Rules

Each challenge phase enables a different combination of these rules. Your specific challenge dashboard shows which rules apply to you and your live distance from each threshold.

drawdown

Max daily drawdown
hard

Equity must not fall more than X% below daily start balance.

Max overall drawdown
hard

Equity must not fall more than X% below starting balance.

Max trailing drawdown
hard

Trailing X% drawdown from peak equity.

target

Profit target
hard

Account must reach X% profit to pass the phase.

risk

Stop-loss required (grace period)
soft

Every open position must have a stop-loss within N seconds of opening. Trades without SL after the grace period trigger a soft breach.

Soft breach allowance
soft

Number of soft breaches (e.g. stop-loss violations) allowed before the account is fully breached.

Max lot size per trade
soft

No single trade larger than N lots.

Max risk per trade
soft

Risk on a single trade may not exceed X% of balance.

Max open lots
soft

Aggregate open lot exposure cap.

Max open positions
soft

Maximum number of simultaneously open positions.

time

Minimum trading days
soft

Trader must have placed trades on at least N distinct days.

Maximum trading days
soft

Phase expires after N calendar days.

behavior

Consistency rule (Topstep method)
soft

Largest Single-Day Net Profit ÷ Total Net Profit × 100 must be ≤ X%. Uses net P&L per day; only evaluated when total net profit is positive.

Weekend holding ban
soft

No positions held over the weekend.

News trading ban (high-impact)
soft

Close any position on a currency pair touched by a high-impact news event within the configured window before/after. Increments soft-breach counter. Only affects pairs whose base or quote currency matches the news country (e.g. USDJPY closes on JPY or USD news; BTCUSD unaffected by JPY news).

Hedging ban
soft

No same-symbol opposite-direction positions.

Min holding time per trade
soft

Trades must be open for at least N seconds.

Max trades per day
soft

No more than N trades opened per calendar day.

anti-cheat

Martingale / grid detection
soft

Detect doubling-down or grid patterns.

Copy-trading / EA detection
soft

Detect identical trade timing across accounts.

Same-IP multi-account
soft

Flag multiple accounts trading from same IP.

Reverse trading detection
soft

Detect mirroring opposite of another account.