The most common rule after the drawdown
28 challenges ask for more days at the table than losing trades they allow
55 of the 90 evaluations here set a minimum number of trading days. Every one of those days needs a trade, every trade risks the same amount, and the caps allow a fixed number of consecutive losses before the attempt is over. Put the two numbers beside each other and on 28 of them the floor reaches the loss budget.
FXIFY's Three Phase is the sharpest: 15 required days against 5 consecutive losses at 1% risk per trade. Nobody publishes that comparison, because the two figures live in different columns of different tables.
Where the floor reaches the loss budget
| Firm | Programme | Phases | Days required | Losses allowed | Spare | Fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FXIFY | Three Phase | 3 | 15 | 5 | -10 | 78% |
| FXIFY | Two Phase — Standard (Trailing) | 2 | 10 | 4 | -6 | 94% |
| Fidelcrest | Pro Trader — Normal | 2 | 10 | 5 | -5 | 87% |
| Fidelcrest | Micro Trader — Normal | 2 | 10 | 5 | -5 | 63% |
| For Traders | Fast (Crypto) | 1 | 6 | 3 | -3 | 97% |
| For Traders | Classic (Forex) | 2 | 6 | 4 | -2 | 91% |
| FXIFY | One Phase | 1 | 5 | 3 | -2 | 97% |
| FundedNext | Stellar Lite | 2 | 5 | 4 | -1 | 89% |
| HyroTrader | One-Step Challenge | 1 | 5 | 4 | -1 | 84% |
| DNA Funded | 1 Phase | 1 | 5 | 4 | -1 | 84% |
| Blue Guardian | 2 Step Standard | 2 | 5 | 4 | -1 | 89% |
| Funding Traders | 2-Step Pro (PRO6) | 2 | 4 | 3 | -1 | 98% |
| Fidelcrest | Pro Trader — Aggressive | 2 | 10 | 10 | none | 25% |
| FundedNext | Stellar 2-Step | 2 | 5 | 5 | none | 73% |
| HyroTrader | Two-Step Challenge | 2 | 5 | 5 | none | 78% |
| DNA Funded | 2 Phase | 2 | 5 | 5 | none | 73% |
At 1% risk per trade, a 40% win rate and 2R winners. “Spare” is the losses allowed minus the days required — the room between showing up as often as the firm asks and running out of attempts. 27 further programmes carry the rule with room to spare and are not listed.
Why the two numbers belong together
A minimum trading day requirement is presented as an anti-gambling measure, and largely it is one: a firm has a fair reason not to fund somebody whose entire record is a single position that happened to work. Nothing here argues the rule is unreasonable.
What is not stated anywhere is the arithmetic. Each mandatory day requires at least one trade, each trade risks the same fraction of the account, and the caps allow a fixed run of losses before the attempt ends. So the rule sets a floor on exposure at exactly the moment the caps set a ceiling on it, and on 28 of these 55 programmes the floor arrives at the ceiling.
The second cost is quieter. Reach the target early and the attempt is not passed — you keep trading until the days are satisfied, at full risk, with nothing further to win. Those trades can breach a cap that the profit you already made does not protect you from, on 15 of these programmes where the drawdown trails.
A profitable day is not a trading day
6 programmes here use the harder version of the rule. A trading day is satisfied by any trade; a profitable day needs a closed gain, and cannot be satisfied by showing up.
- · The5ers — Pro Growth: 3 profitable days. Minimum days are profitable days: closed profit of at least 0.5% of the initial balance each.
- · The5ers — High Stakes: 3 profitable days. Minimum days are profitable days: closed profit of at least 0.5% of the initial balance each.
- · City Traders Imperium — 1-Step Challenge: 3 profitable days. The three days must be PROFITABLE days — the firm’s own table reads "Min Profitable Trading Days 3". That is a harder requirement than the trading-day minimums other firms publish, because a losing week cannot satisfy it by trading more.
- · City Traders Imperium — 2-Step Challenge: 3 profitable days. Three PROFITABLE days are required in each phase, six in total.
- · FXIFY — Two Phase — Pro (Static): 3 profitable days. The three days are PROFITABLE days and are published per phase — "3 profitable trading days per phase in order to pass the challenge" — with a 0.5% profit condition attached. FXIFY never print a six-day total, so six would be our arithmetic rather than their figure, and the field records what they publish.
- · Maven Trading — Two Step Omo: 4 profitable days. The four minimum days must be PROFITABLE days worth at least 0.5% each, in every phase including the funded one, and they override the profit target.
What this does not measure
- · Whether the days are counted per phase or in total. HyroTrader state theirs are five per phase and ten altogether. Where a firm counts per phase, the real requirement on a two-phase programme is double the figure in the table, so the comparison above understates itself rather than the reverse.
- · That a day needs only one trade. The comparison assumes the minimum: one full-risk trade per mandatory day. Anyone trading more is further past the ceiling than the table shows.
- · The cost of trading on after the target. Real and unpriced here, because it depends on how much profit is in hand when the target is reached.
- · Assumes each trade is independent. Correlated positions — three majors against the dollar — lose together and count as one.
- · Assumes every trade risks the same amount. Raising size after a loss shortens the streak you can survive.
- · Uses your stated win rate. If that came from a demo account or a good month, the figure below is optimistic.
- · Whether any of these firms pay. No published rule answers that.
Where these rules were read
FXIFY — assessment account rules — read 2026-08-23
Fidelcrest — programs — read 2026-08-06
For Traders — our rules — read 2026-08-23
FundedNext — CFD trading objectives — read 2026-08-05
HyroTrader — trading rules — read 2026-08-06
DNA Funded — Rules and Conditions V2.1 — read 2026-08-23
Blue Guardian — account model rules — read 2026-08-18
Funding Traders — account types and trading guidelines — read 2026-08-23
Questions
- What are minimum trading days on a prop firm challenge?
- A requirement to place trades on a set number of separate days before the evaluation can be passed, however early the profit target is reached. 55 of the 90 evaluations here set one, most commonly three. It exists to stop a single lucky position counting as a pass, and that is a reasonable thing to want.
- Do minimum trading days make a challenge harder?
- They can, and the comparison nobody publishes is why. Every mandatory day needs a trade and every trade risks the same amount, while the caps allow a fixed number of consecutive losses before the attempt ends. On 28 of these 55 programmes the required days are at least as many as that loss budget — at 1% risk, FXIFY's Three Phase asks for 15 days against 5 losses.
- What happens if I hit the target before the minimum days?
- You keep trading. The attempt is not passed until both conditions are met, so the days remaining are spent at full risk with the target already reached and nothing further to gain from them. That is the part of the rule with a real cost, and no figure on this site prices it.
- Is a profitable day the same as a trading day?
- No, and 6 programmes here use the harder version: The5ers, City Traders Imperium, FXIFY, Maven Trading. A trading day is satisfied by any trade; a profitable day requires a closed gain, usually of at least 0.5% of the balance, so a losing week cannot be worked through by trading more. Maven Trading state that theirs override the profit target entirely.