Prop firm rules

The rules that fail accounts quietly.

Most blown evaluations are not blown by a terrible trade. They're blown by a rule the trader technically knew about and never worked through on paper. Here is what each one actually does to your account.

RULES COVERED 04 FIRM PRESETS DATED & EDITABLE LAST REVIEW SEP 2026
01 · Trailing drawdown 02 · Daily loss limit 03 · Consistency 04 · Scaling plans 05 · Interactions
01
Highest failure rate

Trailing drawdown

Your loss limit is not a floor. It follows your account upward, and then stays there.

Full explainer: trailing drawdown, with a worked example →

FIG. 03, WHY A GOOD MORNING SHRINKS YOUR ROOMILLUSTRATIVE
ROOM LEFT: SMALLER EQUITY TRAILING LIMIT PEAK SESSION START SAME BALANCE
What it does

The limit moves up with your account as your balance, or in many firms, your unrealised equity, makes new highs. It stops following only when it reaches your starting balance, and in some firms it never stops.

Where it bites

A good morning shrinks your room. Go up and give it back, and you are closer to failing than before you made the money. Two traders can end the day flat; the one who was up big at 10:00 has far less room left.

Answer these for your own account
  1. Does the drawdown trail your closed balance or your highest unrealised equity? Unrealised is far stricter, a trade at +$800 that you close at +$100 can still have moved your limit.
  2. Does it stop trailing once it reaches your starting balance, or keep trailing forever?
  3. Is it checked intraday or at end of day? Intraday means a spike against you can breach it even on a day you close green.
02
Silent stop replacement

Daily loss limit

A cap on one session's loss. Two details decide everything about it.

Full explainer: daily loss limits →

Detail one · The clock

When does the "day" start and reset? Almost always the firm's server time, not yours. A trade held across that boundary belongs to a day you did not think you were trading.

Detail two · Open positions

Does the limit count unrealised loss in real time, or only closed trades? Real-time counting turns an adverse move you would have sat through into a hard stop you never placed.

The consequence people miss

If your stop is further away than your remaining daily limit, the limit is your stop, the one on your chart is decoration. And the measured median 5-minute NQ range is 28 points, half of all regular-session 5-minute candles cover more than that from their own high to their own low. That's the measurement.

03
Counter-intuitive

Consistency rules

A cap on how much of your total profit may come from your best day.

Full explainer: consistency rules →

What it does

Usually expressed as a percentage of total profit. Exceed it and the account is not passed, even when the total is well past the target.

Where it bites

A very good day can disqualify a winning account, or force weeks of extra trading purely to dilute it. The best session of your evaluation becomes an obligation, not a result.

What it changes about sizing
  1. Is the cap measured against total profit or against the profit target? The two produce very different ceilings.
  2. Does it apply during the evaluation, after funding, at payout, or all three?
  3. If your best day already exceeds the cap, is the fix more trading days, or is the account unrecoverable?
04
Easy to breach by accident

Scaling plans and position caps

How many contracts you may hold at a given balance.

Related: why a “$50K account” is not a $50K account →

What it does

Ties maximum size to account balance, so size unlocks as the account grows rather than being available from day one.

Where it bites

Not the cap itself, the expectations built on the maximum. People plan returns at full size and trade the evaluation at a size the plan doesn't permit yet, or breach it by adding to a runner.

05
Where accounts actually die

How the rules interact

Each rule is survivable alone. The failures come from combinations.

TRAILING DD
+ INTRADAY CHECK

Your worst moment counts

Not your result. A wick you never traded through can end the account on a day you finished green.

DAILY LIMIT
+ WIDE STOP

The account stops you first

You hit the firm's rule before your trade idea is invalidated, so the loss never even tests your thesis.

CONSISTENCY RULE
+ FAST START

The profitable week that fails you

The best days of the evaluation are the ones that make it unpassable.

Long read

Ten rules that are legal, disclosed, and still end accounts.

One trading day where nothing goes wrong and the account fails anyway, then the same ten rules written the way a firm writes them when it wants you to pass.

Read the article
Rules differ between firms and change over time. This page explains the mechanics, not any specific firm's terms, always read your own firm's current rule page.

Next

Find out where your stop actually sits.

Before you tune the rules, check the size of the movement they're being applied to. Free, interactive, your own numbers.

Open the free risk check The full drawdown module
After the rules

Knowing the rule is half of it. The other half is your own numbers.

The free risk check runs on your account and your stop. The Prop Firm Playbook is the four Lab Kits that take every rule on this page and recalculate it for your contract.

Open the free risk check See the Prop Firm Playbook

Rule breakdowns

One rule trap at a time, with the arithmetic shown.

Four short emails to start: the free risk check, the 28-point finding and what it changes about stop placement, one prop firm rule trap with the arithmetic shown, and what the paid playbook adds that the free material does not.

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Immediately

The free risk check, and one line on what the lab does.

Day 2

The 28-point finding, and why the median range changes how a stop reads.

Day 5

One prop firm rule trap, with the numbers worked through.

Day 9

What the playbook adds that the free material does not.