How to Set a Trailing Stop in MT5
MetaTrader 5 has a trailing stop built into the terminal, and it is one of the most misused features on a prop firm account — partly because of how it works, and partly because it shares a name with the firm rule that ends most evaluations. This page covers both, and why they should never be confused.
What MT5's trailing stop actually does
A trailing stop is a stop loss that follows the market. You attach it to an open position with a distance, and as price moves in your favour the terminal drags the stop along behind it, keeping that distance constant. If price reverses by the trailing distance, the position closes.
The mechanism is deliberately one-directional: the stop only ever moves toward profit, never back. That is the whole point — it converts an open win into a protected one without requiring you to watch the screen.
How to attach one
Open the Toolbox
Go to the Trade tab, where your open positions are listed. If the Toolbox is hidden, press Ctrl+T.
Right-click the position
Choose Trailing Stop from the context menu. A submenu lists preset distances in points.
Choose the distance, or set a custom one
The presets are in points, not pips and not currency. On a five-digit FX pair one pip is ten points, so a "20 point" trail is two pips — almost certainly not what you meant. Pick Custom and enter the number deliberately.
Confirm the stop appears and follows
The position's stop loss level on the chart should now move as price advances. If it does not, the trailing stop is not armed — check that the platform is connected.
Points, pips and sizes are not the same number
The trailing distance is expressed in points. A 10-point trail on EURUSD is one pip; the same 10-point trail on an index or a futures CFD may be a meaningful fraction of the day's range. Convert before you set it, or the feature will behave very differently from what you intended on the instrument you happen to be trading.
The limit nobody mentions: it is client-side
The MT5 trailing stop is maintained by your terminal, not by the broker. That has three consequences:
- It only trails while MT5 is running and connected. Close the laptop and the last stop level stays where it was; nothing continues to follow price.
- A dropped connection freezes it. During a news spike or a network problem, the stop sits at its last level while price moves on.
- A restart loses the arm state. The stop loss remains, but the trailing behaviour generally does not resume by itself — it has to be re-attached.
If your plan depends on a stop following price around the clock, that job belongs in a server-side resting stop order, or in a broker feature that holds the trailing on the server. Confirm which your setup provides before relying on it, and remember that an evaluation runs for weeks rather than an afternoon.
The name collision that costs accounts
MetaTrader's trailing stop and a prop firm's trailing drawdown appear in the same sentence constantly and describe unrelated things.
| MT5 trailing stop | Prop firm trailing drawdown | |
|---|---|---|
| Applies to | One position you choose | The entire account, always |
| Moves when | Price moves in your favour | Your balance reaches a new high |
| Controlled by | You | The firm's rulebook |
| If it triggers | The trade closes | The account is failed |
| Effect of a winner that retraces | Profit is protected | Your remaining buffer is smaller than when you started |
The last row is the dangerous one. On a trailing-drawdown account, letting a position run to a large unrealised profit raises the firm's loss floor. Give the profit back and the floor stays raised — you are closer to failure than before the trade, having never lost money on it. That mechanism is explained in full here.
When a trailing stop helps, and when it hurts
| Your account | Effect of a platform trailing stop |
|---|---|
| Static drawdown | Neutral to helpful. It cannot raise a floor that never moves, so it is purely an exit-management choice. |
| Trailing drawdown | Can hurt. A trail that lets a winner run keeps the position open while the firm's floor rises behind it. Taking profit earlier — the opposite of what the trail does — is often the safer play. |
| Consistency rule at payout | Can hurt. Trailing lets the largest position grow into the largest single-day profit, which is exactly the day a consistency rule caps. |
So the honest summary is that the MT5 trailing stop is an exit-management tool that assumes the account's risk rules are static. On a challenge that pairs a trailing drawdown with a payout-stage consistency rule, the behaviour it encourages — hold the winner, let it get bigger — is the behaviour both rules penalise.
A better use of the same idea
If the goal is to protect profit without the exposure of a trailing exit, the two substitutes are usually better on an evaluation:
- Partial exits. Close a defined fraction at a first target, then manage the remainder manually. Progress is banked and the outlier trades are still available.
- Stop to break-even after a fixed move. A one-off adjustment rather than a continuous trail. It removes the downside on the trade without inviting the position to keep running past the point where the reward has justified the risk.
Neither needs the terminal to be running. Both keep the exit decision where the rules of the account can actually see it.
Frequently asked questions
The FAQ block covers how to attach the trailing stop, whether it works with the platform closed, the difference from a trailing drawdown, whether it suits a challenge and how to choose the distance. Related: setting a stop loss in MT5, setting a take profit in MT5 and daily drawdown explained.
How do I set a trailing stop in MetaTrader 5?
Does the MT5 trailing stop work when the terminal is closed?
What is the difference between a trailing stop and a trailing drawdown?
Is a trailing stop a good idea on a prop firm challenge?
How many points should the trailing distance be?
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