Apex Trader Funding rules in plain English

Evaluation

Evaluation rules, size by size

The numbers scale with the account. EOD and Intraday evaluations share all of them except the daily loss limit.

From Apex’s evaluation pages. Max contracts are minis, and 10 micros count as one.

Profit target

Reach the target balance to pass. There’s no minimum number of trading days.

Max drawdown

Touch the threshold and the evaluation fails. It starts at your starting balance minus the max drawdown, $48,000 on a 50K. Open losses count, so a trade can touch it before you close it. It only moves up, as explained below.

Daily loss limit

EOD evaluations only, and it pauses rather than fails. Hit it, open losses included, and Apex closes your positions and stops trading until 6:00 PM ET. The account stays active.

Max contracts

Fixed for the whole evaluation. Scaling starts in the Performance Account.

Time limit

One fee buys 30 calendar days. The evaluation expires at 6:00 PM ET on day 30, with no extensions or resets.

Consistency

Not applied in the evaluation. The 50% rule starts in the Performance Account.

After you pass

You have 7 calendar days to activate your Performance Account (PA). The clock starts when Apex marks the evaluation passed, after 6:00 PM ET. From then on the evaluation is locked, so you can’t keep trading it. Check the one-time activation fee in your dashboard before you pay ($0 on a No Activation Fee evaluation). Miss the deadline and the pass expires for good.

The PA uses the same login and can take up to 6 hours to appear, or until Sunday at 6:00 PM ET if you activate after Friday’s close.

Drawdown

EOD vs Intraday drawdown: how they differ

Both thresholds only move up, and Apex enforces both in real time. They differ in when they move.

EOD drawdown

Set at the close, enforced all session. Apex recalculates the threshold at the 4:59 PM ET close from your closing balance, and only a new closing high lifts it. Touch it during the next session and the account fails or closes, even if price comes back.

Intraday trailing drawdown

Follows your highest balance, open profit included. If an open trade makes a new high, the threshold moves up at once, even if you never close the trade.

One trading day, two drawdowns

Open profit you give back only costs room on Intraday. On a 50K, your only trade of the day reaches $900 of open profit and you close it at $300. Intraday moves the threshold to $48,900 at the peak. EOD waits for the close and uses your $50,300 closing balance, so it moves to $48,300. Next session, the EOD threshold sits $2,000 below your balance and the Intraday one $1,400 below it.

Hypothetical numbers that show how Apex calculates the rule. Not a trading result.

When the threshold stops rising

It locks, except in Tradovate evaluations. A Performance Account’s threshold stops at the starting balance plus $100, $50,100 on a 50K. In Rithmic and WealthCharts evaluations it stops at the profit target balance, $53,000 on a 50K. Check your own numbers below.

Performance Account

Performance Account rules

Pass and activate, and you get a Performance Account, a simulated funded account of the same size and drawdown type. It keeps the max drawdown and adds these rules.

Max contracts is the top scaling tier. A trading day counts toward payout requests when its net profit reaches the minimum.

The safety net

Stay above it to request a payout. It’s the balance at which the threshold locks, it lasts for the life of the account, and only profit above it can be requested.

Scaling tiers

Your limits grow with profit. Apex sets your tier from your balance at the 4:59 PM ET close, for the next session. A lower close moves you down, but never below the first tier. The limit covers all your open positions combined, across every market, and orders over it are rejected without penalty.

Performance Account rules only. Profit is your closing balance minus the starting balance.

Daily loss limit in the PA

Every PA has one, EOD or Intraday. It follows your tier, and hitting it pauses trading until 6:00 PM ET without closing the PA.

Inactivity

Record 2 trading days with $50 or more in net profit in every rolling 30-day window. Breakeven days don’t count. After 15 days without them, the PA goes dormant, and Apex sends notices on days 15 and 20. At 30 days Apex closes it for good, and any payout eligibility is forfeited.

Payout days

You need 5 qualifying days before each payout request. They don’t have to be in a row, and there’s no deadline to reach them.

The 50% consistency rule

Your best day must be under 50% of your net profit since your last approved payout. Until it is, the payout option stays unavailable, though the account stays active. Our consistency rule guide has a checker.

Each request must be at least $500, each payout is capped, and a PA allows at most 6 payouts, after which Apex closes it.

How Apex payouts work

Every day

The market close

Every position must be closed before the market close: 4:59 PM ET for most contracts, earlier for agricultural futures and on CME holiday early-close days.

Flat before the close

Holding through the close is prohibited. Apex says traders who do it forfeit their accounts and balances.

Earlier closes

Agricultural futures close in the early afternoon. Livestock and grain contracts, such as cattle and corn, close hours before 4:59 PM ET. Some markets also close early on holidays, and Apex points traders to the CME holiday calendar.

The trading day

It runs from 6:00 PM ET to 4:59 PM ET the next day. At 6:00 PM ET trading reopens, the daily loss limit resets and any new tier or EOD threshold takes effect.

Not allowed

What Apex doesn’t allow

These apply to evaluations and Performance Accounts alike. Breaking them can close an account or lead to probation.

Hedging of any kind

Directional trading only. No long and short positions at once in the same or correlated instruments, even across accounts.

Automation and algorithms

No bots. Apex says its rewards are meant for human traders.

High-frequency trading and simulator exploits

Don’t game the simulator. That includes high-frequency trading and fishing for erroneous fills.

Bracket orders on both sides

No non-directional brackets. Leaving orders on both sides of the market to catch a lucky move counts as exploiting the simulation.

News trades that bet both ways

No gambling on news outcomes. Your normal strategy is fine during a release. Chasing the market, or placing orders on both sides of it, isn’t.

Holding through the close

Be flat before the market close every day. See the times above.

Using the threshold as a stop loss

Every trade needs its own stop, not the account’s threshold. Apex requires a pending or mental stop and bans lopsided risk, such as a five-tick target with a 150-tick stop.

VPNs, proxies and cloud servers

Don’t disguise your identity, device or location. Apex bans using a VPN, proxy or cloud server to do that, for example to get around its rules or geographic restrictions.

Extra user accounts

One personal and one business user account at most. See accounts and limits.

Sharing accounts or copying trades

Only you can access and trade your accounts. Don’t share logins, devices, IP addresses or payment cards, or copy trades with other traders.

This is a summary of Apex’s prohibited-activities page, which lists more. Apex’s homepage says the new plans have no MAE rule and no 5:1 risk-reward rule, but the ban on lopsided risk still applies.

Accounts

Accounts and limits

Your user account is your login on Apex’s website. Trading accounts are the evaluations and PAs you trade.

Up to 20 Performance Accounts

20 active PAs per household. The cap counts EOD, Intraday and legacy PAs together. Evaluations have no limit, but Apex bans buying discounted ones in bulk to cycle through and blow up.

One personal user account

Plus one business account if you trade through a company. Apex closes any extras, and their profit is forfeited. Opening new ones in your household to dodge a restriction, such as probation, ends every connected account.

Apex Live

Live and simulated accounts can’t run side by side. Apex Live is by invitation. If Apex moves you to live trading, it closes your evaluations and deactivates your PAs, and declining the invitation deactivates your Apex user account.

Older accounts

Legacy accounts

Apex retired its previous accounts on March 1, 2026 and calls them legacy accounts. This page covers the current plans.

Legacy accounts bought before then keep their own rules: recurring billing until you cancel, resets on legacy evaluations and the old payout terms. They can’t be converted to the new plans. Apex is also selling legacy evaluations again as a temporary offer (prices in our pricing guide), and its current inactivity rule applies to legacy PAs bought after March 1, 2026.