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// the rules, in plain english

Prop firm challenge rules explained

Every prop firm dresses up the same handful of rules in its own words. Once you can see the four that matter, every challenge looks the same, and you know exactly which line to watch. They are set out below in plain English, with the two that end most accounts flagged.

The four rules every challenge has

1. Profit target. The amount you must make to pass, usually a percentage of the account. This is the one traders focus on, and the least likely to fail you.
2. Daily loss limit. The most you can lose in a single day, measured from your balance (or equity) at the day's start. Breach it and the account is gone, regardless of profit. This one ends more challenges than any other.
3. Maximum drawdown. The hard floor: the most the account can fall from its starting point (or its peak, if the drawdown trails). Hit it and it is over.
4. Minimum trading days. A number of separate days you must trade, so a single lucky session cannot pass you. It rarely fails anybody, and it is easy to forget.

Two more show up often: a consistency rule (no single day can be too large a share of your profit) and news or weekend restrictions on some account types. Always confirm the exact numbers against your own firm's live objectives, because they change.

A worked example: FTMO

To make it concrete, take FTMO. These are their numbers as we last verified them on 6 October 2026, and you should confirm against their live objectives before you rely on them. The 2-Step evaluation, meaning two phases you pass in turn, runs a 5% daily loss limit, a 10% maximum loss, a 10% profit target on Step 1 and 5% on Step 2, and a 4-trading-day minimum in each phase. The 1-Step, a single phase, runs a tighter 3% daily loss with a 10% trailing drawdown, meaning the floor follows your highest end-of-day balance up instead of staying fixed at the starting one. Our FTMO rules page breaks each down.

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Which rules end challenges

The profit target, the rule everyone fixates on, almost never fails people. The daily loss limit and the maximum drawdown do, because those two get crossed in a bad emotional moment rather than by a bad strategy. Passing a challenge is mostly about holding those two lines, and only a little about hitting the target faster.

Where EXIT CODE fits

The four rules above are numbers, so EXIT CODE loads them once and reads every trade against them before it is placed, on your own cTrader or MetaTrader 5 account. The daily loss limit becomes Gate 6, Session Limit, which shows your live distance to the line and locks the session at it. Your risk on the individual trade becomes Gate 4, Position Size, which rebuilds the size from your stop distance and weighs what you stand to make against the amount you are risking, warning you under a ratio of 1:2 and blocking under 1:1 by default. The drawdown floor sits in front of you as a live number all session.

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