Why Payouts Get Denied: Prohibited Strategies and Conduct Rules

0 of the 30 firms with structured programme data in our dataset publish a payout denial rate, as of 13 September 2026. The pricing page sells the target, the drawdown and the split; the terms page decides whether a request clears. Our public changelog logged 47 verified changes between 20 July and 6 September 2026, 7 of them rule changes and 5 of them payout changes, so the terms you accepted at checkout may not be the terms in force when you ask for money.

The contract you did not read

Conduct rules live in terms of service, rules pages and FAQ entries, not in the checkout flow. Our screener stores the sentence behind every number it records, runs three passes over each firm and requires human confirmation before a figure is published ^[1]. Most conduct rules are prose: our dataset holds daily loss limits, consistency caps and minimum trading days as structured fields for a minority of firms, and the rest describe them in text. Where a rule is text, the text is the rule. The5ers publishes different news rules for its High Stakes and Growth programmes, and only the programme page tells you which one applies to you ^[4].

News trading

40 percent is the cap FundedNext Stellar 2-Step places on profit earned from news trading; news trading itself is allowed ^[3]. The5ers High Stakes bars trades in the 2 minutes before and after high-impact news, and its Growth programme bars bracket strategies around news ^[4]. FTMO's prior page text said certain accounts carried no news restrictions, and Topstep's prior text allowed news trading with prior notice. Neither statement was reconfirmed on our latest pass, so read the current page before you rely on either. A pending order that fills inside a restricted window is a trade inside that window, and the terms, not your intent, decide what follows.

Weekend and overnight holding

FundedNext Stellar 2-Step allows weekend holding, and so do both The5ers programmes ^{[3] [4]}. Topstep's prior page text did not allow it, and Apex's legacy pages did not allow it either; Apex's current pages do not specify, and the Topstep text was not reconfirmed. The two prohibitions we captured are at futures firms and the two permissions are at CFD firms. Four firms do not make a pattern. Read the words "overnight" and "weekend" separately on the programme page, because a firm can allow one and bar the other.

Automation, copy trading and multiple accounts

Automation rules take three forms: whether expert advisors and bots are permitted, how many accounts one person may hold, and how many accounts a single strategy may be copied across. Apex allows up to 20 accounts per trader. Take Profit Trader allows 5 on PRO and PRO+. Funded Futures Network allows 10 accounts in total, 5 of them funded, and limits copy trading to 5. Most firms in our dataset do not state an account limit in structured form, so the limit, if any, sits in the terms. Copying your own trades across your own accounts and copying another person's signals are different acts, and terms treat them differently.

Risk per trade and "gambling" clauses

3 percent is FundedNext's maximum risk per trade ^[3]. Apex removed its 5:1 risk-reward rule, so the current Apex product has no ratio test. The consistency rule is a conduct rule in numerical form: as of 5 November 2026, 29 of 36 firms record a best-day cap on at least one programme and thresholds run from 15 to 55 percent; as of 13 September 2026, 50 percent was the most common figure, at 6 firms. A 50 percent cap on a $6,000 target means no single day may exceed $3,000 of the total. A $3,200 day fails the account even at $6,300 total profit, because the best day is then more than half. Where a firm publishes no percentage, search the terms for "gambling", "all-in", "excessive risk" and "martingale". Those words grant the firm discretion, and discretion has no number you can size for.

KYC and identity

Identity and residency checks come after the fee, not before it. FXIFY's restricted country list expanded to about 35 countries including the United States on 6 September 2026, and its trading side is operated by Prime Intermarket Group Eurasia Ltd in Mauritius, with FXIFY Solutions Limited in the UK as payment agent ^[6]. Check the restricted list before you pay, not when you request.

Nothing in our dataset tells you how often identity checks fail. Tradeify claims 0 percent payout denials; at least one denied appeal is documented on Trustpilot in September 2026, so treat the claim as marketing ^[5]. Topstep advertises a 99.26 percent payout approval rate ^[2]; that is a marketing figure, and our dataset records no audited denial rate for any firm.

Buffers and minimums

$1,000 is the highest minimum payout in our dataset, at Bulenox and MFFU. $1 at FundingPips and $2 at Alpha Capital are the lowest. Between them sit Tradeify at $5, FundedNext and Topstep at $10, five firms at $50 (Breakout, FXIFY, Funded Trading Plus, Hola Prime and Maven), DNA Funded, Goat Funded and Moneta at $100, and The5ers at $150. A minimum works as a conduct rule: a $900 profit at MFFU is not a payout, it is capital still exposed to the drawdown.

Caps limit the other end. Bulenox caps its first three payouts by account size and lifts the cap after. Blue Guardian Futures Standard caps the first payout at $3,000 and later payouts at $3,500 at $100K. Elite Trader Funding caps $3,000 per cycle. Maven caps $10,000 per 30-day cycle and voids the excess. MFFU pays up to 10 percent of account equity per cycle. Where a firm requires a profit buffer above the starting balance before a first request, that requirement lives in prose, and our dataset does not record it as a field.

A pre-payout checklist

1. Re-read the current rules page, not the copy you saw at checkout. Our changelog logged 47 verified changes in seven weeks.
2. Match your fills around scheduled releases against the firm's news rule and its window.
3. Confirm whether you held over a weekend or overnight, and whether the programme allows each.
4. Count your accounts and copy links against the firm's stated limit.
5. Divide your best day by your total profit and compare the result with the consistency cap.
6. Check that your profit clears the minimum payout and sits inside any per-request or per-cycle cap.
7. Check that your identity documents match the account details and that your country is not on the restricted list.
8. Save the rules page, your statement and the request confirmation before you submit.

What this means for you

The number that matters most, how often requests are refused, does not exist in public. 0 firms publish it. What exists is the text, and the text is enough to run the checklist above before every request.

12 of the 47 changes in our ledger between 20 July and 6 September 2026 touched rules or payouts, and a rule that changes after you fund still applies to your request. Our /changes page records each one with the old value visible.

Treat marketing rates as marketing. A 99.26 percent approval rate and a 0 percent denial claim are the firm's words about itself, and neither has been audited. The programme page and the terms are the contract; the banner is not.

Data note

Figures marked "our dataset" come from the PropTraderCheck structured dataset, and each carries its own date. Figures as of 13 September 2026 come from that snapshot: 30 firms with structured programme data (of 37 tracked), 159 programme rows, 48 programmes. Figures as of 5 November 2026 come from that snapshot: 36 firms with structured programme data, 916 programme rows. Regulatory positions are stated as of the date given and change.