FTMO allows EAs. You already know that. What you probably don't know is exactly how three of their rules will kill your account if your EA isn't configured for them:
- Your SL or TP gets triggered during a 2-minute news window — even passively — and that counts as a violation
- The 1-Step drawdown limit trails your equity high, so making money actually shrinks your safety margin
- Your popular third-party EA shares a $400K strategy allocation pool with every other user running the same bot
We went through FTMO's official rule pages line by line (<a href="https://ftmo.com/en/forbidden-trading-practices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forbidden Trading Practices</a>, <a href="https://ftmo.com/en/how-to-pass-ftmo-challenge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to Pass</a>, <a href="https://ftmo.com/en/faq/can-i-trade-news/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">News Trading FAQ</a>) and translated every rule into a specific EA parameter setting. Here's the result.
Know which track you're on first
The core rules differ between 1-Step and 2-Step. Get this wrong and every number below is off.
| 1-Step | 2-Step | |
|---|---|---|
| Max Daily Loss | 3% of initial capital | 5% of initial capital |
| Max Drawdown | 10% of initial capital (trailing) | 10% of initial capital (static) |
| Profit Target | 10% | Challenge 10% → Verification 5% |
| Min Trading Days | None | 4 days (at least 1 trade each) |
| Time Limit | None | None |
The critical difference is in the Max Drawdown row. With 2-Step, the 10% is calculated from your starting balance and stays fixed — a $100K account always has $90K as the floor. With 1-Step, it's trailing: at 00:00 CE(S)T each day, if your balance set a new high, the floor moves up with it.
Example: Your $100K 1-Step account grows to $105K (end-of-day balance). The drawdown floor rises from $90K to $95K. You then lose back down to $95K — you haven't lost a dollar of the original capital, but you've breached the limit.
What to set: On 1-Step, don't set MaxDrawdown at 10%. Use 7-8% to leave a buffer, because the trailing mechanism compresses your actual breathing room every time you're profitable.
Rule by rule → parameter by parameter
Max Daily Loss: 3% (1-Step) / 5% (2-Step)
Resets at 00:00 CE(S)T daily. The system records your account balance at midnight, subtracts the fixed daily loss allowance (3% or 5% of initial capital), and that gives you the day's loss floor. If your equity — not balance — drops below that floor at any point during the day, it's a breach. Floating losses count.
On a $100K 2-Step account: max allowed daily loss = $5,000.
What to set:
- Set MaxDailyLoss to 80% of the official limit — that's $4,000 on a $100K 2-Step, $2,400 on 1-Step. The 20% buffer covers slippage and gap risk
- If your EA trades multiple pairs, this limit is combined across all symbols, not per-pair
- Your EA should auto-stop when the daily loss limit is hit. If it can't do that on its own, use an <a href="/en/products/jiao-yi-shi-duan-guan-li-qi">AutoTrading Scheduler</a> to cut trading at a daily loss threshold
Max Drawdown: 10%, but calculated differently
This is the rule that catches the most people. Quick recap:
- 2-Step: Floor is $90K on a $100K account. Doesn't move. Ever. Even if you double the account
- 1-Step: Floor follows your highest end-of-day balance. The more you make, the higher it climbs. On paper the gap is always 10% of the high. In practice it feels completely different — you'll be sitting at $97,500, thinking you're fine, while the floor is already at $98K
What to set:
| Track | MaxDrawdown Setting | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Step | 8% | Leaves 2% for extreme moves and overnight gaps |
| 1-Step | 7% | The trailing mechanism means your EA needs to get more conservative as it profits |
Use a <a href="/en/tools/drawdown-calculator">drawdown calculator</a> to plug in your strategy's worst historical losing streak and work backward to per-trade risk. Then use a <a href="/en/tools/position-size-calculator">position size calculator</a> to convert that dollar risk into lot size.
News window: ±2 minutes, and yes — SL/TP triggers count
On FTMO funded Standard accounts (not Swing), you cannot open or close any trades — including pending order triggers — within 2 minutes before or after selected high-impact news on the affected instruments. It's not a blanket ban on all pairs — NFP restricts USD-related instruments, not everything.
Here's the part most people miss: you're not at your desk, your EA isn't even running logic, but the market spikes on the news release and hits your take profit. That's a breach. FTMO's own words: "if a Stop Loss or Take Profit is triggered within the restricted time window, this will also be considered a breach."
None of this applies during the Challenge or Verification phases — trade news freely. It only kicks in once you're funded.
Swing accounts have no news restrictions at all. If your strategy lives on news volatility or you can't be bothered with filters, pick Swing.
What to set:
- If your EA has a NewsFilter: enable it, stop new orders 5 minutes before high-impact news (3 minutes of buffer over the official 2), resume 3 minutes after
- More important: 5 minutes before news, delete pending orders and widen SL/TP on open positions to prevent passive triggers inside the window
- If your EA doesn't have a news filter: use an <a href="/en/products/jiao-yi-shi-duan-guan-li-qi">AutoTrading Scheduler</a> to disable autotrading before news events, with "close all and delete pending orders" enabled
- News calendar sources: FTMO's own economic calendar, Forex Factory, or MQL5's built-in
MqlCalendarValuefunction
Server request limit: 2,000/day
FTMO's Forbidden Trading Practices page flags "more than 2,000 server requests per day" — including opens, modifications, and closes — as hyperactivity.
A single trade generates at minimum 2 requests (open + close). Add SL/TP modifications and each one is another request. A trade with a trailing stop can easily rack up 5-10 requests. When we tested one of our grid EAs on XAUUSD — just 10 grid levels on a single pair — it burned through 800+ requests in a day. Add a second pair and you're flirting with the limit.
What to set:
- Rough math: without trailing stops, cap at 1,000 round-trip trades per day. With trailing stops, figure ~5 requests per trade and cap at 400 trades/day
- Grid EAs are the biggest risk here — 20 grid levels with opens and closes is 40 requests per cycle, plus frequent modifications. It adds up fast
- If your EA has a MaxTradesPerDay parameter, set it based on the estimates above
- Running multiple EAs? The 2,000 limit is across all EAs combined
Concurrent orders: ~200
FTMO's platform allows roughly 200 orders at a time (open positions + pending orders). This isn't a rules violation — it's a technical ceiling. Exceed it and orders simply won't place.
Most traders never come close. But if you run several EAs across multiple pairs, or use a grid strategy, positions pile up faster than you'd think in volatile markets. Don't max out MaxOpenOrders — leave headroom for manual trades.
Third-party EAs and the $400K strategy pool
FTMO allows third-party EAs. But here's the trap: the maximum capital allocation per trader or per strategy is $400K.
"Per strategy" means this: you bought a popular gold EA, and 500 other people are also running it on FTMO. Everyone's total funded capital can't exceed $400K. First come, first served. You pass the challenge, apply for your funded account, and get denied — because the people who got there before you already filled the pool.
FTMO says it plainly: "if you use an EA from a third party, there might be other traders already using the same EA and therefore exactly the same strategy."
Changing parameters doesn't necessarily save you. If your trading behavior — same pair, same session, same direction — looks like everyone else's, the risk system will classify you as the same strategy anyway.
What to set:
- Change the Magic Number — but that's table stakes. Magic Numbers are internal to the EA and don't change actual trade behavior
- What actually creates differentiation: different pair selections, different trading sessions (if you trade Asia, only trade Asia), different entry filters (different MA periods, different volatility thresholds)
- Obscure EAs are safer than popular ones — fewer users means lower collision risk
- The safest option is an EA you wrote yourself or one you've deeply customized
Safe parameter template
This is the template we use when configuring our own EAs for FTMO. Based on a $100K 2-Step Standard account, conservative settings:
| Parameter | Setting | Logic |
|---|---|---|
| MaxDailyLoss | $4,000 (4%) | 80% of the $5,000 official limit |
| MaxDrawdown | $8,000 (8%) | 80% of the $10,000 official limit |
| Risk per trade | $500 (0.5%) | Allows 8 consecutive losers before hitting daily limit |
| MaxTradesPerDay | 100 | Leaves half the request budget for modifications (~4 requests/trade) |
| MaxOpenOrders | 30 | Headroom for other EAs or manual trades |
| NewsFilter | On | Required on funded, recommended during evaluation too |
| Pre-news stop | 5 min before | 3-minute buffer over the official 2 minutes |
| Post-news resume | 3 min after | Let the volatility settle |
Scaling to other account sizes: percentages stay the same, dollar amounts scale linearly. $200K = double the numbers. $50K = halve them. For per-trade risk in lot size, plug your risk amount and stop-loss distance into the <a href="/en/tools/position-size-calculator">position size calculator</a>.
For 1-Step: drop MaxDailyLoss to $2,400 (80% of 3%), MaxDrawdown to $7,000 (7%).
Three ways traders blow it
Scenario 1: TP hits during news — violation
Your EA opened a EURUSD long during the London session with a 50-pip take profit. NFP comes out, the market spikes, and your TP gets hit within a minute of the release. You made money. Doesn't matter — it's a breach.
This isn't theoretical. FTMO explicitly states that TP triggers during the restricted window count. On Reddit, a user posted about getting flagged on their funded account for exactly this — "I didn't even touch the platform, my TP just got hit during news." No successful appeal.
How to avoid it: 5 minutes before news, widen your TP to something absurd (50 → 500 pips). Set it back after. Or just close the position and take what you've got.
Scenario 2: 1-Step trailing drawdown
$100K account, 1-Step. Great first week — balance hits $108K. The drawdown floor quietly moves from $90K to $98K.
Second week, the market turns. Account drops to $97,500. You look at it and think "I'm only down $2,500 from my peak, and I'm still above the $100K starting balance." But the floor is $98K now. Challenge over.
This one hurts because you still have $97,500 — only 2.5% below starting capital.
How to avoid it: Once you've hit the profit target (10%), cut your MaxDailyLoss and per-trade risk by another 20%. You've already made enough — now the only job is not giving it back. Our approach: switch to "protection mode" at 5% profit. Smaller lots, tighter risk, secure the bag.
Scenario 3: Popular EA gets flagged as group trading
You bought a well-reviewed gold EA. Ran it on FTMO with default settings. Passed the challenge. Applied for your funded account — denied. The reason: other users are running the same EA, your trade records look almost identical, and the combined allocation is pushing against the $400K cap.
You didn't do anything wrong. You just weren't the first person to use that EA. ForexFactory threads about this pop up regularly — "passed the challenge but can't get funded" — and the answer is almost always "too many people running the same bot."
How to avoid it: Change the pair mix, change the session, change the entry filters. If possible, get the source code and customize. Running a popular EA on default settings is a bet that you're near the front of the $400K queue.
3 key differences vs FundedNext and The5ers
Full six-firm comparison is in our <a href="/en/classroom/do-prop-firms-allow-ea">Do Prop Firms Allow EAs?</a> article. Here are the three differences that directly affect your EA configuration:
Martingale / Grid: FTMO doesn't ban martingale or grid by name — their stance is that any legitimate strategy conforming to risk management and real market conditions is fine. But if a martingale or grid EA triggers overleveraging, overexposure, or hyperactivity, the account still gets flagged. FundedNext explicitly bans grid (it's on their prohibited list) but explicitly allows martingale — as long as total risk at any point stays under 3%. Same martingale EA, different outcomes at different firms.
Source code requirement: FTMO and FundedNext don't ask for your EA's source code. The5ers does — "using an EA from a provider where the trader does not own the source code" is explicitly prohibited. If you only have the compiled .ex4/.ex5 file, The5ers is basically off the table unless you can get a source code license from the vendor.
News window width: FTMO funded Standard is ±2 minutes (Swing has none), FundedNext funded is ±5 minutes (but trades aren't voided — profit during the window counts at 40%), The5ers High Stakes is ±2 minutes including the evaluation phase. Set your NewsFilter parameters accordingly.
FAQ
Does FTMO restrict news trading during the evaluation?
No. Challenge and Verification phases have no news restrictions — the ±2-minute window doesn't apply. Only funded Standard accounts are affected. Still worth keeping NewsFilter on during the evaluation so you don't have to reconfigure after passing.
Can a martingale EA pass FTMO?
It's not banned. FTMO's position is that any strategy is allowed as long as it's legitimate and meets risk management standards. But think about what martingale does — it adds to losing positions. Now think about FTMO's 3-5% daily loss limit. Two rounds of adding to a loser and you can blow past it easily.
If you insist: cap MaxLevel at 2-3 layers, keep the lot increment small, and do the math on worst-case total loss. Make sure it stays under 80% of the daily limit. Honestly, it's not that martingale can't work on FTMO — it's that most people can't control the parameters tightly enough.
What does the $400K allocation limit mean?
$400K max per trader or per strategy. "Per strategy" is judged by trading behavior, not by which EA you're using. Users of the same popular EA compete for the same pool. First come, first served. Passing the challenge doesn't guarantee you'll get a funded account.
1-Step or 2-Step?
Depends on your EA. The 2-Step drawdown floor is fixed — $100K always means $90K, no matter how much you make in between. Predictable. The 1-Step floor chases your balance upward, so doing well actually tightens your margin. Add the 3% daily loss limit (vs 5% on 2-Step), and you need tighter risk settings across the board.
Volatile EA: 2-Step. Consistent EA: 1-Step — skip a phase and get funded faster.
Should I change EA settings after passing the challenge?
Probably. The biggest change is that news restrictions kick in (unless you're on Swing) — if you didn't have NewsFilter on during evaluation, add it now. The other shift is mental: no profit target pressure on a funded account, so dial risk down 10-20% and shift from "hit the target" to "don't blow the account." FundedNext also requires strategy consistency — you can't switch from EA to manual or vice versa.
Calculate your FTMO-safe lot size: plug the per-trade risk amount from the template above and your EA's stop-loss distance into the <a href="/en/tools/position-size-calculator">position size calculator</a> — takes 30 seconds. If your EA needs to auto-stop during news, the <a href="/en/products/jiao-yi-shi-duan-guan-li-qi">AutoTrading Scheduler</a> is a free download.
About the author: The FXTool team builds and tests MetaTrader trading tools daily. We run every EA we sell on live accounts and publish the results. This guide reflects what we've learned from building 50+ EAs and working with thousands of retail traders.