FTMO Challenge Rules: The Numbers, and How to Check Yours
FTMO Challenge rules in FTMO's own numbers: profit target, daily loss, maximum loss, Best Day, and how to check a strategy against them first.
The FTMO Challenge is decided by a profit target, a maximum daily loss and a maximum overall loss, plus one more rule that depends on which version you take: a consistency rule on the 1-Step, a minimum number of trading days on the 2-Step. The percentages differ between the two, and so does the way the overall loss limit is measured.
The numbers here are the CFD Challenge, in FTMO's own words, checked on ftmo.com on 2026-10-07. FTMO also sells a separate Futures product, and its trading objectives are a different set of rules. The CFD set is the one that lines up with a ChartLabs backtest, because our markets are forex, indices, crypto, commodities and metals. FTMO revises its objectives, so check their page before you rely on a figure.
What are the FTMO Challenge rules?
| Rule | 1-Step | 2-Step |
|---|---|---|
| Profit target | 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital | 10% for the FTMO Challenge, 5% for the Verification |
| Maximum Daily Loss | 3% of the Initial Simulated Capital | 5% of the Initial Simulated Capital |
| Maximum Loss | Amount is 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital, taken off your highest end-of-day balance: an end-of-day trailing limit | Amount is 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital, taken off the Initial Simulated Capital: a static limit |
| Minimum trading days | none stated for this version | "at least 4 Trading Days", in both phases |
| Trading period | "Unlimited" | "Unlimited" |
| Best Day rule | applies, at 50% | not stated for this version |
| Reward share | "90%" | "Up to 90%" |
Both versions set the Maximum Loss Amount at 10%, and each measures it from a different base.
What is the maximum daily loss, and when does the day reset?
It is 3% of the Initial Simulated Capital on the 1-Step and 5% on the 2-Step, recalculated every day at 00:00 CE(S)T. FTMO's wording for the 1-Step is "Maximum Daily Loss Amount, which is 3% of the Initial Simulated Capital".
The base is the balance recorded at the day's reset, not your starting capital, so a day that opens higher gets a higher floor: FTMO's own example takes a balance of $102,000 at midnight and sets the day's 1-Step limit at $99,000.
A losing run that straddles midnight Central European time is split across two daily allowances, and one inside a single session is not. If your strategy trades the New York afternoon, that boundary falls in the middle of your day.
What is the maximum loss, and is it static or trailing?
The amount is the same on both versions, 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital. The two differ in what the 10% gets subtracted from.
On the 1-Step, the rule "establishes an end-of-day trailing limit". FTMO recalculates it daily at 00:00 CE(S)T as the difference between "the highest account balance achieved at 00:00 CE(S)T of any preceding trading day or, if higher, the amount of Initial Simulated Capital" and "the Maximum Loss Amount, which is 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital". In their words: "The limit can only increase, but never decrease." The base in that formula is your best end-of-day balance so far, not your starting capital, so closing a day higher moves the floor up behind you and it stays there for the rest of that account. FTMO names one reset: "when a Reward is withdrawn and a new FTMO Account is provided, the Maximum Loss Limit fully resets, returning the first-day limit to 90% of the Initial Simulated Capital".
On the 2-Step, the rule "establishes a static limit", calculated as the difference between "the Initial Simulated Capital" and "the Maximum Loss Amount, which is 10% of the Initial Simulated Capital". FTMO's worked example is a Maximum Loss Amount of $10,000 and a limit of $90,000. The base never moves.
On day one of a first attempt the two sit in the same place, 10% below your starting capital, because the 1-Step has no preceding day to trail from. They diverge the moment you make money.
Work the 1-Step formula through on a good month and the limit cuts both ways. Close a month up 6% and your highest end-of-day balance is 106% of where you started, so the floor sits at 106% minus the 10% Maximum Loss Amount: 96% of your starting capital. It has climbed six points from the 90% you began on, and it is still four points below your starting balance. The drawdown that ends the attempt is always a give-back of 10 points of initial capital from your best end-of-day close, so every point you add to that close takes a point of room off the bad day after it, and the floor reaches your starting balance only once an end-of-day balance has reached the 10% profit target. A static limit leaves your whole buffer available on the last day as much as the first. Our drawdown calculator works that give-back out on a balance you type in.
FTMO also states that the daily loss and maximum loss rules apply "to the FTMO Challenge: 1-Step as well as the FTMO Account (1-Step)", so those two limits carry on past the evaluation, while the profit target does not: "There is no Profit Target on the subsequent FTMO Account (1-Step)."
This is why a maximum drawdown figure on its own does not tell you whether you would have stayed inside a rule set. The same equity curve can pass a static limit and breach a trailing one, which is why the ChartLabs scorer checks "Maximum drawdown, including static, trailing, and trailing intraday" rather than one drawdown number.
How many trading days do you need?
On the 2-Step, four. FTMO's wording is that the rule "requires the trader to achieve at least 4 Trading Days", where a Trading Day is any day, measured from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 CE(S)T, during which at least one position is opened. It "applies to both phases (FTMO Challenge and Verification)", and FTMO states that "There is no Minimum Trading Days rule on the subsequent FTMO Account (2-Step)". FTMO's 1-Step objectives list no minimum trading days rule at all.
Nothing in the rule asks for consecutive days.
Is there a time limit on the FTMO Challenge?
No. FTMO's comparison table gives the trading period as "Unlimited" on both products, and their Challenge page lists "No Time Limit" among the advantages.
The daily loss limit still resets and applies for every day you trade, so a slower approach gives you more days on which the limit can be hit.
What is the difference between the 1-Step and the 2-Step Challenge?
One phase, a tighter 3% daily limit, a Best Day rule and a trailing maximum loss, against two phases, a looser 5% daily limit, four trading days per phase and a static maximum loss. Which one suits a strategy depends on the shape of its results rather than on which looks easier:
- Large daily swings sit closer to the 1-Step's 3% line and get more room on the 2-Step.
- Profit that arrives in one or two big days has the Best Day rule to deal with on the 1-Step.
- A strategy that needs many trades to produce anything has two targets to clear on the 2-Step instead of one.
- A strategy that gives back a chunk of its gains before finishing is the one the trailing limit catches, because the floor has already moved up behind it.
What is the Best Day rule?
On the 1-Step, FTMO requires that your "Best Day does not represent more than 50% of your Positive Days' Profit". No single winning day may be more than half of everything your winning days made.
FTMO also states that "Exceeding the Best Day limit is not treated as a rule breach. However, you need to continue trading to generate additional profit until your Best Day (the most profitable day) represents 50% or less of your Positive Days' Profit on the account." So it extends the attempt rather than ending it: you keep trading until your other winning days have caught up enough that the best one is no longer more than half the total. FTMO shows the result of the check "in the Account MetriX".
The check is arithmetic on your winning days, so a set of backtested trades already contains the answer: add up the profit from every positive day, and see whether the biggest one is more than half of it.
How much is the FTMO Challenge?
FTMO's comparison table prices the two products separately, for the smallest account each one offers: the 2-Step at "Starts from €89" and the 1-Step at "Starts from €79". Larger sizes cost more, up to an account FTMO describes as "up to $200,000 in a simulated capital".
The refund row is not the same on both. The table marks the 2-Step "Yes 100%" and leaves the 1-Step's refund as a dash, so the cheaper product is the one with no fee refund attached. FTMO does not state on that table what the refund depends on.
Prices move and promotions run on single account sizes, so take the figure from FTMO's own page on the day you buy.
What happens if you fail the FTMO Challenge?
The attempt ends when a rule is breached. Whether a fresh attempt costs a new fee is a question for FTMO.
FTMO does publish what to look at afterwards. Their post on failing tells traders to review their "RRR (Reward-Risk Ratio)", win ratios, maximum drawdown, daily limits and trade timing patterns, and to ask "Do I have a new plan or just the same approach with a fresh start?" Every number on that list can be measured on trades you have already taken on historical data.
How can you tell whether your strategy would pass before you pay?
Score trades you have already backtested against the published rules. The ChartLabs Prop Firms scorer does that. It does not connect to a prop firm, it does not place live trades, it does not provide funding, and a pass in the scorer is not a pass with any firm.
It takes closed trades from a strategy you backtested and re-scores them against a read-only catalog of real challenge structures, from firms such as FTMO, The5ers, FundedNext, E8 Markets, Goat Funded Trader, FXIFY, Maven Trading and FundingPips, across 1-step, 2-step, 3-step and instant funding models. The checks are profit target, daily loss limit, maximum drawdown in all three forms, minimum trading days, consistency rules, time limits and weekend holding rules. Each challenge comes back as Pass, Almost, Not yet or Failed, with the single rule that held you back named beside it.
That is FTMO's group scored on the demo account's own backtested strategy, as the catalog stood when the screenshot was taken. Neither version came back Pass, both came back Almost, and both name the same reason: the profit target. The catalog follows the firms, so which challenges sit under a name changes when they change.
The same trades re-scaled at a smaller size produce a different equity curve, so sizing alone changes which rule sets you would have stayed inside. A smaller size takes longer to reach a profit target and keeps you further from a drawdown limit, which on the 1-Step pulls both ways: a floor that trails your best close rewards a slow climb, and the profit target does not.
The 1.25% on that slider is the setting the Almost verdicts were produced at, and moving it re-scores every row. The boxes on the right are constraints of your own rather than any firm's, a daily stop loss and a cap on trades per day, both optional.
FTMO's review list maps onto the analytics closely. Reward-risk ratio and win ratios are Risk:Reward and Win Rate in Quick Stats. Maximum drawdown sits next to Sharpe, Sortino and Calmar. Trade timing patterns are Timing Insights, by the hour and the day you opened trades. And the distribution the Best Day rule cares about is the Stats Calendar.
None of this predicts an attempt, because markets do not repeat. It tells you which rule sets your strategy has no chance against and what sizing would change that, which is cheaper to learn on historical data than on a fee.
Prop Firm Backtesting covers how the scorer works in detail, and Backtesting Accuracy covers why a backtest without trading costs flatters every one of those numbers. If you have not backtested anything yet, the beginner's guide is the place to start.
What you need before you pay a fee
A strategy with closed trades behind it, because there is nothing for the scorer to read until the trades exist. The data under them is sourced from Dukascopy, tick-level where it is available, cleaned to remove anomalies and converted to 1-minute candles, running up to around 22 years on the oldest forex pairs, with other instruments starting later. Commission and slippage are applied per symbol, so the balance those limits get measured against is after costs.
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