Prop firm rules · Topic guide
Prop firm rules: how to read a rulebook, and where each rule lives
A prop firm's rulebook is not one document but several, written in different places and carrying different weight. Some rules are a number the system checks on its own; others are a practice the firm judges; and all of them hang from a contract that can change.
This page explains where each kind of rule lives and how to read it, using FTMO's rulebook as the example, and links to the guides that work through the cases that matter most to anyone trading with an automated system.
Sources re-read at origin on 25/09/2026 · linked at the end
This page explains how a rulebook is read, it does not assess any firm
First, who these rules apply to
Everything below exists because a firm sets the rules. With your own capital at a broker there is no evaluation to pass and no practices a prop firm can ban.
In a prop firm account you trade inside the firm's rulebook, and the firm decides whether you have complied. In an account opened in your name with a broker, what counts is that account's conditions, and the risk limits are yours to set. They are two different frameworks, and an automated system is configured against whichever applies: how that works on each route is in how the installation works.
If you are still deciding whether the prop firm route suits you, the full journey of an account —evaluation, limits, passing and payout— is in the guide to prop firm accounts.
Where each rule lives
Four places, and none of them holds everything. Reading only one is the most common way to break a rule that was written down all along.
The objectives: what is measured by a number
The profit target and the loss limits, with the way each is calculated. These are the only rules the firm's system checks by itself, without interpretation: the account has either touched the limit or it has not. What looks simple here is the calculation, which is why it has its own guide in prop firm drawdown explained.
The forbidden practices: what the firm judges
There is no threshold here, only descriptions of conduct. FTMO opens its page by saying that "Following these rules is mandatory and is your main responsibility", and among them it includes a clause that rests on its own judgement: trades carried out in a way that "we reasonably consider might cause us financial, reputational, or other harm". A rule like that is not checked with a calculator; it is read knowing who applies it.
The FAQ: where the nuances turn up
Many clarifications that change how a rule reads are not in the rulebook but in the FAQ. FTMO's answer on strategies is the example: it warns that with a third-party expert advisor "there might be other traders already using the same EA and therefore exactly the same strategy", which ties a program to a capital limit that seemed to have nothing to do with it.
The terms: the contract everything hangs from
It is the document you accept, and the others point back to it: the forbidden practices page itself bans trading "in conflict with the FTMO General Terms and Conditions". All of the above is read in the version in force on the day you read it, and that date is worth noting down: the rule that counts is the one published when you trade, not the one you remember.
The cases that affect a bot
Three guides apply that method to the cases that most affect an automated system, each with the clause quoted and its source.
Whether an expert advisor is allowed. The short answer at FTMO is yes; the long one is the activity limits and the practices a program can trip without its owner intending to. It is broken down source by source in what FTMO allows and bans for expert advisors.
What happens to techniques nobody names. Neither martingale nor grid appears by that name in FTMO's rulebook, and that does not make them free: by their own mechanics they trip limits that are written down. Which ones, in whether prop firms allow martingale and grid trading.
Where the line falls between accounts. Opening opposite positions within one account is the exception FTMO writes in brackets —"with the exception of entering into such positions on a single simulated account"— and doing it across accounts is what it bans. Within the account there is a further proviso: not to spread profit across days and get round the best day rule. Copying trades has its own cap, counted per strategy. The detail is in copy trading and hedging at prop firms.
All three guides use FTMO's rulebook because it is the only one this site has broken down against its public pages. For other firms, we do not publish rules we have not read at origin.
Your account's rules, before you pay
Before charging anything we confirm whether your combination of firm or broker, account and platform accepts an automated system, and the parameters are set against the rulebook or conditions that apply. The route is written out step by step.