prices are stated as sourced from Integral OCX. |
The download page states no terms, licence or redistribution rules; the only related wording is the footer line quoted here. |
| HistData.com | Free forex data as tick and one-minute (M1) files, in formats for MetaTrader, generic ASCII, Microsoft Excel, NinjaTrader and MetaStock, by pair, year and month. |
Its pages state no licence and list no permitted uses. The second quote sits in a sentence about paying for faster access to help with traffic costs. |
The verbs in the quotes
Dukascopy's terms are the longest of the three, and the words in them that decide what a use is are worth listing without interpretation: “non-commercial”, “personal”, “recirculate”, “redistribute”, “publish”, “construct a database” and the use of “scraper”, “robot” or similar tools to acquire content. The terms also say you acquire “absolutely no rights or licenses in or to the WEBSITE and materials contained within the WEBSITE”. If what you plan to do touches any of those words, the provider's own terms are the first place to look and the provider is the party to ask.
The other two sources give less to go on. TrueFX's download page carries a copyright notice and no terms; HistData's pages carry a warranty disclaimer and no licence. Silence on a page is not permission and is not a ban: it means the page does not say.
Quality is a separate question from terms
HistData states that its files come without a warranty, says “We're measuring all the gaps bigger than 1 minute”, and adds that gaps are normal when trading volumes are low, so a gap in a file is not always an error. Whatever the source, run your own checks on a file before you trust a result built on it: count the bars per day, look for missing stretches, and compare a few prices against a second source.
Resolution is also a choice: HistData offers tick and one-minute files, and Dukascopy states a range from tick-by-tick to monthly. What that changes in a test is in bar replay against tick data.
What your broker's own history is
A MetaTrader terminal gets its price history from the broker's trade server, and the Strategy Tester reads it from the terminal. That history comes through your broker, so the terms that apply to it are your broker's, in your account agreement.
Trepeat today
Trepeat sells no market data and no backtesting.
We're working on a free journal and a backtester, with no date yet. Today Trepeat is a trade copier for MT4, MT5 and cTrader, currently on demo accounts, and you can add notes, a grade and screenshots to any copied trade once it closes, with a calendar of your results.
How the journal works. If you are choosing a tool to run a test, see backtesting software compared, and for the method, how to backtest a trading strategy.
Written by the Trepeat team.