The 5 Best Prop Firms for Forex and Their Most Important Rules [2026]
1. FTMO
This company, together with The5ers, is one of the most reliable prop firms that currently exist. It started in 2014 under another name until becoming what we now know as FTMO. Among their most purchased challenges is the two-phase evaluation, where you must make 10% in Phase 1 and 5% in Phase 2.
FTMO Challenge Prices
FTMO offers five account sizes you can choose from for the challenges:
- 10,000 USD with a cost of $89
- 25,000 USD with a cost of $250
- 50,000 USD with a cost of $345
- 100,000 USD with a cost of $540
- 200,000 USD with a cost of $1080
Most Important FTMO Challenge Rules
- Minimum trading days: You must trade on at least 4 different days. Each of those days must include at least one opened trade.
- Profit target: You must reach a 10% profit based on the initial balance.
- Maximum daily loss: You cannot lose more than 5% of the initial balance in a single day (including both closed losses and open drawdown). If you exceed this, the Challenge is considered failed.
- Maximum total loss: Throughout the Challenge, total loss cannot exceed 10% of the initial balance. Reaching that threshold also results in failure.
The key here—and for all prop firms—is understanding floating drawdown. Let me explain:
If you are down 4.5% for the day (with the maximum daily loss being 5%) and you have an open trade with more than 0.5% floating drawdown, you will fail the challenge because all these companies count floating negative drawdown toward your max loss.
2. The5ers
The5ers is another one of the most well-known and reliable prop firms in the industry. They offer a two-phase evaluation program with the possibility to scale the account up to 500,000 USD and a profit split between 80% and 100%, in addition to a fixed monthly payment.
The5ers Challenge Prices
The5ers also offers several account sizes to choose from:
- 5,000 USD with a cost of $39
- 10,000 USD with a cost of $78
- 20,000 USD with a cost of $165
- 60,000 USD with a cost of $329
- 100,000 USD with a cost of $545
In standard accounts, the profit target is 8% in Phase 1 and 5% in Phase 2. There is also a “reversed” version of the 100k account where the targets are swapped: 5% in Phase 1 and 8% in Phase 2.
Most Important The5ers Rules
- Maximum trading period: Unlimited, but accounts with no activity for more than 30 consecutive days expire.
- Minimum profitable day: A day counts as profitable when closed trades generate at least 0.5% profit relative to the initial balance.
- Maximum daily loss: 5%, calculated from whichever is higher: the initial balance of the day or the initial equity of the day (server time MT5). Exceeding it results in account loss.
- News trading: You may keep trades open during news, but you cannot open or close orders from 2 minutes before until 2 minutes after high-impact news.
- Overnight and weekend positions: You may keep trades open overnight and through weekends, including indices (note: high swap costs may apply).
- Active account limits: Maximum 1× 5k + 1× 10k or 20k + 1× 60k or 100k, plus up to 3 Bootcamp accounts and 4 Instant Funding accounts.
Just like with FTMO, monitoring your floating drawdown is essential.
A strong advantage of The5ers is that after completing Step 1 you receive credits to spend within their ecosystem, and after completing Step 2 they refund your challenge fee as a real withdrawal, not as internal credit (IMPORTANT: you cannot withdraw it until you qualify for the first payout).
3. FundedNext
FundedNext offers the Stellar 2-Step Challenge, a two-phase funding program with quite flexible conditions. Once you pass both phases and complete KYC, you receive a funded account with a profit share of up to 95%.
FundedNext Challenge Prices
FundedNext offers various account sizes for its Stellar 2-Step Challenge. These are the current prices:
- 6,000 USD with a cost of $59.99
- 15,000 USD with a cost of $119.99
- 25,000 USD with a cost of $199.99
- 50,000 USD with a cost of $299.99
- 100,000 USD with a cost of $549.99
- 200,000 USD with a cost of $1,099.99
Stellar 2-Step Challenge Conditions
- Profit target: You must achieve 8% in Phase 1 and 5% in Phase 2 based on the initial balance.
- Minimum trading days: At least 5 trading days in each phase, with a minimum of one trade per day.
- Maximum daily loss: You cannot lose more than 5% of the initial balance in a day. Both closed losses and floating drawdown count.
- Maximum total loss: The account cannot fall below 90% of the initial balance (equivalent to a 10% max loss).
- News trading: Allowed, as long as daily and total loss limits are respected.
- Overnight and weekend positions: Allowed.
- EAs and indicators: Expert Advisors, indicators, and automated systems are allowed as long as they do not violate risk or internal rules.
- Copy trading, IP, and VPN: Copy trading is allowed only between your own accounts. You must trade from a stable IP or use a reliable VPS/VPN to avoid verification issues.
Rewards and Conditions After Passing the Challenge
- Challenge reward: After completing the challenge, you receive a 15% reward. This amount is released according to the funded account growth conditions.
- Profit share: In the funded account, you can earn up to 95% of profits depending on the add-ons and conditions you choose.
- First payout: Usually available 21 days after starting to trade the funded account. After that, payouts can be requested regularly (typically every 14 days).
4. FundingPips
FundingPips offers a two-phase challenge called Student (Phase 1) and Practitioner (Phase 2). After completing both, you become a Master Trader, where the risk team manually reviews your trades within a maximum of two business days.
FundingPips Challenge Prices
FundingPips offers several account sizes for its evaluation process:
- 5,000 USD with a cost of $36
- 10,000 USD with a cost of $66
- 25,000 USD with a cost of $156
- 50,000 USD with a cost of $289
- 100,000 USD with a cost of $529
Most Important FundingPips Rules
- Phase 1 – Student: You must reach 8% or 10% profit (depending on the account) and complete at least 3 trading days.
- Phase 2 – Practitioner: You must reach 5% profit and also complete at least 3 trading days.
- Maximum daily loss: 5%, calculated from whichever is higher: balance or equity at the start of the day. Floating drawdown counts. It resets daily at 00:00 CET/CEST.
- Maximum total loss: 10% of the initial account size. Example: a 100k account may not fall below 90k at any time.
- News and weekend trading (Evaluation): You may keep trades open during news releases and over the weekend.
- Trading in Master Account:
- On-Demand payout: News trading is fully allowed.
- Other cycles (Tuesday Payday, Bi-weekly, Monthly): You may keep trades open during news and weekends, but trades opened or closed within 5 minutes before/after high-impact news will not count, unless the trade has been open for 5 hours prior.
- Strategy rules: Any trading style is allowed unless it falls under prohibited practices: gap trading, HFT, latency arbitrage, hedging between accounts, toxic flow, reverse arbitrage, tick scalping, server spamming, third-party copy trading, or managing others’ accounts.
- Expert Advisors: Allowed only if they are risk-management or trade-manager EAs. Entry/exit external EAs are not allowed.
- General honesty rule: Any form of cheating is forbidden. Violations result in immediate account closure with no reward.
In my opinion, FundingPips is one of the best options if you’re starting out because it offers one of the best reliability/price ratios among prop firms.
5. Alpha Capital
Alpha Capital offers a fast, single-phase evaluation model (Alpha One), designed to get you a funded account as soon as possible, with on-demand payouts and no profit cap. Once qualified, the trader moves to the real account with revenue sharing.
Alpha Capital Challenge Prices
These are the account sizes and their approximate evaluation prices:
- 5,000 USD with a cost of $77
- 10,000 USD with a cost of $147
- 25,000 USD with a cost of $247
- 50,000 USD with a cost of $357
- 100,000 USD with a cost of $577
- 200,000 USD with a cost of $1,097
Most Important Alpha Capital Rules
- Single-phase evaluation: The Alpha One model is a 1-Step challenge. If you hit the profit target and respect the risk rules, you immediately move to the funded account (Qualified).
- Profit target: The simulation target is usually around 10% of the initial balance.
- Max Sim Drawdown (total loss limit): Approximately 6% maximum drawdown during simulation. If equity drops below this limit, the account fails.
- Max Daily Drawdown: Around 4% per day, including floating losses.
- Maximum trading days: In the simulation phase, days are unlimited, so you can take as long as you need.
- Leverage: Standard evaluation leverage is 1:30.
- Funded account (Qualified): Once you pass the simulation, you move to the real account, where the profit share is usually 80% for the trader.
- Payouts and profits: There is no profit cap, and payouts are on-demand, allowing frequent withdrawals once qualified.
As with all prop firms, the key is always monitoring floating drawdown: even if you don’t close trades, if equity exceeds daily or total limits, the challenge will be considered violated.
But Which Company Should I Choose?
As with everything, it depends:
If you want maximum reliability and professionalism and don’t mind paying a higher price, choose FTMO or The5ers. If you are very aggressive when taking evaluations, FTMO is best. If instead you are more consistent and steady, The5ers is better because you won’t be affected by the rule requiring three days with at least 0.5% profit.
If you are just starting out and want to get your first funded account, the best option is the 5k FundingPips account, because what matters most at this stage is having more chances to try—and believe me, you will need them.
![What a Funded Account Really Is: Risks, Benefits, and Everything Beginners Must Know Before Starting [2026]](https://candlerangetheory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-12-04-a-las-10.44.05-768x408.png)
