Forex - General Rules
Challenge Requirements
Daily Drawdown
The "Daily Drawdown" is the maximum amount you can lose in a single trading day. On the 2-Step Challenge, this limit is set at 5% of your initial account balance.
At 5:00 PM New York time (the daily market rollover), a new daily drawdown floor is calculated. We take whichever value is higher at that moment — your account balance or equity — and subtract 5% of the initial balance. This sets the daily loss limit for the new trading day.
If your combined closed and open losses hit or pass this floor at any time, it is considered a violation of the rule — even if equity later recovers.
Maximum Drawdown
The Maximum Drawdown is the total loss limit on your account. On the 2-Step Challenge, it is set at 10% of your initial account balance and applied as a static floor, including both closed and open trades. If your equity drops to or below this level at any time, the account is breached.
Your Max Drawdown level is fixed based on your starting balance. Once your equity falls to 90% of your initial account balance, including any floating losses, the limit is hit and the account is considered breached.
Profit Target
The Profit Target is the required profit you must reach within each phase of your Challenge in order to progress to the next stage.
Targets per challenge model:
1-Step Challenge: reach 9% profit in a single phase.
2-Step Challenge: Phase 1 8% · Phase 2 5%.
3-Step Challenge: 6% in each of the 3 phases.
Instant Funding: no profit target — you start earning from day one.
Only closed profits count toward your Profit Target. Floating (unclosed) trades do not count.
Before progressing to the next phase, you must close all open positions.
For example:
If you complete Phase 1 with more than 8% profit and all positions are closed, you move to Phase 2.In Phase 2, the Profit Target resets to 5%, meaning your performance begins fresh in that phase.
Once you complete Phase 2 at 5% profit and meet all risk rules, you are eligible to receive your funded account.
Minimum Trading Days
On the 1-Step, 2-Step and 3-Step Challenges, a minimum of 3 trading days is required in each phase before you can complete it. Instant Funding has no evaluation minimum — you start earning from day one.
A day counts once you place at least one trade on it. On Step funded accounts (1-Step, 2-Step, 3-Step), a minimum of 5 trading days is required before your first payout can be requested.
On Instant Funding accounts, the first payout requires 5 valid trading days — a day only counts once your net realized profit reaches +0.5% of the initial balance ($500 on a $100K account). Days don't need to be consecutive, and a day below the threshold is never a breach — it simply doesn't count toward the five.
If you reach the profit target before completing the required trading days, you must continue trading until the requirement is met. Once all criteria are satisfied, you can progress to the next stage or request your payout.
Inactivity Rule
You must place at least one trade every 30 calendar days.
If no trades are placed within that window, the account is marked inactive and will result in a breach.
To help you stay active, we send an email reminder 5 days before the inactivity threshold so you have time to act.
This rule applies from the moment you place your first trade.
30-Day Activity
Requirement
Place at least one trade every 30 days to keep your account active.
Trading Conditions
Leverage
For all Evaluation Phases, leverage is calibrated per instrument class: 1:100 Forex, 1:30 Metals, 1:20 Indices, and 1:20 Commodities.
The leverage on Funded Accounts is reduced to align with risk-managed live trading: 1:50 Forex, 1:20 Metals, 1:10 Indices, and 1:10 Commodities.
For Instant Funding Accounts, leverage matches the Funded Stage values since Instant accounts run on live-capital risk from day one: 1:50 Forex, 1:20 Metals, 1:10 Indices, and 1:10 Commodities.
Spread
Our spreads are floating, meaning they evolve throughout the day according to live market liquidity and conditions. Spreads can widen during periods of high volatility, low liquidity, or major macro events.
You can monitor live spreads at any time by connecting to our public read-only spread account on MetaTrader 5:
with Market Conditions
Swap Fees
Swap fees apply when a position is held overnight. They reflect the interest-rate difference between the two currencies in the pair, and are credited or debited to your account daily.
The size of the swap depends on prevailing interest rates, broker pricing, and how long the position is held. In some setups, the swap can result in a credit instead of a fee.
Swaps are calculated automatically at end-of-day server time and are visible directly on your trading platform. No manual action is required.
What We Allow at Meridian
Expert Advisors (EAs)
Custom Expert Advisors are fully allowed. You may use any EA built around your own strategy, indicators, or risk parameters — no whitelisting required.
Trade Copiers
Trade copiers between your own accounts are permitted. Useful for managing several Meridian accounts in parallel — provided every account independently respects our risk and trading rules.
News Trading
News trading is allowed on evaluation accounts without restriction.
On funded accounts, news trading is still allowed, but trades opened or closed within 5 minutes before or after a high-impact (red folder) news event — FOMC, NFP, CPI, central bank decisions — are subject to a profit cap of 1% of your initial account balance.
If your profits during the news window exceed 1%, the excess is removed automatically. This is not a breach — your account stays active.
Important exception: trades opened more than 2 hours before the news event are fully protected, even if they close during the window. Calendar source: Forex Factory.
Weekend Trade Holding
You're free to hold trades overnight and across the weekend on evaluation phases and on most funded accounts. Standard swap fees apply on rollover.
Weekend Gap Rule (Funded Accounts only): trades opened in the last 3 hours of Friday market hours AND closed in the first 3 hours of Monday market hours are subject to review. Profits from these specific trades may be removed (without account breach) since we don't reward strategies that purely target weekend gaps.
Holding through the weekend with a sound strategy remains fully fine.
No restriction on overnight or weekend trade holding.
Trading Styles
We support every style of discretionary trading — scalping, day trading, swing trading, position trading. Each style is welcome as long as the rules are met.
Trade the way that suits your edge, your timeframe, and your psychology. Hold time, position count and trade frequency are not capped.
What's Not Allowed at Meridian
Platform & Data Abuse
Exploiting platform freezes, demo server errors, delayed data feeds, or stale charts to gain an unfair edge over real-time market pricing.
Prohibited Trading Strategies
Tick scalping, high-frequency trading, latency arbitrage, hedge arbitrage or any strategy designed to exploit pricing or execution delays rather than market direction.
Copy Trading &
Account Sharing
Copying trades between different traders, sharing devices used to mirror trades, or any form of coordinated activity that compromises individual account integrity.
Account Integrity
Violations
Each account must be traded independently by the verified account holder. Any activity that compromises personal account integrity may result in breach or termination.
Hedging Restrictions
Same-account hedging is allowed on evaluation and Step funded accounts (1-Step, 2-Step, 3-Step). On Instant Funding accounts it's not permitted — you can't hold opposite-direction positions on the same instrument at the same time (No-Hedge Rule). First event: the hedged-sequence profit isn't counted, plus a warning. Second event: termination.
Hedging across multiple accounts — yours or someone else's — is strictly not permitted on any model, as it neutralizes genuine market risk and undermines account integrity.