FTMO Challenge Rules · reviewed October 2026

FTMO Challenge Rules 2026

The FTMO rulebook is built on a static maximum loss and a daily stop measured on equity, split across two phases with different targets. That structure is simple to describe and easy to misread in practice, because the daily stop is the rule that actually ends most attempts while the headline target is the one traders plan around. This guide walks the rulebook clause by clause, prices each rule on a $100,000 account, and marks the points where the published terms should be re-checked before purchase.

Key takeaways

The maximum loss is static: it is measured from the starting balance and does not follow profit.
The daily loss is measured on equity, which includes floating positions, and it is the rule most attempts breach.
Phase one and phase two have different targets; the second phase is shorter but the floor is the same.
A minimum trading day count applies before review, so a very fast pass still waits.
Firm rules are revised. Every number below describes the published structure and should be confirmed against the current plan before buying.

Contents

Two phases, one rulebook
The five numbers that decide the attempt
Why the static floor changes the strategy
The daily stop and the equity measurement
The minimum trading day count
What the rulebook does not restrict
The payout conditions after funding
Free trial versus paid challenge
Where attempts actually fail
A pre-purchase checklist
The transition between phases
Planning without a deadline
Asking support the right questions
Standard versus swing account types
Common questions

FTMO's structure is the reference design that most two-phase evaluations are compared against, and that is exactly why it is worth understanding on its own terms rather than through a summary. The rules are not complicated; the interactions are. A static floor and a daily equity stop produce a different risk plan from a trailing floor and a balance-based stop, even when every headline percentage is identical.

One note before the detail. Firm rulebooks change, and the numbers below describe the published two-phase structure rather than a promise about the current schedule. Read the plan you are buying, save a dated copy, and treat any difference as the current answer.

Two phases, one rulebook

The evaluation runs in two stages. Phase one requires a larger profit target. Phase two requires a smaller one, and on most plans the account size, the loss floor and the daily stop carry over unchanged.

Element	Phase one	Phase two	Funded account
Profit target	Typically 10%	Typically 5%	None; payout threshold applies
Maximum loss	Typically 10%, static	Same	Same
Daily loss	Typically 5%	Same	Same
Minimum trading days	Typically 4	Same	Payout cycle applies
Time limit	None on the standard plan	None	None

Because the floor does not change between phases, phase two is not an easier challenge in risk terms. It has half the target and the same distance to failure, which makes it a lower-reward version of the same test. Traders who relax after phase one are relaxing at the point where the only change is that the reward for a mistake is smaller.

The absence of a time limit is a genuine structural feature rather than a marketing line. It removes the pressure to force results, which is the single largest cause of breaches on plans with a thirty-day window. It does not remove the pressure created by subscriptions, opportunity cost or the trader's own expectations, which is why the pacing advice below is about planning rather than about the calendar.

The five numbers that decide the attempt

On a $100,000 account with the published structure, every rule becomes a dollar figure. Writing them down before the first trade is the whole exercise.

Rule	Percentage	Dollar figure	What it means in practice
Phase one target	10%	$10,000	Profit required before phase two
Phase two target	5%	$5,000	Profit required before funding
Maximum loss	10%	$10,000	Static; account closes at $90,000
Daily loss	5%	$5,000	Equity-based; resets each day
Risk at 0.5%	0.5%	$500	Twenty losses to the floor; ten to the daily stop

The ratio between the target and the floor is the number worth internalising. Phase one asks for $10,000 of profit while allowing $10,000 of loss, a 1:1 ratio. Phase two asks for $5,000 while allowing the same $10,000, a 1:2 ratio. That asymmetry is why many traders find phase two psychologically harder: the reward for finishing is smaller and the cost of failing is unchanged.

The daily stop introduces a third ratio. At $500 of risk per trade, the daily limit absorbs ten losses; at $1,000 it absorbs five. A trader taking four or five positions a day at 1% is operating with no margin for a normal losing session, which is why the daily rule, not the maximum loss, is the one that ends most attempts.

Why the static floor changes the strategy

A static maximum loss is measured from the starting balance and never moves. Profit does not raise it, and a drawdown does not lower it. On a $100,000 account the account closes at $90,000 regardless of whether equity reached $110,000 first.

Point in the attempt	Static floor	Trailing floor equivalent
Start	$90,000	$90,000
After +5% ($105,000)	$90,000	$94,500–$95,000
After +9% ($109,000)	$90,000	$98,100–$99,000
After a −8% sequence from $109,000	Survives at $100,280	Breached on the way

The last row is the practical difference. A trader who is 9% into a 10% target can give back 8% and still be alive on a static floor. On a trailing floor the same sequence closes the account, because the floor has followed the peak. Static floors are therefore more forgiving of a give-back after a good run, which is the most common shape of a near-miss.

That forgiveness has a cost on the other side. Because the floor stays at $90,000, a trader who is deep in profit has more room in dollars but the same target remaining. The rational response is not to press harder; it is to reduce size as the target approaches, because the remaining profit needed is smaller and the marginal value of risk is lower. Traders who increase size near the target convert a nearly finished pass into a breach.

The daily stop and the equity measurement

The daily loss is measured on equity, which includes floating profit and loss on open positions. That single detail changes how the limit behaves.

A position that is $4,000 in profit at midday raises equity, and a subsequent $8,000 decline is $8,000 against the limit, not $4,000.
A position that is $3,000 in loss at midday is already consuming the limit, even if it later recovers.
Closing a losing position converts floating loss to realised loss but does not undo the consumption; the limit is about the equity path, not the closing event.

The practical consequence is that the daily limit is consumed by the worst point of the day, not by the closing balance. A trader who is down 4.5% intraday and finishes flat has been within half a percent of a breach, and the trade history will show it. A plan that assumes the daily limit resets when positions are closed is misreading the rule.

The reset convention matters too. Most plans reset at a fixed server time, and positions held across the reset carry their floating result into the new day. A position opened before midnight with a $2,000 floating loss starts the new day with that loss already counted against the new limit, which can make an otherwise normal session unusable. Check the reset time and plan around it rather than discovering it on the day.

The minimum trading day count

The plan requires a minimum number of trading days before review, commonly four. The count is per phase, so a two-phase evaluation can require eight counted days in total.

For most traders the count is invisible: a 10% target at 0.5% risk takes weeks, not days. It matters for the small group who can produce large wins quickly. A trader who reaches 10% in two sessions still waits for the count, and the waiting period is when a nearly finished account is most at risk of an unnecessary trade.

The cheapest way to complete the count is a minimum-size position in a liquid instrument at a quiet hour, with a server-side stop. The position is nearly irrelevant to the P&L and satisfies the definition. The mistake is to treat the waiting days as an opportunity to build a buffer, which adds risk to an account that needs none.

What the rulebook does not restrict

It is as useful to know what is permitted as what is not, because traders often over-comply and give up edge for no reason.

Activity	Typical position	Condition to check
Trading scheduled news	Usually permitted	Confirm current terms; some plans restrict specific events
Holding over the weekend	Plan-dependent	Usually a specific account type is required
Automated trading	Permitted with conduct limits	No high-frequency, latency or arbitrage strategies
Hedging	Usually permitted in practice	Confirm; some plans prohibit it
Multiple accounts	Permitted within a cap	Check the per-person limit and the mirroring rule
Third-party trading	Prohibited	The account holder must place the trades

The weekend row is the one that catches swing traders. A plan that permits weekend holding only on a specific account type means the standard account must be flat on Friday, which changes the strategy rather than the schedule. Check the account type before assuming the permission applies.

The automation row is the other common misunderstanding. "EAs permitted" does not mean any EA; the conduct clause excludes strategies that depend on execution speed or feed differences. A rule-based system on a higher timeframe is inside the permission. A tick scalper is not, regardless of how it is labelled.

The payout conditions after funding

Passing is not the end of the rules. The funded account has its own conditions, and they are the ones that decide whether the profit is paid.

The most important is the profit split: the trader receives a share of the profit, commonly 80% initially and rising with performance on some plans. The second is timing: on the 2-Step, a reward can be requested from the 14th day after the first trade on the funded account, then on demand, with the request reviewed in one to two business days. The third is the minimum balance or minimum profit threshold for a request. The fourth, where it applies, is a consistency condition that limits how much of the profit can come from a single period.

Each of these is a cash-flow variable rather than a trading rule, and together they determine when the first payment arrives. A funded account that is compliant but has not reached the payout threshold pays nothing, which is why the first payout date belongs in the plan from the moment the account is funded.

Free trial versus paid challenge

The free trial uses the same structure with a different purpose. It is a test of the platform, the data and the trader's process under the real rules, without a fee at risk.

It is worth using deliberately rather than as a warm-up. Two weeks on the trial produces three things that transfer directly: a realistic estimate of how many valid setups the method generates per week, a measured average win and loss in dollars, and a view of how the daily limit behaves on a normal losing day. Those three numbers set the risk per trade for the paid attempt better than any assumption.

The limitation is psychological. A trial that costs nothing does not produce the same behaviour as an account that cost several hundred dollars, and traders consistently take more risk on the paid version. Treat the trial as a measurement exercise and expect the paid attempt to be somewhat worse, not better.

Where attempts actually fail

Failure point	How it happens	Prevention
Daily loss breach	Several correlated positions lose on the same session	Cap total daily risk at 40–50% of the limit
Give-back after a good run	Size increased near the target; a reversal takes the profit and more	Reduce size as the target approaches
Phase two complacency	Half the target with the same floor encourages a larger size	Keep the phase-one risk plan unchanged
Idle-account breach	Boredom during a minimum-day count produces an unnecessary trade	Fill the count at minimum size
Post-pass breach	Rules relaxed on the funded account before the first payout	Treat the funded account as phase three

The first two account for most closures. The daily rule is breached by correlation rather than by a single oversized trade: three positions in the same direction on related pairs are one position, and their combined loss can reach the limit in a session that looks ordinary on each chart. The give-back is the mirror image, and it happens because the trader is closest to the goal when the temptation to accelerate is strongest.

A pre-purchase checklist

Confirm the phase targets, maximum loss and daily loss on the current plan page.
Confirm whether the maximum loss is static or trailing, and from which balance it is measured.
Confirm the daily loss measurement: equity or balance, and the reset time in your own time zone.
Confirm the minimum trading day count per phase.
Confirm whether weekend holding requires a specific account type.
Confirm the automation and news conditions in the current terms.
Confirm the profit split, payout cycle and minimum payout threshold.
Save a dated copy of every page you relied on.

The eighth item is the one traders skip and later need. Terms are revised, and the version in force at purchase is the one the account was sold under. A dated copy converts a disagreement about what the rules said into a document.

The transition between phases

When phase one is verified, the account moves to phase two with the same balance, the same floor and a new target. What changes is smaller than it looks, and what does not change is the part that matters.

Element	At the phase-one pass	In phase two
Balance	$110,000 after a 10% gain	Reset to $100,000, or carried — check the plan
Maximum loss	$90,000 floor	Same floor
Daily loss	5%	Same
Profit target	10%	5%
Trading-day count	Satisfied for phase one	Usually restarts

The first row is the one to confirm, because it changes the arithmetic of the second phase. Where the balance resets, the trader starts again at $100,000 with a 5% target and a 10% floor; the profit made in phase one is not carried as a buffer. Where the balance carries, the floor may also carry, which changes the distance to failure.

The fifth row is frequently missed. A phase-two count that restarts means the trader has to produce the minimum number of days again, even though the target is smaller. A trader who finished phase one in three sessions and expects phase two to be quicker will actually be waiting for the calendar twice.

Operationally, the transition is a moment to reduce size rather than increase it. The account is at a known balance, the floor is a known distance away, and the target is half of what it was. There is no mathematical reason to risk more, and the psychological reason to do so — the sense of being nearly finished — is the exact reason most phase-two accounts fail.

Planning without a deadline

The absence of a time limit is a feature, and it still requires a plan. Without a deadline, the risk moves from running out of time to running out of patience.

A useful schedule is built on setup count rather than on the calendar. Measure how many valid setups the method produced in each of the last four weeks, take the lower of those numbers as the planning assumption, and divide the target's R requirement by it. The result is a conservative number of weeks, which is the pace the trader can actually sustain.

A worked example: a method that produced eight, six, nine and seven setups in four weeks has a conservative count of six. A 10% target at 0.5% risk with a 2:1 plan needs ten net winners, which at six setups a week and a 45% win rate is about four weeks of trading. That is the realistic schedule. A trader who assumes the best week's count arrives every week will plan a fortnight and then feel behind.

The schedule should also include a deliberate off-ramp. A trader who reaches, say, −6% without having made progress is better off stopping and re-planning than continuing to press. On a plan with a static floor and no deadline, stopping is free; on a deadline it is expensive. The absence of a deadline is precisely what makes the stop option available.

Asking support the right questions

Support answers what it is asked, and the quality of the answer depends on the question. Three formats produce usable replies; three produce template text.

Weak question	Better question	Why it matters
Can I hold over the weekend?	Is weekend holding permitted on the $100,000 two-step account, and does it require a different account type?	Names the plan and the condition
Are EAs allowed?	Is a higher-timeframe rule-based EA permitted, and does the conduct clause exclude it if it trades fewer than five times a day?	Tests the actual restriction
Is news trading allowed?	Which events are covered by the restricted window, and does the restriction apply to pending orders as well as positions?	Asks for the list and the scope

A reply that names the plan, the condition and the consequence is the evidence a trader needs if a review later disagrees. A reply that says "as per the terms" is not evidence; it is a pointer to the document, and the document is the thing that will be applied.

Keep the replies with the dated terms. Together they form the record of what the account was sold under, which is the only thing that helps when a rule is applied differently from how it was read.

Standard versus swing account types

The account type is part of the rulebook, not a cosmetic choice. The two common types differ mainly in weekend holding and in leverage, and the difference decides whether a multi-day method is usable at all.

Feature	Standard type	Swing type
Weekend holding	Usually not permitted	Permitted
Leverage	Higher	Lower
Margin per lot	Lower	Higher
Suitable for	Intraday methods	Multi-day methods
Effect on position size	Larger positions possible	Smaller positions for the same margin

The trade-off is leverage against time. A swing account permits the method that a multi-day trader needs, and charges for it in margin: the same position requires more capital, so the maximum size is smaller. A trader who sizes on risk will usually find that the reduced leverage does not bind, because the risk-based size is well below the margin limit. A trader who sizes on margin will find that the swing account cannot hold the position at all.

The mistake is to choose the standard account for its leverage and then discover on Friday that the method requires holding. That discovery happens after the evaluation has started, when switching account types means restarting. The account type belongs in the pre-purchase checklist alongside the targets and the floor.

There is a second-order effect worth knowing. Because the swing account carries lower leverage, a trader cannot accidentally take a position that the risk plan did not authorise — the margin limit enforces a ceiling. That is a small structural advantage for traders who struggle with sizing discipline, and it costs nothing when the sizing is already correct.

The choice should be made from the method outward. A trader whose average holding period is measured in hours gains nothing from a swing account and gives up position size. A trader whose average holding period is measured in days gains nothing from the higher leverage on a standard account, because the method cannot use it. Writing the average holding period down before choosing the account type is a five-minute exercise that prevents a restart.

Account type also affects the trading-day count in a subtle way. A weekend-only rule forces trades to be closed on Friday, which means Monday and Friday are always counted days if the trader takes a position at all. That makes the count easier to satisfy and the holding period shorter, which is fine for an intraday method and fatal for a method that needs the weekend move. Two rules, one choice, and the choice is made before the first trade or not at all.

Common questions

Is the FTMO maximum loss static or trailing?

The standard two-phase structure uses a static maximum loss measured from the starting balance, so profit does not raise the closing level. Confirm this on the current plan page, because account types can differ.

How is the daily loss measured?

On equity, which includes floating positions. The limit is therefore consumed by the worst point of the session rather than by the closing balance, and a position that recovers can still have breached it.

What is the phase two target?

Typically half of the phase one target — 5% against 10% — with the same loss floor and the same daily stop. The lower target with an unchanged floor is why phase two is not easier.

Is there a time limit?

The standard plan has none, so the evaluation can take as long as it needs. That removes the pressure to force results but does not remove the cost of a subscription or the opportunity cost of time.

Can I trade news on the challenge?

Usually yes, subject to the current terms. Some plans restrict specific events, so check the conduct clause rather than relying on the general permission.

Can I hold positions over the weekend?

Only on account types that permit it. The standard account is often flat-only over the weekend, which turns a swing method into an intraday one unless a weekend-holding account type is chosen.

Are expert advisors allowed?

Automation is generally permitted with conduct limits. Strategies that depend on high-frequency order flow, latency or price-feed differences are excluded, and the account holder must still be the person operating the account.

What should I risk per trade on a $100,000 challenge?

Commonly 0.25% to 0.5%, or $250 to $500. At $500, ten losses consume the daily limit and twenty consume the maximum loss. Above 1% per trade, a normal losing session can breach the daily rule.

Where these rules come from

Firm figures on this page are read from the rulebooks below rather than from other comparison sites. Every link was opened and checked on 23 October 2026. Firms revise targets and drawdown rules without notice, so confirm the figures on the plan you are buying before paying. How we check firm rules sets out what a checked date means, what we publish when a figure cannot be confirmed, and how corrections are handled.

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