FTMO daily loss is 5% of initial balance — $2,500 fixed on a $50k 2-Step, 3% on the 1-Step
FTMO's Maximum Daily Loss is a fixed percentage of the account's INITIAL balance — 5% on the 2-Step Challenge ($2,500 on $50k) and 3% on the 1-Step — a fixed dollar allowance subtracted from each day's opening equity. The allowance never changes as equity grows. Free path: the free calculator — no signup.
Working backwards: free path with FTMO Challenge (2-Step) pre-loaded — daily loss is 5% of INITIAL balance ($2,500 on $50k), 3% on the 1-Step ($1,500); floor = day-open equity − fixed allowance. Feed your win rate and R and read pass probability plus the failure cause that binds first. No signup; computed in-browser.
Numbers first: 2-Step = 5% of initial ($2,500 on $50k); 1-Step = 3% ($1,500); floor(day) = equity at day-open − fixed allowance. The allowance never grows with equity.
Every day you get $2,500. The number never changes — where it's measured from does.
Binding constraint — Maximum Daily Loss, 5% of the account's INITIAL balance, applied fresh to each day's opening equityTraders describe FTMO's daily loss limit two different ways, and only one of them is what the rule text says. The common shorthand — "you can't drop more than 5% below where you started the day" — sounds like a floor that resets to the account's running balance. What FTMO actually publishes is narrower and stricter: the allowance itself is a fixed dollar amount, sized once from your initial balance, and it never gets bigger or smaller — even as the account grows. What resets every day is only the reference point that fixed amount is measured from.
Scope: this page describes FTMO's Maximum Daily Loss, as transcribed in our rule corpus and dated below, on the FTMO Challenge (2-Step, id ftmo2) and the 1-Step. Both products carry the mechanic; only the percentage and the minimum trading days differ. For the firm's separate Maximum Loss (overall drawdown) rule, see the comparison table below.
What the rule actually does
Two facts, both drawn from FTMO's own published trading objectives, combine into the mechanic:
- The allowance is a percentage of the INITIAL balance, not of current equity. FTMO's own text: "Maximum Daily Loss Amount, which is 5% of the Initial" (2-Step) and "3% of the Initial" (1-Step). On a $50,000 account that is a flat $2,500 or $1,500 — the same dollar figure on day one of the evaluation as on the last day, whatever the account's equity has grown to.
- The floor for a given day is that day's opening equity minus the fixed allowance — not the account's original starting balance minus the allowance. FTMO's own worked example, published for a $200,000 account: "$204,000 − $10,000 = $194,000". $10,000 is the fixed 5% allowance on that account size; $204,000 is that day's opening equity, already above the account's $200,000 initial balance from prior profit. The floor moved up to $194,000 not because the rule changed, but because the reference point it's measured from did.
Put the two together and the mechanic is neither a moving percentage nor a wall bolted to the starting balance. It is a fixed-length ruler, laid down fresh each morning against wherever the account's equity happens to be standing.
A ruler, not a percentage. The allowance's length never changes; only where the ruler gets laid down each day does.
Same $2,500 allowance, two different days. Where does the floor sit?
The floor moved up by exactly the $2,000 the account made in between — the same $2,500 gap, laid down against a new opening point. Nothing about the allowance's size changed.
Floor: day-open equity minus a constant $2,500. The gap is fixed; the line it's drawn from is not.
A worked example
Say you're on the $50,000 FTMO Challenge (2-Step), 5% Maximum Daily Loss:
- Day 1 opens at $50,000 equity. Today's floor: $50,000 − $2,500 = $47,500.
- You close the day up $2,000. Equity is now $52,000.
- Day 2 opens at $52,000. Today's floor recalculates: $52,000 − $2,500 = $49,500. The floor rose $2,000 — not because a drawdown ratchet caught up with a peak, but because the day's own reference point moved with your profit.
- A rough morning on day 2 takes equity to $49,300 before you close the position. Daily loss limit breached — on an account that is still $2,700 above where it opened five days earlier.
The allowance itself was $2,500 on day 1 and $2,500 on day 2 — identical. What moved was the opening point it's subtracted from, and that is recalculated every single trading day, win or lose.
The rule as arithmetic
Collapsed to one line, the daily floor for any given trading day is:
floor(day) = equity at day's open − (daily-loss % × initial balance)The second term is a constant for the whole evaluation — it is fixed the moment the account is funded and never recomputed against a bigger or smaller balance. The first term changes every day. That is the whole rule: a constant-length allowance, re-anchored daily to wherever the account's equity opened.
Our corpus's reading is that the check runs on equity, not on closed-trade balance — a floating, unrealized loss on an open position counts against the day's allowance before the trade is ever closed. That reading is recorded as derived from FTMO's published language rather than quoted verbatim, because FTMO states it plainly for the overall Maximum Loss rule but less explicitly for the daily one.
The one thing FTMO's documentation does not settle
FTMO states the trading day "recalculates daily at 00:00 CE(S)T." That single sentence is precise about the local clock and imprecise about UTC, because Central European time shifts with daylight saving: 00:00 CET (winter) is 23:00 UTC the day before, and 00:00 CEST (summer) is 22:00 UTC the day before — a one-hour difference that can matter to a trade held into the last hour of the session. FTMO's own materials do not state which convention governs, or whether the platform's reset time itself shifts with the clock change. Our corpus previously held two different UTC values for what turned out to be the identical published sentence; it now records the field as an open ambiguity rather than resolving it silently, with the conservative reading — 23:00 UTC — carried in the engine's modeling notes.
The daily loss limit, by mechanic
"Daily loss limit" is not one mechanic across firms. What we've verified directly for the three rule sets covered on this page differs structurally, not just by percentage:
| Rule set | Daily loss limit | How it's sized |
|---|---|---|
| FTMO Challenge, 2-Step | 5% of initial | Fixed dollar amount, subtracted from each day's opening equity |
| FTMO Challenge, 1-Step | 3% of initial | Same mechanic, tighter allowance |
| FundedNext Legacy Challenge | None | No daily check at all — see FundedNext's consistency rule for what actually binds there |
| MyFundedFutures Builder, $25K | None | Same program, no daily check on this size |
| MyFundedFutures Builder, $50K | 2% of initial | Fixed dollar "soft pause" (lockout, not elimination) — see the size-dependent version of this mechanic |
Rows are transcribed from each firm's own published documentation, dated on the rule changelog. FTMO's overall Maximum Loss (10% on the 2-Step, also 10% on the 1-Step) is a separate rule from the daily one: it is static, anchored once to the initial balance for the whole evaluation, and never recalculates the way the daily floor does — the two rules on the same account move on entirely different schedules.
Also transcribed for this preset: the 2-Step requires a minimum of 4 trading days and carries no evaluation-blocking consistency requirement in our corpus — FTMO's own Best Day rule is recorded separately as a documented omission, because the firm's language ties it to first-payout eligibility rather than to passing the evaluation, so it is not modeled as a cause of failure here. The 1-Step has no minimum trading days but does carry a 50% best-day consistency requirement that blocks the pass, covered on its own preset. Every simplification is disclosed in the preset's modeling notes inside the engine, and dated on the rule changelog.
What changes the odds under this mechanic
These are properties of the rule, not recommendations. What any of them is worth for a given trader is a number the engine simulates from that trader's own statistics.
- Risk per trade against a fixed allowance. Because the dollar amount never grows with the account, risk per trade sets how many independent losing days the allowance can absorb — and that ratio is fixed for the whole evaluation, not eased as the account grows.
- Floating exposure during the day. If the check runs on equity, a single open position that moves against you spends the day's allowance before you decide whether to close it.
- Days where the account opens up. A day that opens above the initial balance has a floor above the initial balance too — the allowance is the same $2,500, but it's measured from a higher line, so the account's cushion to the daily floor and its cushion to the (static) overall Maximum Loss are two different numbers that happen to move independently.
- Knowing the number before the fee. A simulated pass probability under this rule is derivable from win rate, average R and risk size. The engine simulates yours, locally, before the fee leaves your card.
Questions traders actually ask
How is FTMO's Maximum Daily Loss calculated?
As a fixed percentage of your account's INITIAL balance — 5% on the FTMO Challenge (2-Step), 3% on the 1-Step — never your current equity. On a $50,000 account that is a flat $2,500 or $1,500 every single trading day, whatever the account has grown to. That fixed dollar amount is then subtracted from that day's own opening equity to set the day's floor. Run the free calculator against your own win rate and risk size.
Does the Maximum Daily Loss reset every day?
The floor's location resets daily — it is recalculated from that day's opening equity each morning — but the size of the allowance behind it never changes. FTMO's own published example on a $200,000 account computes a day's floor as $204,000 minus the fixed $10,000 allowance, i.e. from that day's own opening equity, not from the account's original starting balance.
Does FTMO's daily loss limit count open, unrealized positions?
Our corpus's reading of FTMO's published language is yes — the check runs on equity, which includes floating profit and loss, not only on closed trades. That reading is recorded as derived rather than as a verbatim rule sentence, because FTMO's own text does not state it as plainly as it states the percentage.
What time does FTMO's daily loss limit reset?
FTMO states the day resets at 00:00 CE(S)T, but that single sentence converts to two different UTC times depending on daylight saving — 23:00 UTC in winter (CET) and 22:00 UTC in summer (CEST) — and FTMO's own materials do not disambiguate which reading applies where. Our corpus records this as an unresolved field rather than picking one silently; the engine's conservative reading is 23:00 UTC.
Is the daily loss limit the same on FTMO's 1-Step and 2-Step Challenges?
No. The 2-Step Challenge carries a 5% Maximum Daily Loss; the 1-Step carries 3%. On a $50,000 account that is $2,500 a day on the 2-Step against $1,500 a day on the 1-Step — a tighter daily allowance on the product that only has to be cleared once.
Working backwards: free path before the fixed daily floor takes the account.
FTMO daily loss is 5% of INITIAL on the 2-Step ($2,500 on $50k) and 3% on the 1-Step ($1,500) — a fixed dollar allowance subtracted from each day's opening equity, not a % of current equity. Pass probability, dominant failure cause, expected attempts and fee spend. Free, no signup, computed in your browser.
Run the FTMO simulation — freeOpens the engine with the FTMO Challenge (2-Step) rule set pre-loaded. Your inputs, trade files and results stay on your device — the requests the product does make are itemised in the privacy policy, and the modelling is described in the methodology.
Companion reads: FTMO max-loss after payout (does not reset) · FundedNext's consistency rule, which raises the target instead of failing the pass · MyFundedFutures' daily loss limit, which only exists on one account size · Topstep's 50% consistency rule, explained with the math.
PropSurvival is independent analytical software and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by FTMO. "FTMO" is used here only to identify the rule set being described. Rule descriptions are transcribed from the firm's published documentation on the date shown above; firms change rules without notice, and the firm's own documentation is always the final authority. Nothing on this page is investment advice, trading advice, or a recommendation to purchase any evaluation program. Every figure the engine produces is a simulation over user-supplied inputs and transcribed rules, under the assumptions stated in the methodology — not a prediction of any actual account's outcome.