FTMO Review 2026
Eleven years, $500M+ paid, and as of December 2025 FTMO owns the OANDA brokerage group. The benchmark prop firm by every measure that matters.
Track-record-first traders
Eleven years, $500M+ paid, EY award, Forbes feature, and as of December 2025 ownership of OANDA. Nothing else in the niche matches the combined trust signal.
US-based traders
The US route trades through ftmo.oanda.com on NFA-regulated infrastructure, which became FTMO-group-internal after the December 2025 acquisition.
News traders
Standard funded accounts lose a 2-minute window around high-impact news. The 2-Step Swing variant restores full news freedom, but caps forex leverage at 1:30 and account size at $100K.
Instant-funding seekers
FTMO requires evaluation. There is no instant-funding path. Firms like Funding Pips, FTUK, or Hola Prime fit better if you want to skip the challenge.
TL;DR
- ✓ Eleven years of unbroken operation, $500M+ in verified rewards, and a December 2025 acquisition of OANDA that adds regulated brokerage licenses across eight jurisdictions.
- ✓ 90% profit split on the 1-Step from day one. The 2-Step starts at 80% and refunds your full challenge fee on the first payout.
- ✗ Standard funded accounts cannot trade within a 2-minute window of high-impact news. The Swing variant exempts you, but lowers leverage to 1:30.
- ✗ The firm-discretion clause is broad. Recent aggregated-risk enforcement has reopened a small but real crack in the trust story.
Broker at a glance
Pros & cons
Pros
- Eleven years of operations and $500M+ in verifiable rewards, the longest unbroken track record in the niche.
- Acquired OANDA in December 2025, so the US route now trades under FTMO-group, NFA-regulated infrastructure.
- Up to 90% profit split with no withdrawal fees, 14-day cycle, and average 8-hour processing once verified.
- Refundable challenge fee on the 2-Step means effective cost drops to zero for traders who pass and hit a payout.
- Genuine career pathway through Prime, Supreme, and Quantlane (2-year salaried contract). Very few peers match this.
Cons
- Drawdown is strict, particularly the 3% daily on the 1-Step measured against the higher of equity or balance EOD.
- Standard funded accounts cannot trade within a 2-minute window of high-impact news. Only the Swing variant is exempt.
- Firm-discretion clause is broader than most. Recent one-sided-betting and aggregated-risk enforcement has caught funded traders off guard.
- Challenge fees sit above the budget end of the market. EUR-priced even when your account is USD-denominated.
- Best Day Rule on 1-Step caps any single day at 50% of positive-days' profit. Soft on paper, frustrating in practice for aggressive day traders.
Why the OANDA acquisition rewires the trust story
FTMO closed its acquisition of OANDA Global Corporation on 1 December 2025, after an eight-month regulatory approval process spanning five jurisdictions. The transaction value was not disclosed.
The structural read is simple. FTMO Group now operates a regulated multi-asset brokerage alongside the prop-trading evaluation business, with OANDA's licensed entities in New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney now sitting inside the group rather than being a third-party route. For the average FTMO trader, the day-to-day platform experience does not change. For US-based clients trading via ftmo.oanda.com, the execution route is now FTMO-internal rather than a partnership. That is a meaningful trust signal, even if the rules of the FTMO Challenge itself stay exactly where they were a month before the announcement.
Programs & pricing
1-Step · Featured FTMO Challenge: 1-Step
Single-phase evaluation with unlimited time, a 10% profit target, 3% daily loss measured against the higher of equity or balance EOD, and a trailing 10% maximum loss that resets to 90% of capital on every reward withdrawal.
FTMO Challenge: 1-Step
Single-phase evaluation with unlimited time, a 10% profit target, 3% daily loss measured against the higher of equity or balance EOD, and a trailing 10% maximum loss that resets to 90% of capital on every reward withdrawal.
| Account | Fee | Target | Daily loss | Total loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $85.00 | $1,000 | $300 | $1,000 |
| $25,000 | $215 | $2,500 | $750 | $2,500 |
| $50,000 | $345 | $5,000 | $1,500 | $5,000 |
| $100,000 | $540 | $10,000 | $3,000 | $10,000 |
| $200,000 | $1,080 | $20,000 | $6,000 | $20,000 |
Split scaling: 90% from day one. Scaling cycles continue at 90% with $2M capital cap.
Refund: Source disagreement: most sources report 1-Step fee is refundable on first payout (same as 2-Step). FXEmpire's one-off comment suggested otherwise. Default to refundable pending firm-direct verification.
2-Step · Featured FTMO Challenge: 2-Step
Two phases. Phase 1 needs 10% profit; Verification needs 5%. Static 10% maximum loss across both phases. 5% daily loss measured against the higher of equity or balance EOD. 80% split on funded, upgrades to 90% after the first scaling cycle.
FTMO Challenge: 2-Step
Two phases. Phase 1 needs 10% profit; Verification needs 5%. Static 10% maximum loss across both phases. 5% daily loss measured against the higher of equity or balance EOD. 80% split on funded, upgrades to 90% after the first scaling cycle.
| Account | Fee | Target | Daily loss | Total loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $96.00 | $1,000 | $500 | $1,000 |
| $25,000 | $270 | $2,500 | $1,250 | $2,500 |
| $50,000 | $373 | $5,000 | $2,500 | $5,000 |
| $100,000 | $583 | $10,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| $200,000 | $1,167 | $20,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 |
Refund: Fee fully refunds with the first profit split once a payout is requested on the funded account.
2-Step FTMO Challenge: 2-Step (Swing)
Same Phase 1, Phase 2, and drawdown structure as the Standard 2-Step, but news trading and weekend holding are allowed at every stage including funded. Forex leverage is capped at 1:30 versus Standard's 1:100, and the largest account size is $100K.
FTMO Challenge: 2-Step (Swing)
Same Phase 1, Phase 2, and drawdown structure as the Standard 2-Step, but news trading and weekend holding are allowed at every stage including funded. Forex leverage is capped at 1:30 versus Standard's 1:100, and the largest account size is $100K.
| Account | Fee | Target | Daily loss | Total loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $96.00 | $1,000 | $500 | $1,000 |
| $25,000 | $270 | $2,500 | $1,250 | $2,500 |
| $50,000 | $373 | $5,000 | $2,500 | $5,000 |
| $100,000 | $583 | $10,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 |
Free trial · Free Free Trial
14-day demo with halved profit target. No funded eligibility, but identical platform stack and tool suite. One per trader at a time; deletion resets.
Free Trial
14-day demo with halved profit target. No funded eligibility, but identical platform stack and tool suite. One per trader at a time; deletion resets.
Trust
Will the firm exist next year? Will they pay? Ownership, jurisdiction, payout history, incident record — the structural reasons your money is or isn't safe with a firm that isn't a regulated broker.
Class-of-its-own track record Eleven years of uninterrupted operation, $500M+ in verified rewards, Forbes and EY recognition, and the December 2025 acquisition of OANDA Global Corporation place FTMO in a category of its own on trust signals. No other prop firm we have reviewed comes close on track record. The catch sits in the discretion clause and a handful of recent enforcement disputes around aggregated risk, which is why this stops short of a 5.0.
Will the firm exist next year? Will they pay? Ownership, jurisdiction, payout history, incident record — the structural reasons your money is or isn't safe with a firm that isn't a regulated broker.
Operating history
FTMO incorporated in Prague in September 2015. Eleven years of uninterrupted operation is rare in this niche; most firms launched in the post-2020 boom and have yet to weather a full payout cycle, let alone a decade of them. Marek Vašíček and Otakar Šuffner, the co-founders, took home the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Technological category in 2022, and Forbes profiled the firm in July 2024 with revenue figures north of five billion CZK.
The firm has also won Deloitte Technology Fast 50 every year from 2019 through 2023, and Finance Magnates Best Prop Trading Firm in 2023 and 2024. That stack of independently verified milestones is a stronger long-term-stability signal than any marketing claim a newer firm can produce.
Payment reliability
$500M+ in cumulative payouts is the public figure, and it shows up across most independent payout-tracker datasets that aggregate prop-firm withdrawals. With 3.5 million-plus customers across 140 countries, the per-customer arithmetic is modest, but the absolute scale matters. A firm in serious operational trouble cannot keep processing rewards at the cadence FTMO publishes (8-hour average from request to invoice clearance).
Thematic sentiment on payouts is dominantly positive across trader communities, with the most common complaint being one of timing rather than denial. Verified named-trader reviews around early 2026 describe payouts cleared in 4 days or less, which lines up with the firm's published 1-2 business-day window. We have not surfaced any pattern of payout-withholding allegations in public records during this review cycle.
Cost & Path to Funded
What it costs — in money and effort — to reach a funded account. Challenge fee, refund mechanics, targets, drawdown rules, time pressure, consistency rules, evaluation flow.
Premium-priced, fee refunds offset Pricing is European-tier. The 2-Step at €540 for $100K runs above the budget end of the market, and the 3% daily loss on the 1-Step is measured against the higher of equity and balance end-of-day, which trips traders faster than balance-only models. Two things pull the score back up: the 2-Step fee fully refunds on first payout, and time is uncapped on every program.
What it costs — in money and effort — to reach a funded account. Challenge fee, refund mechanics, targets, drawdown rules, time pressure, consistency rules, evaluation flow.
Refund mechanics
The 2-Step Challenge fee is fully refunded with your first profit split. That is unambiguous and well-documented on FTMO's own pricing page. For a passing trader, the effective entry cost is zero. The refund triggers on the funded-account payout request after Verification, not on Verification pass itself.
The 1-Step Challenge refund story is less clear. Most secondary sources describe the same first-payout refund mechanic, but one specialist review notes the 1-Step fee is non-refundable. The firm's own page does not explicitly state the 1-Step refund policy in the fixture set we reviewed. Default to assuming refundable on the 2-Step; verify directly with FTMO for the 1-Step before counting on it.
Drawdown rules
FTMO runs two different drawdown shapes by program. The 1-Step uses a trailing 10% maximum loss measured end-of-day, with the floor advancing only when balance ratchets up. On reward withdrawal, the floor fully resets to 90% of capital. The 2-Step (Standard and Swing) runs a static 10% maximum loss; the floor never moves from the initial 90% threshold.
Daily loss is the friction point. Both programs measure daily loss against the higher of equity or balance at midnight CE(S)T. That trips traders who anchor risk to balance-only mental models, because floating losses count against the daily limit in real time. The 3% daily on the 1-Step is particularly tight, and the equity-based reading is the most common reason traders breach evaluation accounts they thought were safely positioned.
Payouts
Once funded, how do you get paid? Profit split, cadence, withdrawal methods, first-payout speed, reported reliability, scaling-plan generosity.
Hard to beat Up to 90% split, no withdrawal fees, 14-day bi-weekly cycle from your first trade, average 8 hours to process once verified. Five withdrawal methods including crypto. $500M+ paid is the loudest reliability signal you can ask for, and the scaling plan to $2M genuinely rewards consistency. The single asterisk is that the 90% split applies only after the first scaling cycle on the 2-Step; you start at 80%.
Once funded, how do you get paid? Profit split, cadence, withdrawal methods, first-payout speed, reported reliability, scaling-plan generosity.
- Profit split 4.8
- Payout cadence 5.0
- Withdrawal method coverage 4.5
- First-payout earliest 5.0
- Reported reliability 5.0
- Scaling-plan generosity 5.0
Trading Rules
What you can actually trade once funded. News-trading, weekend holds, EAs, copy trading, lot caps, the "firm discretion" risk, and clarity of prohibited strategies.
Clean on paper, complicated post-funded On paper the rule set is clean: news allowed in evaluation, personal EAs everywhere, copy trading within your own accounts. The complications are post-funded. Standard accounts lose news trading inside a 2-minute window of high-impact releases, weekends close, and the firm-discretion clause is wide enough that recent aggregated-risk and one-sided-betting interpretations have cost funded traders accounts they thought were safe. The Swing variant restores the news and weekend freedoms but costs you leverage.
What you can actually trade once funded. News-trading, weekend holds, EAs, copy trading, lot caps, the "firm discretion" risk, and clarity of prohibited strategies.
- News-trading policy 3.5
- Weekend holding 3.8
- EA / bot freedom 4.0
- Copy-trading between accounts 4.5
- Position-size freedom —
- Hidden-rule / discretion risk 3.0
- Prohibited-strategy clarity 4.5
Experience & Support
Day-to-day quality of life: platform stack, dashboard UX, KYC speed, support reach, execution backbone.
Four platforms, mature dashboard, 20-language support Four platforms (MT4, MT5, cTrader, DXtrade), a mature client area that traders actually rate in reviews, KYC inside one to two days, support in twenty languages across chat, WhatsApp, email, and weekday phone. The execution backbone, already tier-1, just gained the OANDA group infrastructure. There is no real weak point here.
Day-to-day quality of life: platform stack, dashboard UX, KYC speed, support reach, execution backbone.
- Platform stack quality 4.7
- Dashboard / client area UX 4.5
- KYC + onboarding turnaround 4.5
- Support reach 4.7
- Execution backbone 4.5
Rule-change timeline
FTMO introduces the 1-Step Challenge as an alternative to the existing 2-Step path. Single-phase evaluation with no minimum trading days, 10% profit target, 3% daily loss and a trailing 10% maximum loss that resets to 90% of capital on every reward withdrawal. 90% profit split from day one. The Best Day Rule (50% soft cap on any single day's contribution) is introduced as the consistency check on this program.
Long-term FTMO traders report changes in how aggregated risk across positions is interpreted, alongside enforcement of the firm's 1%-1.5% per-trade-idea risk guidance and mandatory cooling-off periods. The underlying guidance was always in the firm's terms, but enforcement intensified in late 2025. Effects most pronounced for scaling, multi-entry, and structured-risk strategies.
After an 8-month regulatory approval process across 5 regulators, FTMO Group completes the acquisition of OANDA. OANDA operates as a standalone subsidiary and brings regulated brokerage licenses in 8 major financial hubs including New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney. The deal positions FTMO as both a prop-trading firm and a regulated multi-asset brokerage group under one roof. Transaction value not disclosed.
Bottom line
FTMO sits at the top of the prop-firm market for a reason, and the OANDA acquisition that closed in December 2025 makes the case stronger, not weaker. Eleven years, half a billion paid, and an NFA-regulated execution route that is now FTMO-owned. That is the headline.
The catch is not a hidden one. Standard funded accounts cannot trade the 2-minute window around major news. The firm-discretion clause is broader than most. Recent rule-enforcement changes around aggregated risk have caught some funded traders off-side, including at least one verified $100K block on grounds the trader disputes.
For disciplined traders who can stay inside a defined ruleset and do not need to scalp the news, this is still the safest funded path in the niche. For news traders or aggressive day traders chasing single-session big wins, look at the Swing variant first and the wider market second.
Frequently asked questions
Is FTMO regulated?
What is the difference between the 1-Step and 2-Step Challenges?
How quickly does FTMO pay out?
Can I trade news on FTMO?
What happened with the OANDA acquisition?
Does FTMO offer instant funding?
What is the largest account I can trade?
How we test brokers
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