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FTMO

The most-reviewed and, by most third-party trust rankings, the benchmark name in CFD proprietary trading challenges — Prague-based, running since 2015, with a 4.8/5 Trustpilot score across 50,989 reviews (92% five-star) and $650M+ reported paid to traders since inception. Runs a 2-Step Challenge (static drawdown, fee refunded on first payout) alongside a newer, faster 1-Step Challenge launched Feb 2026 (trailing drawdown, a 'Best Day Rule', and — easy to miss — a non-refundable entry fee). In August 2025 partnered with, and per secondary reporting completed acquiring in December 2025, the US-regulated broker OANDA — giving the FTMO group an actual regulated-brokerage arm behind its evaluation-challenge business, a scale/legitimacy signal neither of the other two prop firms on this site can claim.

◆ Recently checkedAffiliate partner (labelled)MT4MT5cTraderDXtrade
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Provider score
76
weighted mean of the dimensions below
Data confidence
Medium
how complete & sourced the fields are
Last fully verified
Sep 2, 2026
last checked Sep 2, 2026
Commercial relationship
Affiliate
never affects the score
Rules & terms

Evaluation & cost

Model2-step evaluation

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Account sizes10k, 25k, 50k, 100k, 200k (2-Step Standard/Swing); scales toward 2M combined

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Challenge fee from$155

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Fee refundableYes, on funding

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Refund conditions2-Step Challenge: the entry fee may be refunded in full with the first Reward withdrawal, via the original payment method — confirmed directly on ftmo.com. 1-Step Challenge: the entry fee is explicitly NOT refunded under any circumstance, per the same FAQ page — a real, easy-to-overlook difference between FTMO's two challenge types that a trader choosing the 'faster' 1-Step option should know before paying.

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Rules & terms

Drawdown & targets

Drawdown type decides whether a winning day raises the level you can be cut at.

Profit target10%

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Daily drawdown5%

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Max drawdown10%

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Drawdown typeStatic (balance-based)

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Minimum trading days4 days

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Time limitNo time limit stated

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Rules & terms

Payout terms

Profit split80–90%

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

First payout after14 days

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Payout rulesFigures above are for the flagship 2-Step Standard Challenge (10%/5% phase targets, 5%/10% static daily/max drawdown, 4 min trading days, fee ≈€155 for a $10K account — FTMO prices in EUR, so USD equivalents move with FX). A newer 1-Step Challenge (Feb 2026) trades the extra phase for tighter, trailing (not static) drawdown, a 'Best Day Rule' capping any single day at 50% of total profit, and — see refundConditions — no fee refund at all. A pricier Swing account variant (1:30 leverage vs Standard's 1:100) removes the funded-stage weekend-holding and news-trading restrictions entirely. First payout ('Reward') can be requested 14 days after the first trade on a funded account, reviewed within 1–2 business days and paid within a further 1–2 business days; after the first payout, requests become on-demand rather than fixed-cycle. Scaling: qualifying funded accounts get a 25% size boost every 4 months (≥10% profit, ≥2 processed Rewards in that window), combined accounts capped at $2,000,000, profit split rising to 90% at max scaling (2-Step only). In August 2025 FTMO partnered with OANDA to resume US service via OANDA's regulated infrastructure (DXtrade-only for US clients); FTMO Group's separate corporate acquisition of OANDA was, per secondary reporting, completed in December 2025 — not independently re-verified here.

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Rules & terms

Strategy rules

A rule that is absent from this list is not automatically permitted — it means we have no sourced statement either way.

News tradingNot confirmed allowed

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Weekend holdingNot confirmed allowed

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Expert advisorsAllowed

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Copy tradingNot confirmed allowed

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Consistency ruleNot on file

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Scaling planYes

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Prohibited strategiesGoverned by FTMO's separate 'Forbidden Trading Practices' policy: standard trend-following, breakout, swing and scalping EAs are permitted, but latency arbitrage, tick-scalping exploits and any strategy designed to game the simulated-price environment are not. On funded Standard accounts specifically, no trading is allowed within 2 minutes before/after high-impact news releases, and weekend position-holding is restricted — both of these are lifted entirely on the pricier Swing account variant, which runs at lower (1:30) leverage instead.

Source: FTMO — Trading Objectives (1-Step & 2-Step) · last checked Sep 2, 2026 · confidence Medium

Score breakdown

How this score was built

Each dimension is scored 0–100 with a written rationale and its own weight. No single unexplained star.

Commercial deals excluded
20%Rule clarity80

The best-documented of the three prop firms reviewed on this site: a dedicated Trading Objectives page states exact per-phase, per-challenge-type numbers directly and unambiguously, a separate Forbidden Trading Practices page enumerates banned strategies, and the FAQ answers granular questions (refund policy, country eligibility, affiliate mechanics) as individually addressable pages rather than burying them in one long article. Not scored higher because the 1-Step Challenge (Feb 2026) and the Standard-vs-Swing account split each carry their own materially different drawdown type and restriction set, so 'the FTMO rules' is really several different rule sets depending on which product a trader actually bought — the same multi-model fragmentation seen at the other two firms, just better documented here.

20%Drawdown fairness76

The flagship 2-Step Challenge uses static drawdown (fixed throughout the phase) at standard-for-the-industry 5%/10% daily/max thresholds — fair and predictable. The newer 1-Step Challenge trades that away for a trailing, end-of-day-recalculated drawdown plus a 'Best Day Rule' (no single day above 50% of total profit) — a meaningfully harder risk profile marketed as the 'faster' option, the same pattern of the cheaper/quicker tier hiding tougher terms seen at both other prop firms on this site. No evidence found of drawdown terms being changed retroactively on already-funded accounts.

18%Payout-term transparency82

The strongest payout track record found across all three prop firms reviewed here: a stated 14-day first-payout wait, 1–2 business days to review plus 1–2 more to pay, on-demand requests after that (no fixed monthly cycle to wait on), $650M+ reported paid since 2015, and Trustpilot reviewers specifically and repeatedly citing fast, reliable payouts as the standout positive across 50,989 reviews (92% five-star). No review-manipulation finding of the kind found against a peer firm turned up in this research, and negative reviews cluster on rule-enforcement/breach disagreements rather than non-payment or manipulation — a materially more benign complaint pattern than at the other two firms.

14%Fee / value relationship74

Competitively priced (≈€155 for a $10K 2-Step Challenge) with a genuine 100% fee refund on the first payout — better than one peer firm's 70%-only refund. Not scored higher because: (a) the 1-Step Challenge's fee is not refunded at all, a real value cliff on the 'faster' product; (b) FTMO's entry point is priced in EUR and isn't the cheapest in absolute terms — a rival firm's smallest challenge undercuts it substantially at the $6K tier; and (c) the base profit split is 80%, only reaching 90% after meeting the scaling plan's 4-month/10%-profit/2-payout bar, not immediately.

12%Platform & strategy compatibility76

The broadest platform spread of the three firms reviewed (MT4, MT5, cTrader, DXtrade — the last mandatory for US clients via OANDA), and EAs are broadly permitted subject to the same kind of exploit carve-outs used industry-wide. Marked down for the same trade-off pattern found elsewhere: the default, cheaper Standard funded account restricts weekend holding and blacks out trading for 2 minutes around high-impact news, and a trader has to specifically choose and pay for the higher-leverage-sacrificing Swing variant to remove those restrictions — not a limitation stated up-front in headline marketing.

10%Rule-change stability62

Genuinely more structural change in the last 12 months than a typical incremental rule tweak: an entirely new 1-Step Challenge format launched in February 2026 alongside the existing 2-Step, and — separately — FTMO Group's corporate acquisition of the US-regulated broker OANDA, reported completed in December 2025 (not independently re-verified here; the primary press-release fetch attempt timed out). Neither change appears to have clawed back terms on already-funded accounts, which is the more serious version of this risk, but a group undergoing this much structural and corporate change in one year is inherently less settled/predictable than a firm that hasn't just absorbed a regulated broker into its corporate structure.

6%Dispute transparency66

The best of the three firms on this dimension: no review-manipulation finding surfaced in this research (unlike a peer firm), and the negative-review pattern on Trustpilot is specifically about rule-enforcement disagreements at the margins (traders surprised by a breach on an edge case) rather than allegations of vague, unevidenced account terminations on large payouts (the pattern found at both other prop firms reviewed here). Not scored higher because 'strict rule enforcement produces edge-case disputes' is still a real, recurring complaint category, and no independent dispute-resolution audit or ombudsman-style process was found for any of these firms, FTMO included.

Reviews

What readers report

Member reviews are kept separate from our editorial assessment and from the provider score — they are moderated, not curated for tone.

No approved member reviews yet. An empty review list is not a negative signal — it means nobody has published one here.

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Sourcing

Where this data came from

If a field is missing here, treat it as unverified rather than as a negative.

Verification statusRecently checked
Data confidenceMedium
Last checkedSep 2, 2026
Last fully verifiedSep 2, 2026
Reviewed byNot recorded
Attached sources

Editor note: Prop firm — regulatory status intentionally not a scoring dimension (matches PROP_DIMENSIONS in src/lib/scoring.ts and FTMO's own Terms, which state plainly that all accounts are 'demo accounts with fictitious funds' in a 'simulated environment only' — see Source #7). Excellent primary-source coverage overall — nearly every rules/pricing/affiliate/eligibility claim was fetched directly from ftmo.com rather than relying on trackers, a step up from the other two prop firms added to this site. Two things flagged as genuinely unresolved rather than quietly picked one way: (a) India's FTMO eligibility — several third-party trackers list India as restricted and a literal ftmo.com/block/IN.html URL exists, but FTMO's own primary 'Who can join FTMO?' FAQ does not list India among excluded countries and the block URL itself resolved to the ordinary homepage on fetch; treat as unresolved, re-check before telling a specific user they are or aren't eligible. (b) The December 2025 completion date for FTMO Group's acquisition of OANDA rests on secondary press aggregation only — a direct fetch of an OANDA press release timed out — while the primary FTMO blog post (Aug 2025) explicitly describes the deal as still pending regulatory approval at that time; the partnership (distinct from the acquisition) is confirmed and operational either way. Bangladesh is not on FTMO's restricted-country list, unlike one peer firm reviewed on this site — worth surfacing for this site's audience.