Six Prop Firm Rules That Differ From Account to Account

Running one strategy across several prop accounts introduces a problem that does not exist with one account: the accounts are not governed by the same numbers.

The same order, at the same size, at the same moment, can sit inside the rules on one account and outside them on another. Nothing about the strategy changed. The account did.

This post is an inventory of what actually differs, and of what happens when several of those differences apply to the same order at once. It does not tell you how to set any of them. Where a figure appears it is arithmetic in an illustrative example, not a suggestion.

Six variables, and where each one is defined

1. The drawdown limit, and how it is measured

Two accounts can carry the same nominal balance and different drawdown allowances. They can also measure drawdown differently.

The distinction that matters most is static against trailing. A static limit is a fixed floor set from the starting balance. A trailing limit moves upward as the account gains, so the distance between current equity and the floor changes as the account trades.

The consequence for a multi-account setup: the same order consumes a different share of the available allowance on each account, and on a trailing account that share changes over the life of the account without anyone editing anything.

Balance tells you nothing about this on its own. The allowance and the measurement method are separate fields in the firm's terms.

2. The daily loss limit, and when the day resets

Two accounts can carry different daily loss allowances, calculate them from different baselines, and reset them at different moments.

Three things vary:

• The allowance, as a figure or a percentage.
• The baseline, which may be the day's starting balance or starting equity. The difference matters once a position is open, because equity includes floating profit and loss and balance does not.
• The reset time, which is a wall-clock moment defined by the firm. A broker's server day can roll over at a different moment, so the day being policed and the day you are watching are not necessarily the same day.

The allowance is also not static through the session. Earlier orders consume part of it, so the capacity remaining when an order arrives is a different number from the capacity at the open.

3. Trading hours

Some accounts accept orders across the whole session. Others restrict trading around the close, require positions to be flat overnight, or apply weekend rules.

For a discretionary trader on one account this is visible. For one alert reaching several accounts on different schedules, the difference is not visible at the moment the alert fires, only afterwards in the fill.

We route around this with per-account Trading Windows, which reject a signal server side when the receiving account is outside its hours. That is a mechanism, not a substitute for reading the account's terms.

4. News restrictions

Some accounts permit trading through scheduled economic releases. Others restrict opening positions inside a window around a release, and some restrict closing inside that window too.

The restriction is usually defined by three things: which events it covers, how wide the window is either side, and whether it applies to opening, closing, or both.

One alert reaching three accounts with three different news policies produces three different outcomes from one trading decision. An automated setup has no inherent knowledge of which account carries which restriction.

5. Maximum lot or position size

Drawdown is not the only ceiling. Some accounts carry a maximum lot size or a maximum position size, and these are commonly tighter during an evaluation phase.

This ceiling is independent of the drawdown allowance. An order can sit comfortably inside an account's drawdown allowance and still exceed its permitted size, because the two rules measure different things.

This is the variable most likely to be missed, because a risk-based sizing method never produces a number in lots until the moment of execution. See how lot size is calculated for what that calculation actually reads.

6. The profit target, and the phase

Accounts are not necessarily at the same point in their lifecycle. One may have just started an evaluation, another may be most of the way to its target, another may be past evaluation entirely.

Targets themselves differ between phases: a first phase and a second phase of the same programme commonly carry different targets, different minimum trading days, and sometimes different loss allowances.

The relevant fact for a multi-account setup is simply that this is a per-account variable with a value that changes over time, like the trailing drawdown floor in point 1. What any individual trader does with that information is theirs.

The six side by side

Four of the six carry values that move without anyone changing a setting. That is the part that makes a multi-account setup harder to hold in your head than the individual rules suggest.

The interactions are the hard part

Each of the six is simple read alone. What makes a multi-account setup difficult is that they apply to the same order simultaneously, and the combination can produce an outcome none of them produces individually.

An order can be inside the position-size ceiling, inside the drawdown allowance, and still breach the daily loss limit, because earlier orders that day already consumed most of the allowance.

An order can be inside every limit on its own account while arriving during a news window that account restricts, so the outcome depends on which of the two rules the firm applies first.

An order can be inside the daily allowance measured on balance and outside it measured on equity, because a position opened earlier is currently down.

None of these is a case of a rule being misunderstood. Each is a case of two or more rules being read separately when they apply together. The compounding is the difficulty, and it grows with account count rather than with strategy complexity.

Account exposure and combined exposure are different numbers

There is a second arithmetic that a per-account view does not show.

Take an illustrative case: one order routed to ten accounts, each sized so that the order risks 0.5 percent of that account's own balance. Every account is individually well inside its own allowance.

The combined figure is a different number. Across ten accounts, 0.5 percent each on the same trade idea is 5 percent of the combined balances exposed to that one idea, and the outcomes are correlated, because it is one idea rather than ten.

That is arithmetic, not a warning. The point is only that account-level exposure and combined exposure are two separate measurements, and a dashboard that shows the first does not automatically show the second. Post 06 covers why identical strategies produce correlated drawdown in more depth.

How to check your own accounts

The six variables above are patterns. The values are specific to each account and only the firm can tell you what they are.

1. Read the terms and the help centre for each account separately, including where the same firm runs several programmes. Programmes within one firm often differ.
2. For each of the six, write down the value, not the pattern. "Trailing, measured on equity, reset 00:00 CET" is checkable. "There is a drawdown rule" is not.
3. Check the last-updated date on each document. Where a help centre and the terms conflict, the terms usually govern, and the discrepancy is worth raising in writing.
4. Search for the mechanism rather than the phrase. A rule may never use the words "position size" and still cap it, through a maximum lot clause or a margin restriction.
5. Ask in writing about anything ambiguous, and keep the answer.

Primary sources

The links below go to each firm's own rules pages. They are listed alphabetically and without comment. Their presence here is not an endorsement, and we make no claim about what any of them permits. Verified as resolving on 2026-08-13; these are external pages and they will change.

What a multi-account setup has to hold

Reduced to a list, an order arriving at an account meets six account-specific values:

• The drawdown allowance, and whether it is static or trailing
• The daily loss allowance, its baseline, and how much of it is left
• Whether trading is permitted at this hour on this account
• Whether a news restriction applies to this account right now
• Whether the resulting position is inside this account's size ceiling
• Which phase the account is in, and what target applies

With one account that is one set of values. With eight accounts it is eight sets, four of which move on their own.

NexumTrader handles three of these as per-account settings today: risk sizing per account, trading hours per account, and a daily drawdown block that stops new orders once a configured equity loss threshold is reached for the day. Position-size ceilings, news windows and phase targets are not features at the time of writing. Where a rule is not enforced by the tooling, it stays with the trader, and knowing which is which is the point of the list above.

FAQ

Does a bigger account always carry a larger allowance? No. The allowance is a separate field from the balance. Two accounts with the same nominal balance can carry different drawdown allowances, different daily loss allowances and different position-size ceilings, depending on the account type and the phase.

What is the difference between static and trailing drawdown? A static limit is a fixed floor set from the starting balance. A trailing limit moves upward as the account gains, so the distance between current equity and the floor changes as the account trades. Which one applies is stated in the firm's terms.

Why does the daily loss reset time matter? Because the firm defines the day, and a broker's server day can roll over at a different moment. If the two do not line up, the window being policed is not the window being watched. Both values are checkable, and they are worth checking against each other before relying on either.

Can one alert reach accounts with different rules? Yes, and that is the situation this post describes. One alert routed to several accounts meets a different set of values at each one. Some of those differences can be expressed as per-account settings; others exist only in the firm's terms.

Where do I find these values for my own accounts? Each firm's own terms and help centre. The table above links to those pages directly. Values differ between firms, between programmes within one firm, and between phases of one programme.

NexumTrader is an order-routing tool. It routes the signals you configure to your own MetaTrader 5 accounts. It is not a broker, an investment firm or an adviser, and nothing here is a recommendation. Trading carries a substantial risk of loss.