Ask Price: FX Offer Side Quote Explained
By Ken Chigbo, Founder, KenMacro. Published 2026-05-13.
Quick answer
The ask price is the offer side of a forex quote, the rate at which the broker or liquidity provider is willing to sell the base currency to the client. When a retail trader opens a long position, the order fills at the ask. The difference between the ask and the bid is the spread.
What is ask price?
The ask price, sometimes called the offer, is one half of a two-way forex quote. It represents the lowest price at which a market maker, liquidity provider, or aggregated venue is currently willing to sell the base currency in exchange for the quote currency. On EUR/USD quoted as 1.0852 / 1.0853, the 1.0853 figure is the ask. The ask always sits above the bid, and the gap between the two is the spread, which the broker or venue captures as compensation for providing liquidity and warehousing risk.
How traders use ask price
Retail traders interact with the ask price every time they open a long position or close a short. The fill price for a market buy order is the prevailing ask at the moment the broker accepts the ticket, subject to slippage during fast markets. Institutional desks watch the ask depth in the order book to gauge how much size can be lifted before the price moves materially. On an ECN or raw-spread account, the ask is sourced directly from competing liquidity providers and the broker adds a fixed commission. On a standard account, the broker marks the ask up by widening the spread. Cost-conscious traders compare ask prices across venues during the London and New York overlap, when liquidity is deepest and the spread to mid is tightest.
Worked example of the ask price in action
Suppose GBP/USD is quoted 1.2710 / 1.2712. A trader clicking buy on a one standard lot order fills at the ask of 1.2712. If the position is closed immediately at the prevailing bid of 1.2710, the round-trip cost is two pips, equivalent to twenty US dollars per standard lot. On a raw-spread account the same pair might quote 1.27108 / 1.27112, a 0.4 pip spread, plus a commission of roughly seven dollars per round-turn lot. The structural point: the ask is always the entry cost for a long, never the exit cost.
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Frequently asked
Why is the ask price always higher than the bid?
Market makers and liquidity providers quote two-way prices to compensate themselves for warehousing inventory risk and providing immediacy. The ask sits above the bid so that the venue captures the spread on every round-turn trade. If the ask were equal to or below the bid, the venue would lose money on every fill. The size of the gap reflects volatility, liquidity, time of day, and the credit profile of the counterparty.
Do I buy at the bid or the ask?
A retail trader buys at the ask and sells at the bid. The broker takes the opposite side, so the broker sells to the client at the ask and buys from the client at the bid. This convention holds across spot forex, CFDs, equities, and most over-the-counter markets. Confusing the two is a common beginner error and leads to misreading the true cost of a position.
Does the ask price include broker commission?
It depends on the account type. On a standard or market-maker account, the broker widens the ask above the raw interbank offer to bake the cost into the spread, so no separate commission appears. On a raw-spread or ECN account, the ask reflects the tightest offer from competing liquidity providers and the broker charges an explicit commission per lot. The all-in cost is what matters when comparing venues.
Why does the ask price move even when I am not trading?
The ask price reflects the live offer from liquidity providers, which updates continuously as new orders arrive, existing orders are pulled, and the underlying market absorbs information. Macro releases, central bank speeches, large institutional flows, and thin liquidity windows all shift the ask. During the Asian session ranges are typically narrower and the ask moves less, while London and New York hours bring greater variability.
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