Topstep rules explained: the trailing Maximum Loss Limit and the 50% day
Topstep is a futures account with the strictest kind of drawdown line: one that follows your equity up while a trade is still open. Most traders who fail it do so on a day they were green — which sounds absurd until you follow the arithmetic once.
Prop firms change their terms, and rules differ by plan size, phase and promotion. Topstep’s own rules page is authoritative — always check it against the plan you hold before you trade.
Topstep 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.
Two rules define a Topstep account, and both of them watch live equity rather than your closed balance. The drawdown floor trails your live equity, open profit included, and the daily loss limit counts open positions too. Together that means an unrealised swing can end an account that never booked a loss.
How the trailing floor actually works
A trailing drawdown is a floor that follows your account upward and never comes back down. Every new equity high drags it up behind you; a drawdown does not lower it again. The consequence traders miss is that profit you never banked can still raise the floor, because the floor follows the peak your equity touched, not the balance you finished with.
Take a hypothetical $50,000 account with a $2,500 trailing floor, so it starts at $47,500. A trade runs to +$1,500 unrealised: the equity peak is $51,500 and the floor has already climbed to $49,000. You let it reverse and close at +$200. Your balance is $50,200 — a winning day — but your remaining room is $1,200, not the $2,500 you started with. You paid half your buffer for a $200 win. Do that twice and the account is effectively out of room while the equity curve still points up.
The floor stops rising once it reaches your starting balance, and everything you make above that is buffer you cannot lose back to the trail. That single sentence should shape how you size in the first weeks: while the floor is still trailing, every unrealised spike you give back is permanently expensive, and once it locks, the cost structure of a round-trip changes completely. Traders who understand this trade smaller before the lock and can afford to breathe after it.
The daily loss limit counts what is still open
The daily loss is measured on live equity, which means a position that is deep underwater consumes your daily room while you are still holding it, hoping it comes back. It does not wait for you to take the loss. The limit itself is set by your plan size rather than as a fixed percentage, so read it off your own account and enter it when you set the account up.
The trading day rolls at 4:00 p.m. America/Chicago. Futures firms reset around the close of the CME session rather than at midnight, so an evening trade often belongs to tomorrow's limit. Convert the reset into your own timezone once and write it down; guessing at it in the moment is how a "flat for the day" trade turns into a breach.
The 50% rule and what it does to a big day
No single day may be worth more than 50% of your total profit. This is not a rule you break by losing — it is a rule you break by winning too much at once, and it is measured as a ratio, so the way out of a breach is never to undo the good day. It is to keep trading normally until the rest of your profit catches up.
The practical effect is that a huge day early in an account is a mixed blessing: it moves you toward the profit target and away from being able to withdraw it. If your best day is already close to 50% of the total, the correct response is smaller size and more days, not a bigger swing to "balance it out" — and it is worth knowing exactly how much more profit the account needs before the ratio clears, rather than guessing.
Trading days, payouts and the split
10 trading days on this rule set. Any day with a trade on it counts, whatever the result. The split is 100% to the trader.
What most often ends a Topstep account
- Letting a large open winner round-trip. This is the signature Topstep failure. On an intraday-trailing floor, giving back unrealised profit costs you buffer permanently, even on a day that closes green.
- Holding a loser into the reset. An open position that is underwater is already counted. "I will let it work overnight" spends daily room in a session you are not watching.
- Sizing for the profit target instead of the floor. The target is the reward; the floor is the constraint. Traders who size off the target hit the floor first, in almost every failed account.
Tracking a Topstep 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 Topstep, checked against the firm's own published rules on the date at the top of this page — but Topstep'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.
Topstep rules: common questions
How does the Topstep trailing drawdown work?
On the rule set Edgekeeper loads, the floor trails your live equity, open profit included — every new equity high pulls it up behind you and it never falls back. The floor stops rising once it reaches your starting balance, and everything you make above that is buffer you cannot lose back to the trail.
Does open profit and loss count at Topstep?
Yes. Both the trailing floor and the daily loss limit are measured on live equity, so an unrealised swing can breach either one before you have closed anything.
What is the Topstep consistency rule?
No single day may account for more than 50% of your total profit. It is a ratio, so it clears as the rest of your profit grows — you never need to give a good day back.
When does the Topstep trading day reset?
At 4:00 p.m. America/Chicago — around the futures session close rather than at local midnight, so an evening trade usually belongs to the next trading day.
How many trading days does Topstep require before a payout?
10 on this rule set. Any day with a trade on it counts, whatever the result. The split is 100% to the trader.
Track a Topstep 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.
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New to these limits? Start with daily loss vs. trailing max drawdown.