FTMO: Information and detailed review

Two products that share a name and almost nothing else

FTMO has been operating since 2015, serves 140+ countries and states it has paid out over $650 million in rewards. The largest account you can buy is $200,000; the routes above that run through the Scaling Plan and status tiers described later.

It sells two evaluations, and the difference between them runs far deeper than the number of phases. Choosing wrong costs money in ways the pricing page does not explain.

FTMO Challenge: 1-Step is a single phase with a 10% profit target. Its daily limit is 3% and its maximum loss is 10% trailing, recalculated each night. It pays 90% from the very first reward, and it carries a rule the 2-Step does not have at all: the Best Day Rule.

FTMO Challenge: 2-Step runs a 10% target followed by a 5% Verification. Its daily limit is looser at 5% and its maximum loss is 10% static — it never moves. It starts at 80%, rising to 90% through the Scaling Plan or Premium Programme.

Read those two paragraphs again, because the trade-off is not obvious. The 1-Step pays more from day one and finishes faster, but its drawdown trails and its Best Day Rule governs how your profit must be shaped. The 2-Step pays less at first, takes at least twice as long, and gives you a static floor that never rises behind you.

Three more differences decide the choice:

• The fee is refunded on the 2-Step and not on the 1-Step. On the 2-Step, a one-time payment covers both phases and comes back with your first reward withdrawal. On the 1-Step, the fee is gone for good.
• Rollover exists only on the 2-Step. You can leave a reward on the account to build a bigger balance and a bigger drawdown buffer, from a minimum of €20 or $20. On the 1-Step, rewards cannot be left to compound.
• The Swing account type exists only on the 2-Step. More on that below, because it is the single biggest rule difference in the catalogue.

There is no time limit on either product

Neither evaluation expires. There is no maximum number of days, so you can take as long as you need.

The minimum, however, is real. The 2-Step requires 4 trading days per phase — a trading day being any day, measured 00:00 to 23:59 CE(S)T, on which at least one position is opened. Days need not be consecutive. FTMO's own example is worth knowing: four positions opened across 12, 18, 18 and 24 January count as three trading days, not four, because two opened on the same date.

That puts the floor at 8 trading days for the 2-Step. The 1-Step has no minimum trading days at all, and FTMO states it can be completed in as few as 2 days — but only if you make exactly half the target on each of two separate days, which is the Best Day Rule dictating the shape of the fastest possible pass.

The Best Day Rule: 1-Step only, and it shapes your whole strategy

This is the rule that catches people, and it exists only on the 1-Step, in both the challenge and the funded account.

Your Best Day must not exceed 50% of your Positive Days' Profit — the sum of closed profits and losses across all your profitable trading days.

FTMO's worked example makes it concrete. Lose $2,000 on day one, make $10,000 on day two, lose $2,000 on days three and four, make $6,000 on day five. Your Positive Days' Profit is $16,000, and day two alone was $10,000 of it — 62.5%, over the limit.

Exceeding it is not a breach. Nothing is failed and nothing is lost. You simply keep trading until that day falls to 50% or less. In the example above, day two staying your best day means you need Positive Days' Profit of at least $20,000.

There is a related prohibition worth knowing, because it closes the obvious loophole. FTMO explicitly forbids artificially spreading profit across days without spreading the market risk — hedging or holding opposing positions on the same or correlated instruments, or partially closing one trade idea across several days, specifically to game the Best Day Rule.

On the 2-Step there is no Best Day Rule and no consistency rule of any kind. FTMO says so plainly: provided you maintain sustainable risk management, there are no additional consistency requirements.

How the two loss limits are actually calculated

Both products measure against equity, defined as balance plus open position P/L, plus or minus swaps, minus commissions. Not balance. An open losing position can breach you while your balance still looks healthy.

The daily limit resets at midnight Prague time

The Maximum Daily Loss Limit is recalculated every day at 00:00 CE(S)T as the account balance recorded at that moment, minus a fixed amount: 3% of initial capital on the 1-Step, 5% on the 2-Step. On day one, it uses the initial capital.

The key detail is that the amount subtracted never changes — it is always a percentage of your starting capital, not of your current balance. On a $100,000 1-Step account that is $3,000 forever. Close day one at $102,000 and tomorrow's floor is $99,000; close at $101,000 and it is $98,000.

The maximum loss trails on one product and not the other

On the 1-Step it is an end-of-day trailing limit, recalculated nightly as the highest balance ever recorded at midnight on any preceding day (or the initial capital, if higher) minus 10% of initial capital. It can only rise, never fall. Reach $104,000 at midnight and your floor becomes $94,000 permanently — a subsequent drop to $103,000 does not lower it back.

On the 2-Step it is static: initial capital minus 10%, and it stays there for the life of the account. On $100,000 that is $90,000, unchanged whatever happens.

There is one reset worth planning around. On the 1-Step, when a reward is withdrawn and a new account is issued, the Maximum Loss Limit resets completely, returning to 90% of initial capital. The buffer you built by climbing is erased with the withdrawal.

The Swing account, and the rules it exempts you from

This is the most consequential option in the catalogue, and it is available exclusively on the 2-Step.

On a Standard account, two restrictions apply — but only once you reach the funded FTMO Account, never during the evaluation:

• News: on targeted instruments you cannot open or close any trade, including triggered Stop Loss or Take Profit orders, in a window from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after selected releases. You may hold a position opened more than 2 minutes beforehand — but if your stop or target fires inside the window, that is a breach of the agreement. Trading non-targeted instruments during the same release is unrestricted.
• Overnight and weekends: positions must be closed shortly before the weekend market close, or before any rollover lasting longer than 2 hours.

On a Swing account, neither restriction applies at any stage. You can trade through news and hold for weeks.

The cost is leverage: Standard gives up to 1:100, Swing up to 1:30. And the choice is close to permanent. You cannot change Standard to Swing, ever — not at purchase-plus-one-day, not later. You can go the other way, switching Swing to Standard before each new reference period, meaning after each reward withdrawal.

During the evaluation phase of either account type, news trading and overnight holding are completely unrestricted.

Forbidden practices, and the specific numbers behind them

The prohibitions are detailed and several carry hard thresholds rather than judgement calls.

Gap trading is banned in two defined situations: opening trades when major news, macroeconomic events or corporate earnings are scheduled that might affect that market, or two hours or less before a market closes for at least two hours.

Automation has a measurable ceiling. EAs are allowed, but not if they make the account hyperactive, which FTMO defines as more than 2,000 server requests per day on individual trades or pending orders. That is a number you can check rather than a vague warning.

Also prohibited: exploiting price display errors or slow feeds; coordinated trading across connected accounts or accounts at other providers, including opposite positions opened simultaneously (opposing positions on a single account are explicitly fine); using AI, ultra-high-speed tools or mass data entry for unfair advantage; and overleveraging, overexposure, one-sided bets and account rolling.

What is explicitly allowed

The permissions are as notable as the prohibitions, because several are things competitors restrict.

No stop-loss is required. FTMO recommends safety measures but does not mandate them — a meaningful difference from firms that close trades or breach accounts for a missing stop.

Any strategy is permitted provided it is legitimate and replicable on a live account: discretionary, algorithmic and EA-driven trading are all fine, within the 2,000-request ceiling. Scalping and hedging are not banned as such; what is banned is hedging used to defeat the Best Day Rule.

Every instrument on your platform is tradable — forex, indices, commodities, stocks and crypto. Note that weekend crypto hours vary by platform because of scheduled maintenance, so check the Trading Updates page rather than assuming.

The risk management rules are softer in wording but real in effect. You must not open positions substantially larger or in substantially different numbers than your other trades, on any of your accounts, nor build cumulative exposure across correlated symbols. These are assessed against your own trading history.

Accounts are strictly personal. No third party may access or trade your account, and you may not trade anyone else's. Legal entities may share access only with top management.

The consequences are graduated: removal of trades from your history, restricted platform access, disqualification from the evaluation, forfeiture of rewards, or termination of every agreement you hold with FTMO.

Getting paid: the schedule, the methods and the two identities

You can request a reward on the 14th day or later after your first trade on that account, with all positions and pending orders closed. FTMO reviews within 1–2 business days, and after the invoice is approved the money typically arrives in another 1–2 business days.

Reward ratios: the 1-Step pays 90% from the start. The 2-Step pays 80%, rising to 90% via the Scaling Plan or Premium Programme.

Payout methods are unusually broad: bank wire, instant transfer through Visa Direct or Mastercard Send (up to $20,000), Skrill (up to $3,000), or cryptocurrency. FTMO charges no commission on withdrawals, but transaction costs impose minimums: $20 closed profit for bank wire, $50 for crypto.

Paying in has its own fee table. Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Revolut Pay are instant and free; PayPal, Skrill and crypto cost 3%; bank transfer takes 2–5 business days. Bank transfers are unavailable in Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan and Ukraine for regulatory reasons.

Passing is not being funded

Between the two sits a review and a compliance process. Pass the final phase and your account goes for review — 1–4 business days. Then two things must happen: you create your FTMO Identity (KYC or KYB) in the Client Area, and you sign the FTMO Account Agreement.

Compliance checks take under 1 business day for individuals and up to 3 for companies. Your status as natural person or legal entity is fixed by what you chose on your first order, and can be changed only once, after passing or after a reward payment, and only before starting the next cycle.

What you are actually trading

FTMO states it without euphemism: every account is a demo account with fictitious capital, including the funded one. Liquidity providers supply market quotes, not money. No client ever trades on live markets.

Separately, FTMO trades its own real capital, and may use data from client accounts to inform those trades — a process it says runs with no impact on client accounts.

The simulation is deliberately imperfect in one way worth knowing: FTMO applies an execution delay of up to 200 ms on its servers, uniformly for all clients on a platform, to emulate real-market latency. They state they add no hidden markups or artificial slippage.

Account sizes, limits and the programmes above them

Capital is capped per trader, not per account. There is no limit on how many accounts you hold, but total allocation cannot exceed $400,000 per trader or strategy before scaling — with equivalents of €320,000, £280,000, CAD 480,000, AUD 520,000, CHF 320,000 or CZK 8,000,000. The cap applies across 1-Step and 2-Step simultaneously.

Holding accounts through different registrations is prohibited, and FTMO reserves the right to suspend accounts where identical strategies are detected across registrations beyond the cap.

Account size cannot be upgraded mid-account, which makes the size you pick at checkout a commitment. Growing means buying another challenge or qualifying for the Scaling Plan.

Merging is possible but conditional: accounts must be unused (or have had their reward withdrawn), in the same currency, and from the same product. A Swing merged with a Standard becomes Standard, and the merge is irreversible.

The Scaling Plan reaches $2 million

Meet four conditions and the account grows 25% every 4 months, up to $2,000,000 across all accounts: at least 4 months trading since the last scale-up under the same order, at least 10% net profit in that period, at least 2 processed rewards within it, and a positive balance at the moment of scaling. On the 2-Step, scaling also lifts the ratio to 90%.

Prime and Supreme

Prime Status requires not having failed an account in the last 4 months, plus 4 reward cycles from the same order each yielding at least 4% of initial capital. It raises the allocation cap to $600,000, grants a free challenge matching your account size, and gives 10% off all purchases. On the 2-Step it also lifts the ratio to 90% and adds a 5% rollover bonus, withdrawable after 30 days; on the 1-Step neither applies, since it already pays 90% and does not support rollover.

Supreme Status needs an active $400K Prime account and 3 reward cycles on it at 4% or more each. It extends allocation to $1 million, and then adds things no other firm offers: no Maximum Daily Loss at all, immediate payouts, and the possibility of joining the Quantlane team with a dedicated desk at FTMO's Prague offices and a salary.

The Premium Programme runs independently and can be held alongside scaling. It is lost if you fail a Premium account, fail three accounts in total at any stage, or breach its terms.

Free trials, points and where you can trade from

The Free Trial runs for 14 days, after which you simply create another — there is no limit on how many you take, only one at a time. It halves the profit target to 5%, and on the 2-Step version also cuts minimum trading days from 4 to 2. Passing it grants no entitlement to an account, and FTMO says so explicitly: it is preparation, not a qualification step.

FTMO Points work as vouchers at 1 point = 1 euro, earned by taking a reward or a 2-Step fee refund as points instead of cash, or through promotions. They buy FTMO products and cannot be converted back to money.

The exclusions come in two layers, and the second is long. On compliance grounds FTMO refuses nationals and residents of Iran, Syria, Myanmar and North Korea, anyone on sanctions lists, anyone with a financial-crime or terrorism record, anyone previously banned for breach of contract, and corporate clients structured as company trusts. Nationals of Iran, Syria or Myanmar can be accepted by exception if they document EEA residency and hold an account at a traditional EEA bank — not a neobank or fintech.

Separately, and this is the list that catches people, FTMO declines clients in roughly 70 more countries as a business decision, including Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Kosovo and Uzbekistan, plus six regions of Ukraine. Check the list before buying rather than after.

Two large markets are served through separate entities rather than excluded: Australia via ftmo.com/au and the United States via ftmo.oanda.com.

Clients must be over 18, and no qualifications are required.

Travel and VPN/VPS are allowed, with one specific exception: traders in the United States should not log in to MetaTrader or cTrader from there, and should not set a US geolocation on any platform.

The account arrives fast. FTMO starts processing on payment and most challenge accounts are created within a few hours, with 24 hours as the rare worst case. Credentials appear in the Client Area.

The company is headquartered in Prague, at Purkyňova 2121/3, with support in 21 languages over live chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger and phone.

Four platforms are offered across every stage: MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and TradingView, chosen in the challenge configurator. You can change platform later, but only while no trade has been placed on the current account; on a funded account the change can be made after each reward withdrawal.

Platform server time is GMT+2 with DST on MetaTrader 4 and 5; cTrader and TradingView follow your own settings. That matters because every limit in this review resets at 00:00 CE(S)T.

One metric you can safely ignore for compliance purposes: the Discipline Score rates how evenly your profit is spread across trading days, but FTMO states plainly that it does not affect the evaluation or your funded account in any way. It is informational only, shown in Account MetriX.

Taxes are entirely yours. FTMO states it is neither able nor authorised to give tax advice.

Summary: who this firm suits

FTMO fits a methodical trader who values a decade-old operator and wants the rules written down precisely.

It suits you well if predictability matters more than flexibility. The rule definitions are the most exact in the industry — every limit has a formula, a recalculation time and a worked example, which is rarer than it should be. Neither product has a time limit. The 2-Step refunds your fee with the first reward and offers a static drawdown that never trails. The Swing account removes news and weekend restrictions entirely, which almost no competitor offers as a configurable option. And the ladder above — Scaling to $2M, Prime, Supreme with no daily loss limit and a salaried desk in Prague — is a genuine career path rather than a marketing page.

It suits you poorly if you want maximum capital fast: the $400,000 cap applies per trader across every account, so buying more accounts does not get you past it. It is a poor fit if you need the Swing freedoms and the 1-Step's economics, because Swing does not exist on the 1-Step. The 1-Step's non-refundable fee makes repeated attempts expensive in a way the 2-Step's does not. And it may not be available to you at all: beyond the four sanctioned countries, FTMO declines around 70 more on business grounds, Indonesia, Russia and Kazakhstan among them.

Three things to understand before buying. The Best Day Rule applies only to the 1-Step and caps your single best day at 50% of profitable-day profits — it is not a breach, but it dictates how your profit must be distributed. Standard can never be changed to Swing, so if you hold overnight or through news, that choice is made at checkout and is final. And on the 1-Step, withdrawing a reward resets your trailing drawdown back to 90% of initial capital, erasing the buffer you spent weeks building.