Last verified: August 26, 2026. against ftmo.com and ftmo.oanda.com. FTMO, founded in Prague in 2015, is the oldest and largest of the major prop firms — it reports over 3.5 million customers and more than $500 million paid out across 140+ countries. Since 2025 it also serves US residents through FTMO US, an OANDA partnership. One thing to be clear about up front: every FTMO account is a simulated (demo) account with fictitious capital; you trade a data feed, and “payouts” are a performance reward, not withdrawals from a live position.
FTMO fits forex, index, and commodity traders who want the longest track record in the industry and a static drawdown they can plan around — and, through the Swing account, the freedom to trade news and hold over weekends. The 2-step’s refundable fee makes it one of the cheapest places to fail while you learn; the catch is an 80% starting split and the fact that the capital is simulated, not live. US traders are served through FTMO US on OANDA, but only on MetaTrader 5 and TradingView. FTMO also launched FTMO Futures (Growth and Pro plans) on 17 September 2026 (press release). FTMO says US residents can join except in Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana and South Carolina. FTMO Futures prices and rules (checked 7 October 2026) are in the FTMO Futures section below; the rest of this profile covers the Forex/CFD Challenge.
Current deal: 100K Challenge €439 on the 2-step, €399 on the 1-step (both conditional on not already holding one).
Start with FTMO →The two programs are structurally different
FTMO is often summarised as a single product. In reality the 1-step and 2-step programs have different daily-loss percentages, different drawdown types, and different consistency rules — and the right choice depends on how you trade.
| Rule | 2-Step (Challenge + Verification) | 1-Step |
|---|---|---|
| Profit target | 10%, then 5% | 10% |
| Max daily loss | 5% of initial balance | 3% of initial balance |
| Max overall loss | 10% — static (never moves) | 10% — end-of-day trailing |
| Min trading days | 4 + 4 | None |
| Consistency rule | None | Best Day Rule (orders placed before 12 Oct 2026): best day ≤ 50% of positive days’ profit (applies on the funded account too). New orders from 12 Oct 2026: Consistency rule: best day ≤ 50% of total profit, losing days included (FTMO: exceeding it “is not treated as a rule breach”) |
| Fee | Refundable with first payout | Non-refundable |
| Profit split | 80%, up to 90% via scaling | 90% from the start |
Sources: trading objectives, 1-step, 2-step.
Which program should you actually pick?
The trade is forgiveness versus reward. The 2-step is the more forgiving structure: its overall drawdown is static, so your $90,000 floor on a $100,000 account never moves up to trap you the way a trailing limit does; there is no consistency rule to slow you down; and the fee comes back with your first payout, so a pass effectively costs nothing. You pay for that with a lower starting split (80%) and the requirement to clear two phases and eight total trading days.
The 1-step pays 90% from day one and gets you funded faster with no minimum days — but you inherit an end-of-day trailing drawdown that ratchets up behind your equity, plus a Best Day Rule that also follows you onto the funded account, and the fee is gone whether you pass or not. It rewards a trader who is already consistent and undersized; it punishes anyone whose edge comes from one or two big days.
Heads-up: the 1-Step rule changed on 12 October 2026. FTMO says that from Monday 12 October 2026, 9:00 GMT+3 (2:00 AM ET), the Consistency rule replaces the Best Day Rule for new 1-Step orders, and that the Consistency rule is stricter. Orders placed before then keep the Best Day Rule. FTMO has now published the rule: your best day may not be more than 50% of your total profit, which FTMO defines as “the cumulative sum of closed profits and losses across all trading days”. The percentage is the same as before, but losing days now count, which is why FTMO calls it stricter. FTMO says exceeding the limit “is not treated as a rule breach”. (Sources: FTMO trading objectives and FTMO trading updates, checked 12 October 2026.)
New: the FTMO Instant Account (launched 12 October 2026). FTMO now sells direct access to an FTMO Account with no challenge: account sizes $5K, $10K, $25K, $50K and $100K, a 90% reward split, a 3% max daily loss, a 10% max loss (intraday trailing and balance-based; FTMO says it “does not reset when you withdraw a Reward”), a 30% consistency rule (your best day may not exceed 30% of total profit to be eligible for a reward) and leverage up to 1:100. Its pricing panel shows a one-time, non-refundable fee of €169 to €2,999 (€169, €339, €749, €1,499 and €2,999 for the 5K to 100K sizes), charged in euros even when you choose USD account sizes (checked 21 October 2026). FTMO’s announcement quotes “From $189 to $3,399”, which looks like a dollar conversion; the pricing panel itself shows euro fees. FTMO says these objectives are stricter than on its 1-Step and 2-Step Challenges. (Sources: FTMO’s Instant Account announcement and FTMO trading objectives, checked 21 October 2026.)
Rule of thumb: if you are still proving yourself, the 2-step’s refundable fee and static drawdown make failed attempts cheaper and the funded account calmer. If you are consistent and want the higher split immediately, the 1-step is the faster route — provided your equity curve is smooth enough to live under a trailing limit and the 50% Best Day Rule.
How the drawdown actually bites
On paper both programs cap overall loss at 10%. In practice, on the 2-step it is the daily limit that ends most challenges, not the overall one. Here is why. On a $100,000 2-step account your overall floor is a fixed $90,000. But your daily limit is 5% measured from your balance at midnight CE(S)T, and it counts floating (open-trade) losses in real time. So if you start a day at $103,000, you cannot let equity drop below roughly $97,850 that day — even though you are still far above the $90,000 overall floor. Traders blow the daily limit on a single bad session long before the static overall limit is ever in play.
The 1-step tightens this further: the daily limit is 3% instead of 5%, and the overall limit trails your end-of-day highs rather than sitting still. Give back a good day and the floor has already moved up under you. If you have never traded a trailing drawdown before, model a few sessions on a demo before you buy — the number that fails you is rarely the one on the marketing page.
Pricing, and the refundable-fee math
| Account size | 2-Step (global, EUR) | 1-Step (global, EUR) | FTMO US 2-Step (USD list) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10K | €89 | €79 | $99 |
| $25K | €250 | €199 | $289 |
| $50K | €345 | €319 | $399 |
| $100K | €540 | €499 | $619 |
| $200K | €1,080 | €999 | $1,249 |
The refundable fee changes how you should think about cost. On the 2-step, the fee is returned with your first payout, so a challenge you pass effectively costs you nothing beyond float; your real spend is one fee per failed attempt. If you pass a $100,000 2-step one time in three at €540 a go, your expected cost to a funded account is roughly two failed attempts, about €1,080 — and the successful third comes back. The 1-step fee is never refunded, so every attempt is a sunk €499. Promos were active at last verification (the $100K challenges were discounted to around €439–449). Run your own numbers on our true-cost calculator.
Payouts and scaling
Payouts are on demand from day 14 after your first trade on the funded account, not on fixed monthly cycles: bank wire ($20 minimum), Visa Direct or Mastercard Send up to $20,000, Skrill up to $3,000, or crypto ($50 minimum), with the account reviewed in one to two business days. The Scaling Plan grows your account 25% every four months once you have made at least 10% net profit across two processed rewards with a positive balance, up to $2,000,000, and lifts the 2-step split to 90%. Total capital allocation is capped at $400,000 per trader or strategy before scaling (rising to $600,000 at Prime status and $1,000,000 at Supreme). Sources: payouts, scaling plan.
The US picture: FTMO US via OANDA
This is the part that trips up US traders. The global FTMO product does not accept US persons. Instead, following FTMO’s acquisition of OANDA (completed December 1), US residents trade through FTMO US at ftmo.oanda.com, and OANDA’s own Prop Trader program is being wound down (it concludes March 31, 2026) as FTMO consolidates it. The US version differs in concrete ways: pricing is USD-only and runs a bit higher than the euro list; the platforms are MetaTrader 5 and TradingView rather than the global MT4/MT5/TradingView/cTrader choice (FTMO’s 8 October 2026 update); the funded account is branded the “FTMO Rewards Account” (up to $200,000); and five US states are excluded. The trading objectives themselves — the 10%/5% targets, 5% daily and 10% static drawdown on the 2-step — are identical to the global rules.
Rules worth knowing before you buy
- News restriction only on Standard funded accounts: no executions within ±2 minutes of listed high-impact releases on affected instruments, and a stop-loss or take-profit triggering inside that window counts as a breach. Holding a position through the release is fine. The Swing account type removes this and the weekend-holding restriction entirely, but Swing is only offered on the 2-step. Evaluations are unrestricted for everyone. Source
- Weekend holding: allowed in every evaluation; on a Standard funded account you must flatten before the weekend and before any market break longer than two hours. Swing has no such limit.
- EAs and algorithms are allowed (limited to 200 open orders at a time and 2,000 server requests per day), and a stop-loss is not mandatory — but running the same third-party EA as other funded traders can breach the shared-strategy rules.
- Instruments: forex, indices, commodities, stocks, and crypto CFDs.
- The full forbidden-practices list (gap trading around scheduled news, opening opposite positions across connected accounts, hedging correlated instruments to spread profit artificially, account rolling, HFT) is on the official page — worth reading, because these are enforced after the fact and can cost a payout.
Who FTMO suits, and who should look elsewhere
FTMO fits discretionary and algorithmic forex, index, and commodity traders who want the longest track record in the space, a static drawdown they can plan around, and — via the Swing account — freedom to trade news and hold over weekends. The refundable 2-step fee makes it one of the cheaper places to fail while you are still learning.
Look elsewhere if you are a US trader who specifically wants MT4 or cTrader (FTMO US is MT5/TradingView only), or if your edge is a one-big-day style that runs straight into the 1-step’s Best Day Rule. If you trade futures, FTMO Futures is new (launched 17 September 2026); see its Growth and Pro plans below and compare them with the futures firms we track.
FTMO Futures: Growth and Pro plans
FTMO Futures launched on 17 September 2026 with two monthly evaluation plans, Growth and Pro. Both pay a 90% reward share, and FTMO says there is “No activation fee”. Figures below are from FTMO’s futures page, checked 21 October 2026.
| Plan & size | Monthly price | Max drawdown | Payout cap | Payouts | Consistency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth 50K | $119/mo | $2,000 | $2,500 | Every 4 days | 40% (evaluation) |
| Growth 100K | $169/mo | $3,500 | $3,000 | Every 4 days | 40% (evaluation) |
| Growth 150K | $229/mo | $5,000 | $4,000 | Every 4 days | 40% (evaluation) |
| Pro 50K | $139/mo | $3,000 | $5,000 | Every 5 days | 50% (evaluation only) |
| Pro 100K | $199/mo | $4,500 | $6,000 | Every 5 days | 50% (evaluation only) |
| Pro 150K | $269/mo | $6,000 | $8,000 | Every 5 days | 50% (evaluation only) |
US residents can join FTMO Futures except in Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana and South Carolina (FTMO Futures FAQ). We have not tested an FTMO Futures payout ourselves.
Track record, in context
FTMO’s ten-year history, 4.8/5 Trustpilot rating, and half a billion dollars in reported payouts are real advantages in an industry where firms appear and vanish — several competitors have collapsed with days’ notice. Two honest caveats belong next to that: the accounts are simulated rather than live capital (standard for the sector, but worth knowing), and the biggest recurring complaint against FTMO, as with any prop firm, concerns accounts closed for rule breaches after multiple payouts. Read the forbidden-practices page before you scale, not after.
Is FTMO legit? What we verified — and what we didn’t
FTMO is a real, operating prop firm, and the terms it advertises matched its own official documentation when we last checked (14 August 2026). But “is FTMO legit” usually bundles two different questions: does the firm operate as advertised, and does it actually pay? The first is verifiable from primary sources, and we verify it on a fixed cadence. The second cannot be promised by any comparison site — including this one. Here is exactly where that line sits.
What we verified ourselves
- Its published pricing (both the 2-step and 1-step tables, and the current €439/€399 100K deal) matched FTMO’s own live pricing data on 14 August 2026; the €439/€399 deal was re-checked on 21 October 2026 (FTMO’s pricing panel still lists both as “Best Value”; its “20% Off” header banner is gone).
- Its payout mechanics are documented publicly: an 80% split rising to 90%, paid by bank wire, Visa Direct / Mastercard Send (up to $20,000), Skrill (up to $3,000) or cryptocurrency.
- Its US route is real and specific: the global product does not accept US persons; US residents trade through FTMO US at ftmo.oanda.com following the OANDA acquisition.
- It has the longest continuous track record of the firms we cover — operating from Prague since 2015.
What we have not verified
The gaps matter as much as the figures, so we list them:
- We have not personally completed a challenge and taken a payout from FTMO. No comparison site that tells you a firm “definitely pays” has tested it either.
- Two figures on FTMO’s own pages resisted verification on 14 August: the Best Day Rule consistency percentage, and the USD-denominated pricing table (it loads client-side). Both are queued for re-check.
- We do not audit complaint volumes, denial rates, or how FTMO’s internal risk desk treats individual accounts.
How to check FTMO’s reputation yourself
Our data tells you what FTMO promises. Trader reports tell you how those promises land in practice — so read both, and read the reports properly:
- Sort by recent, not by rating. Prop-firm terms change fast; a glowing review of a rule set that no longer exists tells you nothing about today.
- Read specific complaints, not the star average. A report naming an account size, a date and a payout amount carries far more information than a one-line rating — in either direction.
- Weight payout-delay reports heaviest. Delays and denials at withdrawal time are the failure mode that actually costs traders money.
- Discount both extremes. Prop firms run incentives for positive reviews, and affiliates of competing firms amplify negative ones. The specific, boring, mid-range reports are usually the honest ones.
- Useful places to look: Trustpilot for volume, and trading communities on Reddit and Discord for detail. We deliberately do not aggregate those into a score of our own — that would just be a number we cannot verify.
Quick answers
Does FTMO have a free trial?
Yes. FTMO offers a Free Trial — its own description is “a free, simplified version of the FTMO Challenge experience designed for practice purposes” —, and it advertises as many Free Trials as you need, with no purchase required. Verified on ftmo.com on 14 August 2026. It is a practice environment, not a funded account: passing a Free Trial does not fund you, and you still buy a Challenge to start the real evaluation.
Is FTMO legit?
FTMO is a real, operating prop firm: FTMO is the oldest firm in this comparison, operating from Prague since 2015, and its rules and pricing are published in detail and matched our checks on 14 August 2026. We have not tested a payout ourselves, and our profile states plainly which figures we could not verify.
Does FTMO really pay?
FTMO documents an 80% profit split rising to 90%, with payouts by bank wire, Visa Direct / Mastercard Send (up to $20,000), Skrill (up to $3,000) or crypto. Those terms are published and we re-verified them on 14 August 2026. What documentation cannot tell you is whether any individual payout request clears without dispute — that is what trader reports are for.
Is FTMO available to traders in the USA?
Not on the global product — FTMO does not accept US persons there. US residents are served through a separate entity, FTMO US at ftmo.oanda.com, following FTMO’s acquisition of OANDA. Pricing is in USD and the platforms are MetaTrader 5 and TradingView.
Does FTMO accept US traders?
Yes. Since 2025 FTMO serves US residents through FTMO US (an OANDA partnership) with USD pricing on MetaTrader 5 and TradingView. Five US states are excluded, and the global FTMO product does not accept US persons.
What is FTMO’s maximum drawdown rule?
On the 2-step Challenge the maximum loss is 10% static, meaning your equity can never fall below 90% of the initial balance, with a 5% daily loss limit. The 1-step uses a 10% end-of-day trailing drawdown, a 3% daily loss limit, and a Best Day Rule (for orders placed before 12 October 2026; new 1-Step orders from that date get a stricter Consistency rule instead: best day no more than 50% of total profit, losing days included).
Is the FTMO fee refundable?
On the 2-step, yes: the fee is returned with your first payout, so a challenge you pass effectively costs nothing and your real spend is one fee per failed attempt. On the 1-step the fee is non-refundable.
What is the difference between FTMO Standard and Swing accounts?
The Swing account type, offered only on the 2-step, removes the news-trading restriction and the weekend-holding restriction that apply to a Standard funded account. Evaluations are unrestricted either way.
Is FTMO real money or simulated?
All FTMO accounts are simulated (demo) accounts with fictitious capital. You trade a live data feed, and payouts are a performance reward funded by the company, not withdrawals from a live market position.