FTMO is a Czech prop firm, operating since 2015, that sells evaluations on simulated capital and pays traders a share of the simulated profits they make. It offers a two-phase challenge, a one-phase challenge and an Instant Account with no evaluation, plus a separate futures division. The 2-Step gives the widest daily loss limit for the lowest fee per dollar of account size. The 1-Step costs slightly less but tightens the daily limit. The Instant Account skips the evaluation at several times the price and adds a trailing drawdown that withdrawals can make harder to manage.
Who operates FTMO
The contracting company is FTMO s.r.o., registered in the Czech Republic. The firm was founded in January 2015 by Otakar Šuffner, who serves as CEO, and Marek Vašíček, who serves as CTO. Its forex and CFD business runs on MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader and TradingView.
FTMO has also moved into regulated brokerage by acquiring OANDA Global Corporation, which holds licences in eight financial centers, including New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney. The price was not disclosed. OANDA continues as a standalone business, so the purchase does not turn FTMO’s prop accounts into brokerage accounts. The prop side still trades simulated capital.
Residency changes which entity you deal with:
- United States: clients are served through an OANDA-affiliated FTMO entity rather than the main site.
- Australia: clients use a separate FTMO-affiliated Australian entity.
- Restricted regions: Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are excluded.
Travel and VPN or VPS use are generally allowed. The exception is US access: logging into MetaTrader or cTrader from the United States, or setting a VPN or VPS location to the US, is not permitted on the main platform.
Programs and what they cost
All fees are one-time charges in US dollars and euros. Account sizes run from $10K to $200K on both challenges and from $5K to $100K on the Instant Account.
FTMO 2-Step Challenge
The 2-Step has a 10% profit target in the first phase and 5% in the second. It allows a 5% daily loss and a 10% maximum loss, requires at least 4 trading days and has no time limit. On a $100K account that means:
- Phase 1 target: $10,000
- Phase 2 target: $5,000
- Daily loss allowance: $5,000
- Maximum loss allowance: $10,000
Because the first-phase target equals the maximum loss, the program has a 1:1 target-to-drawdown ratio in phase 1, and a more forgiving ratio in phase 2. The 2-Step also comes in a Swing version for traders who hold positions, with lower leverage of 1:30 on currency pairs.
FTMO 1-Step Challenge
The 1-Step has a single 10% target, a 3% daily loss limit, a 10% maximum loss, no minimum trading days and a 90% split. Removing the second phase saves time and a little money. The cost is a daily allowance that is 40% smaller: $3,000 a day on a $100K account instead of $5,000. A strategy that sometimes loses 3 to 4% in a session can survive the 2-Step and fail the 1-Step. On funded 1-Step accounts, the maximum loss is an end-of-day trailing drawdown that resets after every withdrawal.
FTMO Instant Account
The Instant Account has no profit target and no evaluation. It allows a 3% daily loss and a 10% maximum loss, has no minimum days and pays a 90% split. The maximum loss trails the balance and does not lock at the initial balance. A withdrawal lowers your balance but not the limit.
As a hypothetical example, suppose the trailing limit sits at $10,400 and the balance is $11,000, a $600 buffer. Withdrawing a $700 reward would put the balance at $10,300, below the limit, and breach the account. The more you withdraw, the thinner the buffer you trade on afterward. On the 1-Step, by contrast, a withdrawal resets the trailing drawdown.
Comparing fees per $10K of account size
Fee per $10K of account size, by program:
| Program | Smallest size | Cost per $10K | $100K size | Cost per $10K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Step | $10K at $99 | $99.00 | $602 | $60.20 |
| 1-Step | $10K at $88 | $88.00 | $556 | $55.60 |
| Instant | $5K at $188 | $376.00 | $3,344 | $334.40 |
Larger challenge sizes are cheaper per dollar of account. At $200K, the 2-Step works out to $60.20 per $10K and the 1-Step to $55.70. The Instant Account costs about 5.5 times the 2-Step fee at $100K. The premium buys an account you can withdraw from without passing an evaluation.
Consistency rules and minimum days
FTMO applies two consistency caps:
- 30% rule: no single trading day can account for more than 30% of total profit at payout.
- 50% rule: no single day can account for more than 50% of total profit, applied both to pass the evaluation and at payouts on the model that uses it.
The 1-Step uses the 50% cap, while the Instant Account uses the 30% cap. The caps also set a practical minimum number of profitable days. Under a 30% cap, three days at the maximum share add up to only 90%, so you need at least four profitable days. Under a 50% cap, the minimum is two. A program with no minimum trading days can therefore still require several days of trading before a payout. One large winning day does not complete the requirement. You either spread profit across more days or keep trading until that day falls below the cap.
Leverage and instruments
The headline leverage is 1:100, and it applies to forex. Other asset classes are lower. The schedule is the same for the Instant, 1-Step and 2-Step programs:
| Asset class | Leverage |
|---|---|
| Forex | 1:100 |
| Metals | 1:50 |
| Indices | 1:50 |
| Energy | 1:50 |
| Crypto | 1:3.33 |
| Other commodities | 1:3.33 |
| Stocks | 1:3.33 |
Crypto and single-stock CFDs at 1:3.33 need far more margin per position than forex. A trader planning a crypto-heavy book can hit margin limits well before reaching any risk limit.
Trading rules and restrictions
The account terms go beyond the loss limits. The ones most likely to affect a strategy are:
- News trading: on targeted instruments, you cannot open or close trades, including Stop Loss and Take Profit fills on pending orders, from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after a high-impact news release. A violation can lead to termination of an FTMO Account or FTMO Instant Account.
- Weekend and rollover holding: holding trades over the weekend, or across a market rollover period longer than 2 hours, is prohibited on those accounts and can also lead to termination.
- Capital allocation: a 400,000 simulated USD cap applies across your accounts, which limits how much you can stack under one profile.
- Expert advisors: EAs are allowed, with a cap of 2,000 server requests per day. Popular third-party EAs can break the capital allocation cap and get an account denied or suspended.
- Copy trading: copying other traders is prohibited, and the account must not be traded by a third party.
- Multiple profiles: opening more than one profile account is prohibited.
- Position sizing: opening much larger positions, or a very different number of positions, compared with your other trades is prohibited.
- Inactivity: you must open at least one trade every 30 days. Otherwise the account is terminated, unless you request a freeze lasting 7 days to 6 months.
FTMO also keeps discretion to classify trades or strategies as forbidden practices, including overleveraging, overexposure, one-sided bets and account rolling. The firm recommends risking no more than 1% to 1.5% of the initial balance per trade, and describes risk monitoring, warnings and protective restrictions aimed at gambling-style trading. A strategy that technically stays inside the loss limits can still be reviewed if its sizing looks erratic.
Payouts and scaling
Payouts follow a 14-day cycle that starts on the first day of trading. The profit split ranges from 80% to 90%, and the top figure on the 2-Step is tied to the scaling plan. Payout methods are Rise, crypto and bank transfer. Bank transfer and crypto payouts have no maximum amount. FTMO reports $650M+ paid in rewards, a figure that has not been independently verified.
The scaling plan has four entry requirements:
- A cycle of at least 4 months
- At least 10% total net simulated profit over the cycle
- At least two processed rewards
- A positive account balance when the scale-up takes effect
Meeting them increases the account size by 25% per cycle, up to a $2M ceiling. On the 2-Step, it also raises the reward to 90%. Since each step is 25% of the current size, increases compound. As a hypothetical, a $100K account becomes $125K after one cycle and about $156K after two, assuming the criteria are met each time.
FTMO Futures
FTMO runs a futures program separately from its CFD challenges. It has Pro and Growth programs with account sizes from $50,000 to $150,000. The futures rules allow up to three concurrent Sim-Funded Accounts and up to $450,000 in simulated capital. The forex and CFD rules above, including the news window and weekend restrictions, describe the CFD accounts and should not be assumed to carry over to futures.
Discounts and promo codes
FTMO runs occasional promotions, sometimes limited to one program and size, or to traders without an active challenge of that size. It keeps no standing public coupon. When a code exists, check which program and account size it covers before buying.
Strengths and trade-offs
Where FTMO stands out
- Track record: operating since 2015, with an ownership group that now includes a regulated broker.
- Program choice: two-phase, one-phase and instant routes, plus a swing variant and a separate futures division.
- Platforms: MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView are all supported.
- No time limit on the 2-Step, so traders are not pushed to force trades near a deadline.
- Scaling path: a structured plan with a $2M ceiling.
- Uncapped bank and crypto payouts.
Where it costs you
- Payout timing: the 14-day cycle is slower than firms offering more frequent withdrawals.
- Consistency cap: the 30% rule delays payouts for traders whose returns come from a few large days.
- Tighter limits outside the 2-Step: a 3% daily limit on the 1-Step and Instant Account, plus an Instant Account trailing drawdown that does not reset on withdrawal.
- Holding restrictions: news windows and weekend holding are restricted on standard accounts.
- Discretion over forbidden practices adds rule risk beyond the published numbers.
How we checked FTMO
We visited ftmo.com on 13 November 2026, connecting from Tallinn, Estonia. The address took us to the English home page, titled “The Modern Prop Trading Firm since 2015 | FTMO”. The footer carries a copyright line naming FTMO s.r.o. and says FTMO companies do not act as a broker and do not accept any deposits. Next we clicked “Imprint”. That page lists FTMO s.r.o., Business ID 092 13 651, at Purkyňova 2121/3, 110 00, Prague, Czech Republic, registered in the Commercial Register maintained by the Municipal Court in Prague, Section C, Insert No. 332660. It also names JV Prop Corporation, a Delaware Corporation with its registered office at 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington. We opened the About Us page as well.
On the home page we clicked “1-Step” and then its 50K size to reveal plan details. The 2-Step fee ran from €89 for the $10,000 account, with €540 shown for $100,000, all labeled refundable. The 1-Step was marked non-refundable, from €79 at $10,000 up to €999 at $200,000. On the Trading Objectives page, the 1-Step’s 3% daily loss sits alongside a rule that your Best Day cannot represent more than 50% of your total profit. Pressing “Get Started” sent us to a “Sign in to FTMO” page. An account comes first. We did not create one, so we never reached a payment screen.
The site shows no licence number and no risk warning. That left no licence register for us to query. Its only regulatory reference is the Prague commercial register entry above, which we read on the Imprint page and did not look up in the register itself. Trustpilot, read on 13 November 2026, showed 4.8/5 from 56,660 reviews, with 92% five-star and 2% one-star. The company had replied to none of the 8 newest reviews. On the Wayback Machine, the domain’s first capture dates to 2002-11-16, which may predate the current brand.
We could not verify the “$650M+ Paid in rewards” figure, and anything priced behind the login stayed out of our reach.
Who FTMO may suit
The 2-Step fits traders who want the widest daily loss allowance FTMO offers and are comfortable passing two phases with at least four trading days. The Swing version is for those who hold positions and can accept 1:30 currency leverage. The 1-Step suits traders whose daily drawdowns stay well inside 3% and who prefer a single phase at a slightly lower fee. The Instant Account makes sense mainly for traders who value starting immediately enough to pay several times the challenge price, and who plan withdrawals around the trailing limit. Scalpers who trade high-impact news, or anyone who needs to log in from the United States through the main entity, will run into the rules above.
Alternatives
| Provider | Score | Fee | Split | Payouts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.1/10 | $101 | 90% | up to 4 times per month, after every 5 winning trading days of $200 profit or more | Review | |
| 5.4/10 | — | — | — | Review | |
| 6.7/10 | $85 | 80% | Withdraw from day one in PRO. No waiting on payout windows. | Review |