How much risk per trade passes FTMO? 100,000 simulations
A Monte Carlo model of FTMO's 2-Step and 1-Step rules as of 22 October 2026, run 100,000 times per setting, shows where risk per trade starts losing challenges to the daily loss limit. It is a model, not FTMO's real pass rate.
In AlphaScala's simulation of FTMO's rules as of 22 October 2026 (100,000 runs per setting), risking 0.5% per trade passed the 2-Step Challenge phase 98.0% to 99.9% of the time for three profitable profiles, against 54.9% to 66.6% at 2%. On the 1-Step, with its 3% daily loss limit, 0.5% passed 93.9% to 99.4% and 1% passed 31.8% to 48.0%.
For anyone asking how much risk per trade a prop firm challenge can absorb, the model points to two settings: the daily loss limit and the number of trades taken in a day decided where pass rates started to fall. These figures come from a model, not from FTMO, and they are not a forecast for any trader. The model assumes a win rate and payoff that are known in advance and never change, which is rarely true of a real strategy.
FTMO Challenge rules used in the simulation
FTMO publishes its rules on its Trading Objectives page. AlphaScala read that page, along with FTMO's product pages and its comparison table, on 22 October 2026. Both loss limits are tested against equity, which FTMO defines as balance plus open profit or loss, adjusted for swaps and minus commissions. The daily limit is reset at 00:00 CE(S)T from that midnight's balance.
| Rule | FTMO Challenge: 2-Step (Challenge and Verification) | FTMO Challenge: 1-Step |
|---|---|---|
| Profit target | 10% in the Challenge, 5% in the Verification | 10% |
| Maximum daily loss | 5% of initial capital below the 00:00 CE(S)T balance | 3% of initial capital below the 00:00 CE(S)T balance |
| Maximum loss | 10% of initial capital, static | 10% of initial capital, trailing the highest end-of-day balance |
| Minimum trading days | 4 in each phase | None |
| Trading period | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Consistency | None | Best day no more than 50% of total profit (orders from 12 October 2026) |
| Fee refund | 100%, paid back once the trader requests a first Reward withdrawal | Not refundable |
Source: ftmo.com Trading Objectives, 2-Step, 1-Step and comparison table pages and the FTMO FAQ on fee refunds, read 22 October 2026.
The 1-Step consistency requirement changed in October 2026. FTMO said in a trading update dated 8 October 2026 that from Monday 12 October 2026, 9:00 MetaTrader platform time (GMT+3), a Consistency rule would replace the Best Day Rule for new 1-Step orders. The old rule compared the best day with the sum of profitable days only. The new one compares it with total profit, losing days included. "The Consistency rule is stricter, and we want to be clear about that," FTMO said in the update. Missing either version is not a breach: the trader keeps trading until the best day falls to 50% of profit or less.
How the 100,000-run simulation works
AlphaScala built a single-file Node.js simulator for this study and ran it on 22 October 2026 (Node v22.19.0). Each setting, meaning one risk level paired with one strategy profile, ran 100,000 times from a fixed seed (20261022, xoshiro128** generator). That sample size puts the 95% sampling error on any pass rate at ±0.31 percentage points or less. The assumptions:
- Account and risk. A $100,000 account, with risk per trade fixed in dollars as a share of initial capital: 0.25% is $250 and 2% is $2,000. Every FTMO limit is a percentage of initial capital, so the results apply to any account size.
- Strategy profiles. 40% winners at 2R (expectancy +0.20R per trade), 50% at 1.5R (+0.25R), 55% at 1R (+0.10R), and 50% at 1R, which has zero expectancy. A trade either hits its stop for -1R or its target for the stated multiple, with no partial or breakeven exits.
- Trades per day. One to four, each count equally likely, taken one after another with no overlapping positions and all closed before 00:00 CE(S)T. A sensitivity run uses six trades a day.
- Breach rule. FTMO treats a limit as broken when equity drops below it, and its equity figure subtracts commissions, so a loss that takes equity exactly onto a limit counts as a breach in the base case. A second run tests the cost-free reading, where equity has to end below the limit. No other costs are modeled: winners are credited in full, so a run that lands exactly on the profit target passes.
- Passing. A run passes when its closed balance reaches the target. On the 2-Step, a target reached before day four counts as a pass on day four, on the assumption that the trader opens minimal positions to log the remaining trading days. On the 1-Step, the trader keeps trading at the same risk until the Consistency rule is also met.
- Time. No time limit, matching FTMO. Runs were capped at 10,000 trading days, and none reached the cap.
The simulator reproduces the textbook answer where one exists. For the 55%-win, 1R profile at 1% risk, four or fewer trades a day cannot reach the 2-Step's 5% daily limit, so the Challenge phase becomes the classic gambler's-ruin problem. Its closed-form pass probability is 88.15%; the simulation returned 88.16%. For both phases combined, the closed form and the simulation each gave 80.26%.
A second check covered the rest of the grid. An exact Markov-chain calculation over start-of-day balances, written separately from the simulator, reproduced all 240 simulated pass rates that do not depend on the consistency rule to within 0.45 percentage points, across the base run and the three variant runs described below.
Most of what the model leaves out would push real breach rates higher. It treats every trade as independent, while real trades taken in the same session or market conditions can lose together. Stops can slip, and markets can gap through them. A winning trade can run most of the way to its stop before it turns, and that open loss counts toward FTMO's limits but not in this model. A real strategy's win rate and payoff can also drift over time, while the model holds them fixed.
2-Step Challenge pass rates by risk per trade
Lower risk passed more often in every profitable profile, at the cost of time.
| Risk per trade | 40% win, 2R | 50% win, 1.5R | 55% win, 1R | 50% win, 1R (no edge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | >99.9% | >99.9% | >99.9% | 50.2% |
| 0.5% | 98.0% | 99.9% | 98.3% | 50.4% |
| 0.75% | 94.0% | 98.9% | 94.3% | 50.1% |
| 1% | 87.4% | 96.7% | 88.2% | 49.9% |
| 1.5% | 67.4% | 81.8% | 72.1% | 43.7% |
| 2% | 54.9% | 66.6% | 58.8% | 39.3% |
Challenge phase only (10% target). 100,000 simulated runs per cell, one to four trades a day. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
Passing the full 2-Step means surviving a second run, the Verification, with a 5% target and the same loss limits:
| Risk per trade | 40% win, 2R | 50% win, 1.5R | 55% win, 1R | 50% win, 1R (no edge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | 99.9% | >99.9% | 99.9% | 33.6% |
| 0.5% | 96.3% | 99.8% | 96.7% | 33.6% |
| 0.75% | 89.3% | 97.9% | 90.1% | 33.4% |
| 1% | 78.9% | 93.9% | 80.3% | 33.2% |
| 1.5% | 52.0% | 72.3% | 58.2% | 26.3% |
| 2% | 36.6% | 52.4% | 42.0% | 21.8% |
Challenge and Verification combined. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
Time is the price of low risk. At 0.5%, the 50%-win, 1.5R profile needed a median of 29 trading days to pass the Challenge phase and 45 to pass both phases. At 1% those medians were 13 and 21. The 55%-win, 1R profile, with the thinnest edge of the profitable three, took 64 trading days for the Challenge phase at 0.5%.
| Risk per trade | 40% win, 2R | 50% win, 1.5R | 55% win, 1R | 50% win, 1R (no edge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | 72 | 60 | 143 | 484 |
| 0.5% | 32 | 29 | 64 | 122 |
| 0.75% | 20 | 19 | 40 | 60 |
| 1% | 12 | 13 | 24 | 31 |
| 1.5% | 6 | 7 | 12 | 14 |
| 2% | 4 | 4 | 6 | 7 |
Median trading days to pass the Challenge phase, among runs that passed. FTMO's 4-day minimum is the floor. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
Where the 5% daily loss limit takes over
Between 0.25% and 1% risk, no Challenge-phase run in the base case failed on the daily limit. The arithmetic rules it out: four full losers at 1% cost 4%, short of the 5% limit. Every failure at those sizes came from the 10% maximum loss.
From 1.5% upward the daily rule ends most failed runs. Four straight losers at 1.5% cost 6%, and so do three at 2%. At 2% risk the daily limit accounted for 76.5% to 87.1% of failed Challenge-phase runs in the profitable profiles.
| Risk per trade | Passed | Daily-loss breach | Maximum-loss breach |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | >99.9% | 0.0% | <0.1% |
| 0.5% | 99.9% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| 0.75% | 98.9% | 0.0% | 1.1% |
| 1% | 96.7% | 0.0% | 3.3% |
| 1.5% | 81.8% | 13.3% | 4.9% |
| 2% | 66.6% | 29.1% | 4.3% |
How Challenge-phase runs ended for the 50%-win, 1.5R profile. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
Trade frequency moves that threshold. In the six-trades-a-day run, five straight losers at 1% reach the 5% limit, and the Challenge-phase pass rate at 1% fell to 62.1% to 81.7% for the profitable profiles, from 87.4% to 96.7% at one to four trades. At 0.75%, six losers cost 4.5%: no run hit the daily limit, and pass rates moved by less than 0.1 point.
A personal limit of two losing trades a day moves it the other way. At 2% risk, two losers cost 4%, under the 5% limit, so the daily rule can no longer end a run. In that variant the Challenge-phase pass rate at 2% rose to 71.7% to 84.4% for the profitable profiles, from 54.9% to 66.6%, and at 1.5% it rose to 79.7% to 91.6%, from 67.4% to 81.8%. The cost was time: the 50%-win, 1.5R profile's median at 2% went from four trading days to five.
The next table needs no simulation. It counts how many full losers in a row reach each limit, before commissions.
| Risk per trade | Losers in one day to the 2-Step 5% daily limit | Losers in one day to the 1-Step 3% daily limit | Losers from the start to the 10% maximum loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | 20* | 12* | 40* |
| 0.5% | 10* | 6* | 20* |
| 0.75% | 7 | 4* | 14 |
| 1% | 5* | 3* | 10* |
| 1.5% | 4 | 2* | 7 |
| 2% | 3 | 2 | 5* |
An asterisk marks a count that lands exactly on the limit, where commissions decide whether it is a breach. Source: AlphaScala calculation from FTMO's published limits.
Streaks of that length are common. Over 100 independent trades, the chance of at least one run of five or more losers is 97.6% at a 40% win rate and 64.7% at a 55% win rate, by exact calculation. A run of ten or more, enough to reach the maximum loss at 1% risk with no winner in between, has a 20.5% chance at a 40% win rate.
A strategy with no edge passes the Challenge phase half the time
The zero-expectancy profile is a coin flip with a 1R payoff. At 1% risk or less it passed the Challenge phase 49.9% to 50.4% of the time and both phases 33.2% to 33.6%. That is the gambler's-ruin result again. With a 10% target and a 10% maximum loss, a fair coin reaches either barrier first with equal odds. In the Verification, the 5% target sits half as far away as the 10% floor, so a fair coin reaches it first two times in three.
A single pass is weak evidence of an edge.
In this model, one no-edge trader in three clears both phases. Real trading adds spreads and commissions, which turn zero expectancy negative, so the true no-edge pass rate would sit below this figure.
1-Step pass rates under the 3% daily limit
The 1-Step pairs a 3% daily limit with a maximum loss that trails the highest end-of-day balance, and the pass rates fall faster as risk rises.
| Risk per trade | 40% win, 2R | 50% win, 1.5R | 55% win, 1R | 50% win, 1R (no edge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | 99.7% | >99.9% | 99.8% | 37.8% |
| 0.5% | 93.9% | 99.4% | 94.1% | 38.6% |
| 0.75% | 51.6% | 73.4% | 62.0% | 24.6% |
| 1% | 31.8% | 48.0% | 38.4% | 17.6% |
| 1.5% | 17.4% | 27.5% | 19.9% | 10.7% |
| 2% | 21.3% | 28.9% | 27.5% | 17.0% |
FTMO Challenge: 1-Step under the Consistency rule for orders from 12 October 2026. 100,000 runs per cell, one to four trades a day. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
At 0.5% risk the profitable profiles passed 93.9% to 99.4% of the time, with a median of 29 trading days for the 50%-win, 1.5R profile. At 1% the pass rate fell to 31.8% to 48.0%, and the daily limit caused 96.2% to 99.1% of the failures. Trading six times a day made even 0.5% fragile, since six losers at 0.5% also land on 3%: the pass rate fell to 55.5% to 81.9%.
In the base case the 1.5% row sits below the 2% row for a mechanical reason. Two full losers reach the 3% limit at either size, and 2% needs fewer winners to reach the target.
Risk sizes that divide evenly into the 3% limit
At 0.75%, four full losers in a day land on the 3% limit to the dollar; at 1% three of them do, and at 1.5% two do. Whether that is a breach depends on costs. FTMO measures equity after commissions, so a loser sized at exactly 1% before costs loses slightly more than 1%, and the base case treats touching the limit as a breach. The cost-free reading shows how much rides on that detail: across the three profitable profiles it added 23 to 34 percentage points of pass rate at 0.75% and 1%, and 20 to 28 points at 1.5%.
| Risk per trade | Base case (touching the limit is a breach) | Cost-free reading | Base case plus a stop after two losing trades a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5% | 99.4% | 99.5% | 99.4% |
| 0.75% | 73.4% | 96.6% | 96.6% |
| 1% | 48.0% | 77.1% | 91.6% |
| 1.5% | 27.5% | 55.2% | 27.0% |
| 2% | 28.9% | 31.8% | 31.3% |
1-Step pass rates for the 50%-win, 1.5R profile. The variant runs start from the base run's random seeds. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
At 1%, a personal daily stop changed the result more than the rule reading did. Stopping after two losing trades caps a day's loss at 2% when risking 1%, below the 3% limit, and the 1% pass rate rose to 76.3% to 91.6% across the profitable profiles. The same stop helps little at 1.5%, where the second loser already lands on the limit: pass rates at that size stayed between 16.9% and 27.0%.
Sizing slightly below an even divisor works the same way on paper. Three losers at 0.95% cost 2.85%, which leaves $150 of room for commissions on a $100,000 account. That figure is arithmetic; the simulation did not test 0.95%.
What the 12 October 2026 Consistency rule changed
| Risk per trade | Consistency rule (orders from 12 Oct 2026) | Legacy Best Day Rule | No consistency requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5% | 99.4% | 99.4% | 99.4% |
| 1% | 48.0% | 48.6% | 48.9% |
| 1.5% | 27.5% | 28.7% | 31.6% |
| 2% | 28.9% | 31.1% | 39.3% |
1-Step pass rates for the 50%-win, 1.5R profile. Source: AlphaScala simulation, 22 October 2026.
At 0.5% risk the consistency requirement never decided an outcome in the model: with four trades or fewer, no single day at that size can earn more than 4%, less than half of a 10% gain. At 2% it did. Under the new rule, 28.4% of runs reached the 10% target with a best day above half of total profit and had to keep trading, against 22.9% under the legacy rule. Across the profitable profiles at 2% risk, the Consistency rule cost 1.5 to 2.3 percentage points of pass rate against the legacy version; at 1% and below the gap was 1.6 points or less.
Turning risk per trade into a position size
Choosing a percentage is half the job; the other half is converting it into lots for each trade's stop. On a $100,000 account, 0.5% is $500. With a 25-pip stop on EUR/USD, where AlphaScala's pip value calculator shows $10.00 per pip for a standard lot in a USD account, the size is $500 ÷ (25 × $10) = 2.0 standard lots. The position size calculator runs the same sum for other pairs, with the stop entered in pips or by price.
Fixed-percentage sizing, the method this simulation uses, is worked through step by step in the answer on what position sizing is. AlphaScala's general answer on how much capital to risk per trade gives the common 1% to 2% guideline and does not address prop-firm limits. Under FTMO's 1-Step limits in this model, 1% passed 31.8% to 48.0% of the time and 2% passed 21.3% to 28.9%. FTMO, FundedNext, The5ers and Topstep are listed in the prop-firm section of AlphaScala's broker directory, separately from brokers, because they sell evaluations rather than open trading accounts in a client's name.
FTMO refunds the 2-Step fee only when a trader who has passed requests a first Reward withdrawal, and its FAQ says the 1-Step fee is not refundable, so a breached account costs the trader the fee. None of the pass rates above applies to a strategy whose real win rate and payoff have not been measured over a large sample of trades.
To cite these figures: AlphaScala, "How much risk per trade passes FTMO? 100,000 simulations," FTMO rules and simulation as of 22 October 2026.
FAQ
How much should I risk per trade on the FTMO Challenge?
In AlphaScala's simulation of FTMO's rules as of 22 October 2026, 0.5% per trade passed the 2-Step Challenge phase 98.0% to 99.9% of the time for strategies with a positive edge, and 1% passed 87.4% to 96.7%. Above 1%, the 5% daily loss limit started ending runs. On the 1-Step, 0.5% passed 93.9% to 99.4% and 1% passed 31.8% to 48.0%. These are model outputs that assume a known edge, not a recommendation for any account.
What is the FTMO Challenge pass rate?
FTMO's Trading Objectives, 2-Step, 1-Step and comparison pages, read on 22 October 2026, do not state a pass rate. The figures in this study are simulated. They show how often a strategy with a given win rate and payoff would pass under FTMO's rules, not how often FTMO's customers pass.
Is 1% risk per trade too high for the FTMO 1-Step?
In AlphaScala's simulation of FTMO's October 2026 rules, 1% was where the 3% daily limit took over: profitable profiles passed 31.8% to 48.0% of the time, and the daily limit caused more than 96% of failures. Three full losers at 1% reach the limit exactly. In the model, stopping after two losing trades a day lifted the 1% pass rate to 76.3% to 91.6%.
How many losing trades in a row can I take on FTMO?
At 1% risk, four full losers in one day stay inside the 2-Step's 5% daily limit and the fifth reaches it; on the 1-Step, the third loser reaches the 3% limit. Ten losers from the start reach the 10% maximum loss on either product. At 0.5% risk the number of losers that reaches each limit doubles. A loser that lands exactly on a limit becomes a breach once commissions are added.
How long does it take to pass the FTMO Challenge?
FTMO sets no time limit and requires at least four trading days in each 2-Step phase. In the simulation, with one to four trades a day, the 50%-win, 1.5R profile needed a median of 29 trading days to pass the Challenge phase at 0.5% risk and 13 at 1%. Passing both phases took a median of 45 and 21 trading days.
Did the new Consistency rule make the FTMO 1-Step harder to pass?
Slightly, and mostly at higher risk. In the simulation, the rule that applies to 1-Step orders from 12 October 2026 cost 1.5 to 2.3 percentage points of pass rate at 2% risk against the legacy Best Day Rule, and 1.6 points or less at 1% and below. FTMO called the new rule "stricter" in its trading update of 8 October 2026.
Drafted with AI writing tools and published without an individual editor review. Figures, prices and dates may be out of date; check them against the primary sources before relying on them. Educational content only, not personalized financial advice.