Forex Influencer Marketing in the Gulf: Rules and What Works

Forex influencer marketing in the Gulf can bring you some of your best traders, or a pile of regulatory trouble and accounts that never fund. The difference comes down to two things: following the local rules for paid promotion, and choosing creators whose audiences actually trade.

On the rules side, Saudi Arabia requires a Mawthooq licence for paid promotional content, and the UAE introduced a finfluencer regime in 2025 that applies to people promoting financial products. On top of both sits your own licence, which decides where you’re allowed to market at all.

On the results side, the creators who work are usually educators and analysts with real audiences, tested in small waves and measured on funded accounts rather than views. The strongest ones often end up as Introducing Brokers. Here’s how to approach it.

The rules for trading influencers in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s Mawthooq licence, issued by the Kingdom’s media regulator, is required for individuals who publish paid advertising content on social media. If you pay a Saudi creator to promote your brokerage, they need to hold one. Ask for it, check it, and keep a copy on file.

That’s the creator’s licence. Separately, the product being promoted has its own rules. Offering leveraged trading to Saudi residents is regulated by the Capital Market Authority, and a broker’s ability to solicit clients there depends on its licensing position. We cover this in more detail in forex trading regulations in Saudi Arabia. The short version: a Mawthooq-licensed creator doesn’t make an unlicensed promotion acceptable.

Rules in Saudi Arabia have been tightening, and enforcement against unlicensed promotion happens. Check the current position with local counsel before launching a campaign.

Finfluencer rules in the UAE

The UAE introduced a regime for finfluencers in 2025, under which people who promote financial products and services on social media are expected to be licensed or registered with the Securities and Commodities Authority, depending on what they do. The details, including who it captures, the categories and the transitional arrangements, have been evolving. Treat anything you read secondhand, including this article, as a starting point and confirm the current rules before contracting a UAE-based creator.

A few points tend to hold regardless of the details:

• A creator promoting a specific broker for payment is doing financial promotion, not just “content”.
• The broker remains responsible for how its products are promoted, including by paid partners.
• Free zones such as DIFC and ADGM have their own financial promotion rules for firms they regulate. If your entity sits there, those apply too. See our guides to DIFC and ADGM licensing.

For context on scale: a UAE SCA Category 5 licence, covering promotion, arranging and introduction, costs around AED 500,000. That gives you a sense of how seriously the regulator treats introduction activity.

Disclosure: assume it’s always required

Whatever the specific regime, paid content must be clearly marked as advertising. In practice that means:

• A clear “ad” or “paid partnership” label in Arabic and English, using the platform’s own tools where available
• No disguising sponsored posts as independent opinion
• Risk warnings where the rules require them. Leveraged trading carries a high risk of losing money, and a creator’s audience should hear that, not just the upside.
• No promises of returns, no screenshots of cherry-picked winning trades presented as typical

Put these into the contract, and review content before it goes out. A creator who refuses review is telling you something.

Your licence decides where you can promote

This is the step brokers skip. Before picking creators, map:

1. Which countries your licence permits you to solicit clients in
2. Where each creator’s audience actually lives, from their platform analytics
3. Whether the creator’s own location brings local rules into play

A UAE-based creator with a mostly Egyptian audience brings different questions from a Saudi creator with a mostly Saudi audience. If a large slice of an audience sits somewhere you can’t onboard, you’re paying for reach you can’t use, and possibly creating a compliance problem. Our market entry strategy work usually starts with exactly this map.

Forex influencer marketing: which creators bring funded traders

Follower counts are a poor guide. The creators who work for brokers tend to share a few traits.

Educators and analysts

People who teach: chart reading, risk management, how platforms work, market commentary on gold and oil. Their audiences come to them to learn, and many are already trading or about to start. They’re also the creators most likely to talk about risk honestly, which helps with compliance and with retention.

Real audiences, checked

Before paying anyone, look at:

• Comment quality. Real questions about trades and platforms, in the right dialects, rather than emoji strings and generic praise.
• Audience geography and age from the creator’s own analytics, shared as screenshots or live.
• Engagement over time, not a single viral post. Sudden follower spikes are a warning sign.
• Past broker promotions. Who have they worked with, and did those brokers stay? A creator who switches broker every month has an audience that’s learned to ignore them.
• Their own conduct. Any history of signal-selling scandals, guaranteed-profit claims or account management offers is a firm no.

Platform fit

Snapchat is strong in Saudi Arabia, with ad reach equal to about 73% of the population (DataReportal, Digital 2026). YouTube suits long-form education. Telegram suits daily analysis. Pick creators whose platform matches how their audience actually consumes trading content.

Run influencer test waves, measured on funded accounts

Don’t sign a large retainer with a creator you haven’t tested. Run small waves instead.

1. Brief clearly. Approved claims, required disclosures, risk warning, which entity and which countries.
2. Give each creator a unique tracking link and code, so every registration, KYC and deposit ties back to them.
3. Run a short wave, a few posts or one video plus stories.
4. Measure to deposit: registrations, KYC passed, first deposits, average first deposit, and activity after 30 and 90 days.
5. Compare cost per funded account against your other channels, then decide whether to scale, adjust or stop.

Views and clicks are fine as early signals. They are not the result. A creator with a small, loyal audience of active traders will often beat a celebrity with ten times the reach.

Turning strong creators into IBs

When a creator consistently brings traders who fund and stay, the natural next step is to move them from a paid-post arrangement to an IB agreement. They earn as their clients trade, through rebates or a CPA, and they have a reason to keep supporting those clients rather than chasing the next sponsor.

This also tends to be cleaner commercially. An IB relationship has a contract, defined marketing rules, and reporting. It still has to sit within your licence and theirs; in the UAE, introduction activity can itself be licensable. Our guides on the IB programme model in the Middle East and vetting introducing brokers cover the setup, and creators themselves can read what to demand from a broker in our guide for introducing brokers in the UAE.

Questions brokers ask

Do trading influencers in Saudi Arabia need a licence?

Yes. Anyone publishing paid promotional content on social media in Saudi Arabia needs a Mawthooq licence. The broker’s own licensing position is a separate question.

What are the finfluencer rules in the UAE?

The UAE introduced a finfluencer regime in 2025 that brings people promoting financial products under SCA oversight. The details have been evolving, so confirm the current rules before contracting anyone.

How do I measure influencer ROI for a broker?

Give each creator a unique link and code, then track registrations, KYC, first deposits and 90-day activity. Compare cost per funded account with your other channels.

Can a creator become an IB?

Often, yes, and the best ones usually should. It aligns their earnings with client activity. Check the licensing requirements for introduction activity in their country first. For creators who’d rather stay on referrals, see how to become a forex affiliate.

If you’d like help finding, vetting and testing creators in Arabic and English, take a look at our influencer marketing work. Or send us a note with the markets you’re licensed for.