FTMO Rules Explained: Every Limit That Ends Your Challenge

Which FTMO rules differ between the 2-Step and the 1-Step?

Both products exist. Some third-party articles still say the 1-Step does not — those are out of date; FTMO announced it in April 2026.

Where does each FTMO figure on this page come from?

No cell reads “not stated” any more. The two that did — the 1-Step's minimum trading days and the 2-Step's reward share — were answered by FTMO support on 7 September 2026, citing ftmo.com/en/trading-objectives/ and ftmo.com/en/why-do-we-care-about-open-losses/.

One cell carries a double dagger (‡). That marks something FTMO told us directly but which is not a published figure you can go and check — in this case their reasoning that the Best Day Rule makes two trading days the practical floor on the 1-Step. It is first-party and unverifiable at the same time, so it is marked rather than blended in with the rules you can read on their site.

Why does FTMO's daily loss limit end more challenges than the maximum loss?

On the 2-Step, your daily loss limit is 5% of that day's starting balance, and it resets at midnight CE(S)T. Work it through on a $100,000 account after a good week.

Three things traders consistently get wrong about that number.

1. What is FTMO's daily loss measured from?

Not from your initial deposit, and not from your peak. The limit is recalculated every day, so it moves with you. Traders who memorise “$5,000” on a $100,000 account are working from a figure that stopped being correct on day two.

2. Does unrealised loss count toward the daily limit?

The calculation counts open positions. A trade sitting in drawdown counts against your daily limit right now, at its current price — you do not have to close it to fail. A position that dips into the limit and then recovers to profit has already ended the account.

FTMO's wording: “Losses are calculated not only from closed trades but also from open losses, so both open and closed positions as a total. This is valid for both the 1-Step and 2-Step FTMO Challenge.” This page previously documented it for the 2-Step only and told readers to confirm the 1-Step separately. That caveat is now closed: it applies to both.

3. Does touching the daily limit once end the challenge?

There is no grace and no averaging. If your equity prints $97,849 for a single second, on the example above, the challenge is over. It does not matter where you finish the day.

Put together, this is why disciplined traders cap personal risk at 1–2% per trade rather than trading toward the 5% ceiling: the ceiling is a hard failure boundary, not a budget. On the 1-Step's 3% daily loss the margin is thinner still, and sizing that felt survivable on a 2-Step account will not transfer.

The unrealised-P&L inclusion applies to both products, so that thinner 3% margin is measured against open positions too — there is no version of the 1-Step where an open drawdown is invisible until you close it.

Is FTMO's maximum loss static or trailing?

Both products cap total loss at 10%. How that 10% is measured is completely different, and this is the single most useful thing on this page.

How does the 2-Step's static floor work?

The floor is fixed from your initial balance and never moves. A $100,000 account has a floor at $90,000 on day one and still has it at $90,000 six weeks later, whether you are up $15,000 or down $2,000. Profit you make becomes permanent cushion.

How does the 1-Step's end-of-day trailing floor work?

The boundary derives from your highest balance at the end of a trading day — not from intraday equity fluctuations. Make a new end-of-day high and the floor moves up behind you and stays there. Give the profit back and it does not come down.

The end-of-day part matters enormously and is worth reading twice. Because the boundary is set on closing balances, an intraday spike does not move it, and neither does an open position running in your favour. That makes it far more forgiving than the intraday trailing model some futures firms use, where an unrealised peak counts against you.

If you have traded one FTMO product and are moving to the other, this is the thing that will catch you out. The same risk approach produces a different outcome under the two models — we worked the arithmetic through on a single account in static vs trailing drawdown, which is the companion piece to this page.

Which FTMO products does the Best Day Rule apply to?

Applies to the 1-Step Challenge and the 1-Step FTMO Account only. Your single most profitable day must represent 50% or lessof your Positive Days' Profit, with profit calculated from closed trades.

FTMO's own worked example:

Exceeding it is not a rule breach, and most articles get this wrong. FTMO states this explicitly. Nothing is terminated and no account is closed. You resolve it by continuing to trade and growing your Positive Days' Profit until your best day falls below 50% of the total. It is a condition to satisfy, not a failure condition.

Practically, that means one enormous day early on does not sink you — it just means you now need more trading days behind it before the proportion comes right. Results are shown in Account MetriX.

How many trading days does FTMO require, and what counts as one?

Four per phase on the 2-Step. Three details attached to that, all of which trip people up:

At least one position must be opened on each of those days. A multi-day trade counts only on the day it was opened — leaving a position running does not earn credit for the days it stays open. And the days do not need to be consecutive.

Our source does not state a minimum for the 1-Step Challenge. Rather than assume it matches the 2-Step, check it on ftmo.com.

Which FTMO rules depend on the account type you pick?

Do FTMO's news restrictions apply to Standard or Swing accounts?

News-trading restrictions apply to Standard accounts only, and only once you are on an FTMO Account — they do not apply during the Evaluation Process. Swing accounts have no news restrictions at all. If your strategy trades releases, the account type you pick is a rule decision, not a preference.

Do these rules cover FTMO Futures?

This page covers the forex and CFD products. FTMO Futures is separate and carries its own rules: the trading day runs from 6:00 p.m. ET to 4:10 p.m. ET the following calendar day, accounts are assessed after the trading day ends, and the Sim-Funded Account has no Profit Target and no Consistency Rule. If you are on Futures, read that product's terms rather than this page.

Does FTMO still impose a 30-day deadline?

No calendar deadline on the Evaluation appears in FTMO's current materials as of August 2026. Several older articles still cite 30-day and 60-day windows, which appear to describe a previous version of the product. This is exactly the kind of term a firm can reinstate, so confirm it on ftmo.com before planning around unlimited time.

How do you avoid breaching FTMO's rules?

Size to the daily limit, not the total.The 10% max loss is rarely what ends a challenge; the daily loss is. Work backwards from today's stop-out level — recalculated each morning from that day's opening balance — and pick a per-trade risk that survives a losing streak inside it. At 1% per trade against a 5% daily limit you can be wrong five times before the day is over. At 3% you get one and a half.

Recompute after good days, not just bad ones. Your daily limit moves with your opening balance, and on the 1-Step your max loss floor moves with your end-of-day highs. Both change after a profitable session, which is precisely when traders stop checking.

Treat open positions as already counted. Because unrealised loss counts on both products, a position left running through a news event is exposure to the daily limit whether you are watching or not.

Do not carry a 2-Step approach onto a 1-Step account. Static and EOD trailing reward different behaviour. Under static, early profit is permanent room. Under trailing, giving back an end-of-day gain permanently reduces your buffer.

How do you work out your own FTMO buffer?

Our Prop Firm Challenge Calculator is free and needs no account. It has separate FTMO 2-Step and 1-Step presets — including the static/trailing difference — so you can enter your account size and see your profit target, daily loss limit and drawdown buffer for the product you actually bought.

For per-trade sizing against those limits, the Position Size Calculator converts a risk percentage and a stop distance into a lot size.

How do you track FTMO's rules while you trade?

Tradeventure's Prop Firm Mode models static, end-of-day trailing and intraday trailing drawdown against your logged trades, alongside daily loss limits, profit targets, minimum trading days and consistency rules — and warns you as you approach a breach rather than after it. It works from the trades you log, so it is a second opinion on your risk, not a replacement for your firm's own meter.

Frequently asked questions

What is the FTMO daily loss limit?

On the 2-Step Challenge it is 5% of that day's starting balance, resetting at midnight CE(S)T. It is not 5% of your initial deposit — the number moves every day. Start a day at $103,000 on a $100,000 account and your limit is $5,150, putting your stop-out at $97,850. The 1-Step Challenge uses a 3% max daily loss, recalculated at the start of each new trading day. Verified against ftmo.com, August 2026.

What is the difference between the FTMO 2-Step and 1-Step Challenge?

The drawdown model, above everything else. The 2-Step uses static maximum loss — the floor is fixed from your initial balance and never moves, so on a $100,000 account it stays at $90,000 permanently. The 1-Step uses 10% EOD trailing, where the boundary derives from your highest balance at the END of a trading day rather than from intraday equity. The 2-Step also has two phases with 10% and 5% profit targets and a 5% daily loss; the 1-Step has one phase, a 10% target, a 3% daily loss, a 90% reward share and the Best Day Rule.

What is the FTMO Best Day Rule?

Your single most profitable day must represent 50% or less of your Positive Days' Profit, calculated from closed trades. It applies to the 1-Step Challenge and the 1-Step FTMO Account only. FTMO's own example: if Day 2 produced $10,000 of $16,000 total Positive Days' Profit, that is 62.5% and the rule is not yet satisfied — if Day 2 remains the best day, Positive Days' Profit must reach at least $20,000. Results are shown in Account MetriX.

What happens if I break the FTMO Best Day Rule?

Nothing is terminated. This is the detail most articles get wrong: exceeding the Best Day proportion is not a rule breach. FTMO states explicitly that you resolve it by continuing to trade and growing your Positive Days' Profit until your best day falls below 50% of the total. It is a condition to be satisfied before payout, not a failure condition that ends the account.

Does the FTMO daily loss limit include open positions?

Yes, on both. FTMO's wording is that losses are calculated not only from closed trades but also from open losses, so both open and closed positions as a total, and that this is valid for both the 1-Step and 2-Step Challenge. An open trade that dips into the limit fails the account even if it would have recovered; you do not have to close anything to breach it, and touching the level for a single moment is enough. Confirmed by FTMO support, 7 September 2026.

How many days do I have to trade in an FTMO Challenge?

Four per phase on the 2-Step, per FTMO's own materials. At least one position must be opened on each of those days, and a multi-day trade counts only on the day it was opened — holding it does not earn credit for subsequent days. The days do not need to be consecutive.

The 1-Step has no formal minimum, but FTMO point out that the Best Day Rule sets a practical floor of two: a single trading day cannot be 50% or less of a total it is the entirety of, so one day can never satisfy the rule. That reasoning is theirs, given to us directly rather than published as a figure.

Is there a time limit on the FTMO Challenge?

No calendar deadline for the Evaluation appears in FTMO's current materials as of August 2026. Older third-party articles still cite 30-day and 60-day windows, which appear to describe a previous version of the product. Because this is exactly the kind of term a firm can reinstate, confirm it on ftmo.com before you plan a challenge around having unlimited time.

Rules verified against ftmo.com and updated 7 September 2026 from a written reply by FTMO support, which supplied the open-loss treatment on both products, both reward shares and the 1-Step minimum trading days, citing ftmo.com/en/trading-objectives/ and ftmo.com/en/why-do-we-care-about-open-losses/. FTMO updates its terms — confirm on ftmo.com before purchasing an evaluation. This page is educational and is not financial advice, and Tradeventure is not affiliated with FTMO.

E8 Markets rules explained covers a firm that sells three different drawdown models at once, which makes the static-versus-trailing split easier to see than any single product can. FundedNext rules explained covers a second firm doing the same thing, where the published coverage cannot even agree on which model applies.

Running a challenge right now? The behavioural side — why they are usually lost to a broken rule rather than a bad read — is in trading journal for prop firm traders.

Next: The5ers rules explained compares all five of that firm's programs — and its daily loss is measured from the higher of balance or equity rather than from the day's opening balance, which is a genuine trap if you run both. Static vs trailing drawdown works the two models through on one account, and both calculators are free with no signup — the Prop Firm Challenge Calculator and the Position Size Calculator, with more in free tools. If you are picking a journal to track a challenge in, we wrote honest comparisons against TradeZella, Edgewonk and Tradervue.