Swap is an overnight commission deducted or added to a trader’s equity at 21:00 GMT+0 in summer and 22:00 GMT+0 in winter. Depending on the day and trading instrument, swap can be applied as standard, triple, or not applied at all. There might be additional changes in the swap schedule due to public/ bank holidays.

We calculate swap rates in pips, while MetaTrader platforms calculate them in points. You can use our trading calculator to calculate swap easily. To know about swap-free status, refer to the linked article.

When swap is calculated for a pair in which the quote currency does not match the account currency, the quote currency will be converted to your account currency automatically on the trading calculator. Read more about how currency conversion works on the example of calculating profit/loss.

Factors that impact swap

The factors that impact swap for an instrument include:

• Interest rates of central banks
• Currency pair exchange rate (when applicable)
• Order type (short for sell or long for buy)
• Broker’s commission 
   

Broker's commission is subject to change based on market conditions and the risk management policy for particular trading instruments.

Standard swap schedule

Here are the swap timings by instrument groups:

Triple swap

Triple swap is applied when the settlement date of the instrument lags behind the closing of the order. For example, since most forex trading instruments take up to 2 working days to settle, any order closed after Wednesday at 10 pm (GMT+0) will only settle the following Monday. Therefore, a triple swap is applied to the account for the three days the order must be maintained overnight.

For energies (under commodities), there is no triple swap. There is a single overnight charge for each day of the week.

Calculating swap

Swap = Swap long/short × number of days × pip value
Pip value = number of lots x contract size x pip size

Let us look at an example: 
You opened a buy (long) order of 1 lot EURUSDm with a Standard account on Tuesday at 15:00, then closed that order on Thursday (of the same week) at 23:00.

Here are the specifics:

• Lots = 1
• Contract size = 100,000 EUR
• Pip size = 0.0001 (for majority of the forex instruments)
• Pip value = 1 x 100 000 x 0.0001 = 10
• Swap rate = -0.86852 pips (for demonstration purposes)
• Number of days = 5 (1+3+1)

So swap = -0.86852 x 5 x 10 = -43.42 USD