City Traders Imperium rules explained: no time limit, and what that changes
City Traders Imperium removes the rule most traders never think to look for: the deadline. With no time limit on the evaluation, the only thing that can fail the account is a rule breach — which sounds like less pressure, and quietly relocates all of it.
Prop firms change their terms, and rules differ by plan size, phase and promotion. City Traders Imperium’s own rules page is authoritative — always check it against the plan you hold before you trade.
City Traders Imperium at a glance
Where a row says “set per plan size”, the firm states that limit in dollars per account rather than as a single percentage — read it off your own account and enter it when you set the account up.
The structure is conventional: a maximum drawdown of 10% fixed to your initial balance, a daily loss limit of 5% from the start of the day, and a floor that a fixed floor that never moves. The floor is set once and never moves, so every dollar of profit is a dollar of extra room. What is unconventional is the absence of a clock.
A time limit is the rule that generates most of the bad decisions in prop trading. It converts a quiet market into a problem, turns "no setup today" into lost ground, and makes oversizing feel like catching up rather than gambling. Remove it and the correct strategy becomes patience — trade your setups, take the days off, arrive when you arrive.
The pressure does not vanish, it moves
What actually happens to most traders on an untimed evaluation is subtler than relief. Without a deadline there is no natural moment to stop, so a losing stretch has no boundary: the trader who would have failed a timed challenge in four weeks and moved on instead grinds the same account for four months, slowly, in a way that is much harder to see and much harder to quit.
The fix is to set the deadline the firm did not. Decide in advance how long the attempt gets and what you will do when it expires, and write it down before the first trade rather than negotiating with yourself in week nine.
The day count is a floor, not a target
3 trading days are required in each phase on this rule set. Any day with a trade on it counts, whatever the result. With no deadline that minimum is easy to meet and easy to misread: it says how soon you may pass, not how soon you should.
The daily limit counts closed trades
The daily limit is measured from each day's starting balance, and only closed trades count against it. An open loser does not breach the limit until you close it — a reason to close it deliberately, not a reason to hold it. CTI's rules pages do not publish the reset time; this rule set assumes 12:00 a.m. Europe/London, so confirm the day change on your own account before trading a late session.
What most often ends a CTI account
- Grinding an attempt with no exit criteria. No deadline means no natural stopping point, and a slow failure is the hardest one to walk away from.
- Trading on quiet days out of boredom rather than obligation. With the clock gone, the only reason left to force a trade is impatience.
- Assuming the daily limit is as relaxed as the calendar. It is a normal daily limit on a normal daily clock.
Tracking a City Traders Imperium account
The reason these rules are worth reading closely is that none of them are checked by your platform. Your broker shows you a balance; the firm is watching a floor, a daily limit and a share of profit that your balance alone does not tell you about. Edgekeeper loads this rule set onto an account and does the arithmetic on every trade you log: how much daily loss room is left right now, where the drawdown floor currently sits, how many qualifying days you have, and whether one big day has put the consistency rule between you and a payout.
It also warns you before you write the trade, not after. The point is not to be a scoreboard — it is to be the thing that says "this trade takes you inside the last third of your daily loss" while you can still decide something about it.
Prop firms revise their rules regularly, and they differ by plan size, by phase and sometimes by promotion. Everything above is the rule set Edgekeeper loads for City Traders Imperium, checked against the firm's own published rules on the date at the top of this page — but City Traders Imperium's own page is the authority, and every field is editable on your account, so if your plan differs you can change it and the app will judge you by your numbers rather than these.
City Traders Imperium rules: common questions
Does City Traders Imperium have a time limit?
Not on this evaluation rule set — the account is not failed by a deadline, only by a rule breach. The practical catch is that without a deadline a losing attempt has no natural end, so set your own before you start.
What is the City Traders Imperium maximum drawdown?
10% on this rule set, fixed to the initial balance as a floor that a fixed floor that never moves. The floor is set once and never moves, so every dollar of profit is a dollar of extra room.
What is the CTI daily loss limit?
5% from the start-of-day balance on this rule set, counted on closed trades only. Different CTI plans use different daily figures, so confirm the one you hold.
How many trading days does City Traders Imperium require?
3 per phase on this rule set. Any day with a trade on it counts, whatever the result. There is no time limit, so the minimum only sets how quickly a phase can be passed.
Track a City Traders Imperium account in Edgekeeper — free
These are the exact rules Edgekeeper loads. Create the account and every trade you log updates your daily loss room, your live drawdown floor, your qualifying days and your payout eligibility — and warns you before a trade takes you past a limit. One prop account is free, forever, no card.
Track a City Traders Imperium account freeOther prop firms
New to these limits? Start with daily loss vs. trailing max drawdown.