Finding the best prop firms for trading can significantly enhance your capital access and profitability in forex trading.
Today’s market presents an extraordinary opportunity for retail traders. Access to proprietary trading firms, once the exclusive domain of Wall Street bankers, is now widely available online. This gives everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their trading prowess.
After extensive research into the best prop firms for trading, I’ve compiled a list to help fellow traders on their journey to securing funded accounts. This selection of the best prop firms aims to streamline the decision-making process for those seeking the best opportunities in forex trading.
Trading with prop firms is not only an excellent way to leverage considerable capital, but it also provides a great platform to amplify your forex trading profits.
With this curated list, you will be better positioned to find the best prop firms to suit your trading style and financial goals.
The prop firms below are evaluated in terms of:
- Reputation
- Challenge rules
- Maximum daily loss
- Profit split
- Ability to scale
- Available account sizes
- Cost
Top Pick: My Forex Funds
My Forex Funds has been around for a short time now and the variety of plans they have available make it our top pick for the best forex prop trading firm. They have three different models to choose from: Rapid, Evaluation, and Accelerated.
Each model is suited to a specific type of trader. If you’re newer and wish to learn as you go along, the Rapid model is a good way to get your feet wet. More advanced traders can take the evaluation program and get access to a decent amount of capital.
Finally, highly skilled traders who are willing to put a chunk of money up front for huge trading capital on a live account will be able to make the best of the Accelerated program.
Best Prop Trading Firms
My Forex Funds(Best No Evaluation Prop Firm)
Reputation: Good
Challenge rules: Reasonable
Maximum daily loss: 5%
Profit split: Up to 85% on evaluation
Account growth: Moderate in Evaluation, excellent in Accelerated
Available account sizes: $2000 and up
Cost: Reasonable
My Forex Funds has been around since August 2020 and they have one of the best funding models currently on the market.
Their costing is also quite reasonable and that was what drew me to them in the first place.
My Forex Funds gives you three options: Rapid, Evaluation, and Accelerated.
Let’s look into each one in detail.
Rapid
In the Rapid model, there are no profit targets and you get paid 12% of everything you earn. There is a drawdown, though.
The Rapid programs have account sizes of $10,000 to $100,000 with reasonable registration fees that are refundable.
These accounts are great ways to dip your feet as there’s no pressure of attaining a set profit target in a limited amount of time.
However, since the profit share is just 12%, you won’t earn that much money even if you’re trading the larger $100,000 account.
Very conservatively, if you can manage to earn 5% profit in a month, that’s $5000 of $100,000. 12% of that is just $600.
$600 is better than nothing, but that’s the cost of not having to go through the evaluation.
It’s also worth remembering that you still stand to lose the original fee you paid if you violate the drawdown!
Evaluation
In the Evaluation model, you must hit two profit targets. The first one is 8% in 30 calendar days, and the next is 5% in 60 calendar days.
These targets are designed to make you trade aggressively in the start of your challenge, and demonstrate conservative trading in the second part.
8% is a pretty decent target, especially compared to other firms that have you shoot for 10%.
There is a maximum daily drawdown of 5% and a maximum total loss of 12%. This is quite generous and leaves you quite a bit of wiggle room to let your strategy work.
Once you pass the challenge, the drawdown rules still apply, but there are no longer any profit targets and you begin profit sharing after the completion of the first month in profit.
There are multiple account sizes available from $10,000 to $200,000 and the prices are very competitive.
Accelerated
The Accelerated model is what really makes My Forex Funds unique. Experienced traders who are confident of their trading skills can pay a higher up-front cost to get access to a live funded account right away with no evaluation.
There are no minimum targets to meet per se, though your account size will increase to the next level every time you hit 10% in profit.
This allows you to scale up a small account to a sizeable account in comparatively little time, provided you are a skilled trader.
Accounts start from $2,000 to $50,000, and the starting account sizes determine how much maximum funding you can receive. For example, the $2,000 account gives you assured funding up to $324,000, and the $50,000 account gives you assured funding up to $1,350,000.
There will be quite a few times you’ll have to hit 10% in between, but you’ll be earning a share of the profit throughout.
My Forex Funds offers some of the most attractive funding options available and there’s something to suit every budget and every skill level in trading.
FTMO
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Reasonable
Maximum daily loss: 5%
Profit split: Up to 90%
Account growth: 25% every four profitable months
Available account sizes: $10,000 and up
Cost: Slightly on the higher side
FTMO is one of the oldest and best proprietary trading firms firms around, having been in business since 2015. They have a huge base of traders and pay out regularly every single month, with over $21,000,000 paid out in 2021 alone.
The FTMO Challenge is the pioneer of the evaluation model and while their rules are a little bit more stringent than other prop firms, they’re still the preferred prop firm for most forex traders.
It’s important to note that FTMO does not give you access to live money even after you pass the FTMO Challenge. You are still paid for your performance, but FTMO has an algorithm that copies trades their traders make.
They have two levels of risk: normal and aggressive(aggressive has a slightly higher profit share). In normal, you must make 10% to pass the first verification stage.
In aggressive, you must make 20%.
20% is very high and you will have to use very clever risk management to be able to pull something like that off.
The second part of the verification has a much more moderate 5% target for both normal and aggressive accounts.
FTMO also has a minimum trading days rule where you must trade for at least 10 days to pass the challenge.
Even if you hit the profit target earlier, you can just open micro lots to meet this requirement.
FTMO also has one of the best progress dashboards in the industry, and they also offer you a demo account to get your feet wet before you start the challenge.
The only downside is that they are slightly on the expensive side at 350 EUR for the $50,000 challenge.
However, many forex traders will consider the extra money a small price to pay for the peace of mind afforded from the stellar reputation.
City Traders Imperium
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Superb
Maximum daily loss: 5%
Profit split: Up to 70%
Account growth: Every time you make 10%
Available account sizes: $10,000 and up
Cost: High
City Traders Imperium is another well-known forex education company and prop firm. They have two models for forex traders to choose from, and although they’re a little more expensive than other prop firms, the conditions make them a solid choice.
You can either do a one-step evaluation or opt for direct funding.
For the one-step evaluation, you have a period of one entire year to complete it. This greatly reduces the pressure of needing to attain a high target in the short period of just one month.
There is a 7% profit target for the evaluation, after which you receive your main trading account.
The unique thing about City Traders Imperium is that you actually trade a smaller account first which is 25% of the main account. Once you pass your evaluation, you receive access to the full-size account.
You can opt for accounts of $10,000 up to $70,000 in the evaluation model, and $20,000 to $70,000 in direct funding.
Direct funding is significantly more expensive, so the idea is that traders won’t risk dropping o much cash unless they’re really sure of what they’re doing.
Regardless of which model you opt for, you scale up every time you achieve 10% growth.
The one drawback here is that the profit share is a little on the lower side from 60 to 70%, but if you can consistently make 10% on your account, you can scale up very quickly and make a significant amount of money per month.
By the 7th tier of the scaling plan on the $70,000 account, you’ll be managing $2,000,000 in capital.
Sign Up Here!The 5%ers
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Strict
Maximum daily loss: 4%
Profit split: 50%
Account growth: Every time you make 10% or 25%
Available account sizes: $6,000 and up
Cost: Reasonable
The 5%ers is a fairly well-established prop trading firm. They’ve been in business for a long time, and they offer some very interesting options to get funded.
You can either opt for instant funding or a $100K bootcamp.
In the Instant Funding model, you start with account sizes of $6000, $10000, or $20000. Once you hit the profit target, you’ll get 4x the capital. From then on, every time you get 10% for normal or 25% for aggressive, they’ll keep doubling your capital until you reach $2.56 million in funding.
For starters, the Normal mode only gets you 1:6 leverage, and Aggressive gets you 1:30 leverage.
So if you started with a $6000 account, the largest lot size you could open would be $36,000 or 0.36 lots(that too would max out your margin).
At 0.36 lots, you’d need to make roughly 104 pips to hit the profit target. That’s 10 trades if you average 10 pips per trade, and 5 trades if you average 20 pips per trade.
If you opt for the aggressive funding model, you can get 1:30 leverage. That means the largest lot you can open is $180,000 or 1.8 lots.
The target in aggressive is 12%, so that’s $720 on the $6000 account.
Hypothetically, you can hit $720 with just 40 pips! So that’s four 10 pip trades or just two 20 pip trades.
While this seems very tempting, you can only lose 4% before the account is taken away from you, so you have to be really conservative with your trades.
The second option is the $100K bootcamp which starts at just 50 EUR. You need to make 10% three times after which you take a final fourth challenge for an extra 250 EUR.
If you pass that challenge, you receive a $100,000 account with an 80/20 profit split and funding up to $4,000,000.
Finally, there is a third option called Freestyle where you place 100 trades on a $50,000 demo account and you’re evaluated on your performance. If you can earn double what you risk, you’ll be given a funded account with 100% profit splits.
Sign Up Here!E8 Funding
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Relaxed
Maximum daily loss: 5%
Profit split: 80%
Account growth: Every time you make 16% on ELEV8 accounts
Available account sizes: $25,000 and up
Cost: Reasonable
E8 Funding is a relatively newer player in the prop trading arena but they’ve hit the scene with a splash.
They have relaxed trading rules, a very achievable 8% profit target in phase 1, a 5% target in phase 2, 5% daily drawdowns, and 8% maximum initial drawdowns.
There are three types of accounts: E8, ELEV8, and E8 track.
E8 accounts are available from $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, and $250,000. The prices fall between those of My Forex Funds and FTMO.
Regular E8 accounts have an 80% profit split that you can withdraw every 14 days(there’s also one withdrawal after 8 days for the first time), but there is no scaling.
If you’re looking to scale your trading capital, the ELEV8 account is the way to go. The ELEV8 account is $100,000 in initial capital and the challenge costs as much as the $250,000 challenge.
Finally, if you’re a very CONSISTENT trader, the E8 Track account lets you do a 3-phase evaluation for huge capital at half the cost.
The rules for passing the challenge are the same. What’s different is that E8 will add $100,000 to your balance every time you hit 16% growth in 30 days.
TrustPilot reviews for E8 funding are mostly raving, so they’re definitely worth looking into.
Lux Trading Firm
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Strict
Maximum daily loss: 4%
Profit split: 65%
Account growth: Every time you make 10%
Available account sizes: $5000 and up
Cost: Slightly high
Lux Trading Firm is a UK-based prop trading firm that offers evaluation accounts that scale up to $2.5 million dollars in a 7, 6, or 5 stages, depending on how much your initial capital was.
You can start with $5k, $10k, or $15k. Every time you hit a profit target, your account size will increase.
The good thing about Lux Trading Firm is that there is no time limit to hit the profit target, which greatly alleviates a lot of the pressure.
It’s also important to note that the first two stages have a 6% profit target, followed by a 10% target in all subsequent stages.
You also need to be fairly consistent in your lot sizes/risk. If you manage to reach the 6% in just two trades, and then only take micro lot trades for the remaining 27 trading days, they will not accept it.
One reason these guys are so strict with their rules is that they actually turn over to you a live account with real money.
To be able to pass the challenge with Lux, you’ll need to greatly reduce your risk per trade. So instead of risking 2% per trade as the common wisdom goes, it would be wiser to risk 1% or even 0.5%. You’d also need to have at least a 1:2 risk-to-reward.
Sign Up HereBluFX
Reputation: Good
Challenge rules: Strict
Maximum daily loss: 10%
Profit split: 50%
Account growth: Doubled every time you make 10%
Available account sizes: $25,000 and $50,000
Cost: Expensive
BluFX is a rather unique model as they hand over a live account for a monthly fee. For 99 GBP, you get access to a $25,000 account, and for 249 GBP, you’ll get access to a $50,000 account.
There are two main catches here: you only get 1:3 leverage and you must make 5% before you can withdraw.
The $25,000 account would get you buying power of $75,000, which is 0.75 lots. We can be more conservative and assume your maximum lot size will be 0.5 lots.
At 0.5 lots($5 per pip), you’d need to make 250 pips to hit the withdrawal threshold.
The same calculation can be applied to the $50,000 account.
So essentially, unless you made 250 pips per month, you would have to pay BluFX the monthly fee and not be able to withdraw anything.
On the flip side, if you can achieve 10% growth just 4 times, you’ll be given access to a $1,000,000 acccount, after which you can withdraw anything above your current balance. You also won’t need to pay a subscription any longer.
To put things into perspective, 1% of $1,000,000 is $10,000!
Assuming you can make 10% per month, that’s a 1000 GBP investment for potentially earning well over $10,000 per month. Also, withdrawals will deduct from your 10% target.
Fidelcrest
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: Moderate
Maximum daily loss: 5%
Profit split: 70-80%
Account growth: Yes
Available account sizes: $10000 and up
Cost: Slightly high
Fidelcrest takes quite a different approach to their prop trading and with the latest changes they’ve made, they’re a really competitive firm to check out.
They have two overarching umbrellas that you can choose from: Pro Trader and Micro Trader.
Micro Trader account sizes are from $10,000 to $50,000 and are reasonably priced.
Pro Trader account sizes start from $125,000 and go all the way up to $1,000,000.
In either track, you get 70% if you choose the normal account, and 80% if you choose the aggressive account.
There is just a single verification stage, and if you do pass the verification, you’ll get 40% of the verification share.
This model differs a little from other fx proprietary trading firms that will refund you the registration fee with your first withdrawal.
That makes a huge difference.
On the lowest Pro account, you need to pay 350 EUR to get access to a $125,000 trading account. You need to make 10% on the account, which is $7500.
Upon successful completion of the challenge, you’ll receive 40% of $7500 which is $3000.
Plus, there’s just a single verification phase after which you receive your funded account.
Fidelcrest also has an option to get two challenges for the price of one. However, you have to choose between receiving a free challenge if you fail the first one, OR receive a free second challenge if you pass the first one.
Either way, you’re getting two challenges for one, and if you’re not confident, you can essentially get a free retake for the price of a single challenge.
Sign Up Here!Audacity Capital
Reputation: Great
Challenge rules: None
Maximum daily loss: 10%
Profit split: 50%
Account growth: Yes
Available account sizes: After interview
Cost: None
Audacity Capital is a great way for professional traders to put their trading career on steroids. Unlike the other proprietary trading firms on this list, there is no challenge you need to pass in order to get a funded account.
Instead, this prop firm is very selective and you submit a questionnaire about yourself and your trading strategy.
If you make the shortlist, you have to give an interview, which if you pass, you will be accepted into the program and receive your live account right away.
Every time you hit 10% profit, your account size will grow.
Audacity Capital is actually one of the closest companies there are to an actual proprietary trading desk.
Sign Up Here!The Funded Trader Program
Reputation: New
Challenge rules: Moderate
Maximum daily loss: 6%
Profit split: 80%
Account growth: Yes
Available account sizes: $50,000 to $400,000
Cost: Reasonable
The Funded Trader Program is a fairly new prop firm on the block. It’s co-founded by a very notable Forex YouTuber called Blake who runs the VVS Academy channel.
The rules are fairly similar to most Forex prop trading firms out there. You must make 10% in the first stage, and 5% in the second stage to receive your funded account.
Once you’re in, you’ll be entitled to an 80% profit split.
What’s unique about these guys is that they have a leaderboard on their main website where they show you how their top traders are performing.
Sign Up Here!Surge Trader
Reputation: New
Challenge rules: Moderate
Maximum daily loss: 4%
Profit split: 80%
Account growth: Yes
Available account sizes: $25,000 to $1,000,000
Cost: Reasonable
Surge Trader is a recent entrant to the prop firm world but we had to include them in this list because of their amazing funding opportunities.
First off, Surge Trader is a one-step evaluation, meaning you just have to make 10% and you have the live account.
There’s also no time limit to pass, which is a huge plus point.
There’s a maximum trailing drawdown of 5%. Once you cross 5%, you can draw your account all the way down to your starting balance.
Accounts start at $25,000 and go all the way up to $1,000,000. For accounts between $25,000 to $250,000, you have an option upon completing the challenge to do another 10% and receive an account double the size OR to receive the original funded account.
Hypothetically, you could work your way up from $25,000 to $500,000 in just 5 increments of 10%.
I’m guessing the rationale behind this is to entice traders to fail by wanting the bigger account, but if you’re confident of your consistency, you can invest just $250 for the $25,000 evaluation(or audition as they call it) and trade your way up to an account of $250,000 or even $500,000.
The rules are quite simple:
- You must open every trade WITH a stop loss
- You must close trades before the weekend
- You can only open a max number of lots depending on the account size. For example, you can only open up to 5 lots on a $50,000 account. However, if you have a 5 lot position open and you move the stop loss to break-even, you’ve eliminated risk, and you can now open another 5 lots.
There’s no limit to what kind of strategy you can use, and you can even copy trade from a personal account to this one.
On the whole, TrustPilot reviews are solid, averaging above 4 stars.
Sign Up Here!Why trade with a prop firm?
Simply put, many traders don’t have a significant amount of their own funds to make good money trading financial instruments.
Prop firms let you trade with the company’s capital, giving you a share of the profit without any capital contribution of your own.
If you can conservatively make 5% per month, that’s just $50 on a $1000 trading account. But on a $100,000 account, that’s $5,000, and the picture completely changes!
If you have trading strategies that work and are confident of your trading style, trading with a prop firm can put you on your way to trade forex for a living.
Related:
What is a realistic ROI in Forex?
How we came up with this list
Prop trading firms are a dime a dozen, but we’ve used very strict criteria to select the top proprietary trading firms for this list.
Reputation
One of the most important factors for choosing a prop trading company is their reputation. After all, you’re investing some money and a decent amount of time expecting that this company will pay you a significant amount of money every single month!
That’s why we’ve avoided some of the prop firms out there that have iffy reputations. We have written about them in detail, but those have been excluded from this list.
Aside from relying on TrustPilot reviews, we’ve also had personal experience with these firms and know their dashboards and trading platforms in and out.
Challenge rules
A very inconvenient truth that most aspiring prop traders need to face is that prop trading challenges are designed to make you fail.
Forex trading and the Forex market is quite unforgiving, and it takes a lot of practice and mastery over your own worst impulses to even be profitable, let alone hit the profit targets that these companies set.
Most prop firms have 8% to 10% targets, which are achievable. Along with the profit targets, we’ve looked at the other rules. Many firms have inconvenient rules that make hitting the profit target harder than necessary.
The best prop firm is one that has as few rules as possible. FTMO, My Forex Funds, and Ment Funding are good examples of this: there are few rules and they’re quite easy to stick to.
Some firms have limitations on trading styles: FTMO only allows swing trading if you ask for a swing trading account, and some firms mandate that you must open a trade with a stop loss(meaning you can’t open the trade then set your stop loss).
Maximum daily loss
The maximum daily loss is the greatest amount or percentage that you can lose in a single day before losing your account.
If you’ve ever traded the financial markets, you’ll know that losses are a part of the game. Most firms have maximum daily losses of 4 to 5%.
After taking multiple challenges, though, here’s a little secret: the maximum daily loss is more of a psychological factor than anything else.
There should be NO situation in your trading where you lose 5% in a single day. Your trading plan needs to account for when you stop trading for the day, and that’s typically if you hit a loss of 2 to 3%.
Still, some firms have unreasonably low maximum losses, to the extent that you really can’t take a decently-sized trade.
Profit split
The profit split is what it’s all about, right? Profit splits typically range between 75-90%, and many firms start you off at 75% and then scale you up to 90% after a couple of months.
Some firms have lower splits at 50-60% as well, but they typically have more aggressive scaling options.
Along with the actual percentage, another thing to consider is how often the profit split is disbursed. Most firms offer payout periods of 2 weeks to one month, which is quite fair, as it allows you some time to trade and amass some gains before requesting a payout.
Ability to scale
Scaling is a fast-track to seriously compound your gains in the Forex market. Some firms have aggressive scaling plans, getting you from $50,000 to $1,000,000 in just 8 steps.
Other firms have less aggressive scaling, such as a 25% increase in capital for every profitable 4 months.
You can also manually scale by passing more channels and compounding your account size that way.
For example, let’s say you pass a $50,000 challenge. After you get your first payout, you take a $100,000 challenge and copy-trade from your main account to this one(provided your firm allows for it) and upon passing the new challenge, you’ve got a total of $150,000.
You can rinse and repeat until you max out the funding limits with one or multiple companies and end up with a sizeable chunk of trading capital.
Available account sizes and cost
The account sizes provided by prop firms is also an important consideration. For example, the top prop trading firms typically provide sizes from $10,000 up to $300,000. The higher the account size, the more expensive the trading challenge is.
If you’re very new to Forex, you need to accept that you may fail a few challenges
Do prop firms provide you live accounts?
Some prop firms are quite clear about the fact that they provide a demo account and run an algorithm by which they place their live trades.
Other firms are quite clear that they provide you live capital, probably financed by private equity.
Others don’t mention which model they use, but chances are, if you have a maximum drawdown of 10%, you’re not trading live capital.
Ment Funding is one of the few prop firms that does provide a live account.
What trading platform can you use with prop firms?
Prop firms typically offer MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, though some firms also offer cTrader.
The advantage of using MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 is that they’re very versatile and there’s a huge user base with plenty of customizations and scripts/expert advisors that you can use.
Which trading instruments are available?
The number of trading instruments varies from prop firm to prop firm. All prop firms offer the 28 main Forex pairs, as well as gold and silver. Some also offer major stock market indices and crypto, too.
However, bear in mind that spreads are usually tightest on Forex pairs and metals, and indices and crypto typically carry higher spreads.
If you are skilled at trading indices and crypto, the potential for gains is also much greater as the market swings are much more aggressive.
Futures trading is not available with Forex prop firms, but there are dedicated futures trading prop firms that only let you trade futures.
Conclusion
This is a list of the best prop trading firms, so naturally, there are many other prop trading firms out there that we have not mentioned. However, we were careful to choose only those firms that we know for certain pay out their traders and have a good reputation.
If you’re looking to become a forex trader but don’t have enough of your own capital, you can get access to a decent chunk of capital for an initial investment of just pennies on the dollar.