The two numbers that end most challenges — and exactly how each one is calculated.
Every funded trading structure lives or dies by its loss limits, and the two numbers that matter most — daily loss and total loss — are often the least understood part of any evaluation. Traders read the percentages, nod, and then get surprised months later by exactly the rule they thought they understood. The math itself is simple. What trips people up is when each limit resets, what it is measured against, and what counts as a breach.
The daily loss limit caps how much an account can give back in a single trading day, measured as a fraction of the balance at the start of that day — what we call the day-anchor balance. On every plan, that limit is 5%. The anchor resets at 00:00 UTC, not at the time you personally started trading, so a position opened at 23:50 UTC and closed at 00:10 UTC is measured against two different anchors.
The total loss limit is a different animal entirely. It is 10% of your initial balance, calculated once when the account is created, and it never moves — not up as you bank profit, not down for any reason. On a 10,000 USDT account, that floor is fixed at 9,000 USDT from day one, whether your balance is 10,200 or 14,600 six months later.
Put numbers on it: a 10,000 USDT Step 1 account has a daily loss cap of 500 USDT and a total loss floor of 9,000 USDT. If you lose 500 USDT in one session, the account is closed for that breach alone, even if your overall balance is still 9,700 USDT and nowhere near the total floor. The daily limit is usually the one that ends accounts early, not the total limit.
Both limits are checked against balance and equity continuously, not just at day close. That means an open position deep enough underwater can trigger a breach on unrealized loss alone, even if you never close it. "It’s just a paper loss" is not a defense the engine recognizes — mark-to-market equity is watched every tick, the same way a real exchange would liquidate you.
The rules are identical across Step 1, Step 2, and funded status: 5% daily, 10% total, on every plan size. What changes moving through the phases is the profit target, not the leverage you’re allowed to take with risk. That consistency is deliberate — an evaluation that hides looser risk limits on the funded stage isn’t testing the same behavior it funded you for in the first place.
The practical takeaway is to design your position sizing around the daily limit, not the total one. A trader risking 1% of balance per trade needs five consecutive full-stop losses to touch the daily cap — a realistic bad session, not a black-swan scenario. Somebody risking 3% per trade only needs two losing trades in a row to be done for the day, and probably for the account.
None of this is punitive by design. Loss limits exist so that a losing streak stays a bad week instead of becoming a blown account, and so a funded trader’s downside is capped the same way a professional risk desk would cap it. Understanding exactly how daily and total loss are calculated — anchor, reset time, and what counts as a breach — is the difference between a rule you respect and a rule that surprises you.