Trading Rules

Reach the profit target to get Funded. There is no time limit.

There is no minimum number of trading days on either plan. Pass on your own schedule.

Your trailing drawdown moves up with your highest equity. If you touch it, the account is closed.

The Growth Plan is End of Day: the floor updates at market close. Express Plan is Intraday: the floor moves in real time.

End of Day vs Intraday only controls how often your floor moves UP with a new peak. On every plan the floor is monitored in real time throughout the session, so a breach is recorded the moment your equity crosses it, intraday, not only at the close.

Available on all plans (Growth and Express). If you breach drawdown, you can purchase a Discounted Reset and continue trading. A reset costs 10% less than what you pay for that account, so it is always cheaper than starting a new one. If we cannot match the account to a subscription price, it is priced off the current list price instead, at ten percentage points deeper than whatever sale is running that day. Resets are unlimited and there is no deadline: the option stays open for as long as the subscription on that account is active.

When purchased, your account is fully reset to its original starting balance. Your drawdown floor goes back to starting balance minus your max drawdown, your peak equity goes back to the starting balance, and all other trading rules stay the same.

A reset never changes your monthly subscription: same amount, same billing date. It is a separate one-time charge, and your renewal still lands on its normal day.

Your trailing drawdown will reset when your Funded account is activated. Once your balance reaches the lock balance, the drawdown stops trailing and becomes static.

If you breach drawdown, that Funded account is closed permanently. There is no reset for a breached Funded account, at any price: it is never restored to Funded and it is never returned to an Evaluation. To trade again you start a new Evaluation.

Paid fast: as quick as 12 hours from your request. Your payouts page shows your time and the fastest track open to you.

You keep 80% of profits (80/20 split).

Each payout, you can withdraw up to 50% of profits, subject to the payout cap for that payout number.

A flat $129 activation fee is charged before your Funded account goes live, and it is fully refunded on your first payout. Once you receive your first payout, your balance at request time must be at least $1 above the balance you last requested a payout at, less any amount your payout cap prevented you from taking, up to the size of that payout.

Your withdrawal is deducted from your trading account when the payout is paid, not when it is requested and not when it is approved.

Each payout also needs 8 qualifying winning days in the current payout cycle. See Qualifying Winning Days below.

A payout needs 8 qualifying winning days in the current payout cycle.

A qualifying winning day is any trading day you finish with realized profit of at least $100 on a 25K account, $150 on a 50K, or $200 on a 100K. The amount is the same on the Growth and Express Plans at the same account size.

A day that finishes flat, finishes down, or finishes up by less than that amount does not count. Unrealized gains on an open position do not count either, only realized profit.

The 8 days do NOT have to be consecutive. Any 8 qualifying days inside the cycle count, in any order and spread across as many weeks as you like. Flat days, losing days, and days you do not trade at all sit in between without resetting anything, and nothing about the count is a streak.

The count is per payout cycle. It resets to zero every time a payout is paid, so each new cycle has to build its own 8 days.

When a payout is paid, the new cycle is measured from the moment you submitted that request, so the days while it was under review count toward your next payout instead of being lost. If you cancel a request, nothing restarts.

Real firm capital at Interactive Brokers, in real markets. You keep 80% of realized net profit. Withdrawals have no cap, with a $100 minimum.

You enter Live at half your plan size in buying power and scale up to 1.25x it. A step up needs realized profit AND at least thirty closed live trades whose average result is statistically greater than zero, so profit alone does not move you: until thirty live trades exist you stay at entry buying power however well you are doing.

Your drawdown floor trails your peak equity and never moves down. Reaching it closes your positions and ends the Live account permanently: there is no reset at Live and no demotion to a lower tier. Your lock threshold is your plan's drawdown, and nothing reduces it, brings it forward or offsets it. Your floor locks at $100 above break-even at the end of the first day on which your total profit (every payout taken, the firm's share included, plus the profit in the account, unrealized included) reaches your plan's maximum drawdown and your equity is at least $200 above break-even. If your profit gets there on a day your equity does not, the lock waits for the first day both are true. Your floor trails the highest value your account has held at the end of a trading day, by your maximum drawdown, and never rises above break-even while it is trailing. Taking a payout sets it at break-even, and it never goes below break-even after that. It stops moving for good when it locks.

A daily loss limit applies while your drawdown floor is still trailing. Hitting it closes every open position in your account and holds trading until 9:30 AM ET on the first trading day after the day you reach it. It is not a breach and it does not end the account, and it stops applying once your floor is locked or you have taken your first payout. The Live Program Rules at optionsfunding.co/live-program-rules publish it in full.

You can withdraw profit down to $100 above your drawdown floor and never below that, and a payout never includes what your open positions can still lose, so an open spread reduces what you can take until you close it. The $100 is there because reaching your floor ends the account, and a payout must never be the thing that reaches it. Nothing else is held back. You can make one payout request per Eastern Time calendar day. We decide your payout request when you make it, and we can decline or hold one that does not meet these rules or that is associated with conduct under review. Once it is approved the full amount is taken out of your account at once and your 80% share is sent the same day. Identity verification and tax documentation have to be complete before any payment is sent.

Advancement is by invitation, and the Live Program Notice changes nothing on its own. On the day it is sent, every evaluation and funded account you hold stays open and tradeable, and billing is unchanged. Every payout request already pending is held: not cancelled, and not paid while the Notice is open. You have 30 calendar days to accept or decline, and the deadline is shown to you.

New payout requests are paused while your Live Program Notice is open. Every payout request you had already submitted is held while your notice is open. It is not cancelled, and it is not paid in the meantime. It is resolved by your answer: accepting cancels it without payment, and declining pays it in cash, up to the cap.

If you accept, every evaluation and funded account you hold is closed, the subscription behind each one is cancelled, every payout request then pending is cancelled and you are paid nothing for it, nothing is credited in its place or carried into the Live account, and you may not open, purchase or hold a further evaluation or funded account afterwards, including under a different email address.

If you decline, every payout request pending at that moment is paid in cash, summed across every account you hold and capped at $3,000 in total for the trader. The cap is per person, not per account: five accounts with $2,000 pending each pays $3,000, not $10,000. Your accounts then close, billing stops, and re-entry is permanently barred. Declining with nothing pending is paid nothing, and declining is not a breach and creates no debt.

An unanswered notice expires after 30 days and is treated as a decline. No settlement is payable on an expired notice. Fees already charged for a closed evaluation or funded account are not refunded.

You hold exactly one Live account no matter how many evaluation or funded accounts you held. Allocated capital is set by the single largest eligible funded account you held on the date of the Notice: plans are never added together, so a trader who held five funded accounts receives the same Live account as a trader who held one of the same size. Every funded plan size we publish is eligible for advancement: $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000. Eligible does not mean selected, though: admission stays at the firm's discretion and the same standard applies at every size. The Live account is smaller in real dollars than the combined simulated nominal, because the capital at Live is real and it belongs to the firm.

Overnight positions are allowed on all accounts and in every phase. You are never forced to flatten before market close unless the position is expiring.

We believe traders should have the freedom to manage positions on their own terms.

Pass the Evaluation and your Funded account is issued the same day you activate it. There is no waiting period and no next day batch.

Activation is what starts it: once you activate the passed account and the activation fee clears, the Funded account is created and ready to trade.

A Funded account you purchased pays a one-time, flat $129 activation fee before it is activated. The fee is the same for every size on both the Growth and Express plans, and it is charged to your card on file or your crypto balance before the account goes live.

The moment you take your first payout, that fee is added back on top of the payout, so once you are profitable, activation costs you nothing. If an account never reaches a payout, the fee is not refunded.

The Growth Plan includes Level 5 options access and allows undefined risk positions, spreads, and multi leg strategies such as verticals, iron condors, butterflies, calendars, diagonals, and more.

The Express Plan is buy only and allows single leg long calls and long puts.

The Live stage does not allow undefined risk however you arrived there. You may not open or increase an uncovered or naked short option in a Live account, in either phase. If assignment or an expiring leg leaves you holding one, closing it is permitted.

On Evaluation and Funded accounts you may only trade options on whitelisted tickers. Any non-whitelisted tickers are automatically restricted from trading. Check the whitelist to view approved tickers. Ticker whitelist requests may be sent to [email protected].

The Live stage is a different account at a different broker and the ticker whitelist does not apply to it. US listed stock options and US listed index options, on any ticker. There is no symbol whitelist at the Live stage, and same-day expiries are permitted. Stock itself is closing only. You can close or reduce a stock position you already hold, including shares you were assigned, and you cannot open a stock position or add to one. Uncovered short options cannot be opened or increased. If assignment, exercise, or the expiry or closure of another leg leaves you holding a naked short option, closing it is permitted. Everything else is refused at the broker before the order reaches the market: futures, futures options, foreign exchange, bonds, mutual funds, metals, crypto, CFDs, warrants, structured products, event contracts and non-US products.

Every position you open at the Live stage must be fully defined-risk: its maximum loss has to be calculable at the moment you enter it. This is the rule that changes most if you came from a Growth account, where undefined-risk positions are allowed. At Live they are not, so a naked or uncovered short leg cannot be opened or increased and a position whose worst case cannot be computed at entry cannot be opened at all. Closing or reducing something you already hold is always permitted, including a naked leg you were left with after an assignment.

If you do not close expiring positions before the cutoff on expiration day, they will be closed automatically at 3:55:00 PM ET. For SPY, QQQ, IWM, DIA the cutoff is 4:10:00 PM ET.

This protects you from unexpected assignment risk and keeps accounts compliant.

There is no drawdown lock during Evaluation. In Funded, your trailing drawdown follows new highs until you reach the lock balance, which is your starting capital. Live has its own lock: once your profit reaches your plan's drawdown, the floor locks at your allocated capital plus $100 ($50,100 on a 100K plan, $25,100 on a 50K and $12,600 on a 25K).

Once locked, the drawdown stops trailing and stays static. On the Growth Plan, the trailing floor updates at the end of each trading day. On the Express Plan, the trailing floor updates in real time throughout the session.

This structure rewards controlled growth, reduces risk over time, and gives disciplined traders more breathing room as they perform.

Once you receive your first payout, your balance at request time must be at least $1 above the balance you last requested a payout at, less any amount your payout cap prevented you from taking, up to the size of that payout.

This promotes steady progression and encourages discipline and structured risk management.