FTMO's stance on EAs
FTMO explicitly allows Expert Advisors on all evaluation and funded accounts. Their published rules:
- Allowed: any EA that takes signals and places trades, including ML-augmented ones.
- Prohibited: latency arbitrage, HFT, exploitation of broker quote errors, copy-trading services, third-party signal subscriptions used without disclosure.
- Restricted: EAs that breach the 10% max drawdown, max daily loss, or trade beyond allowed instruments.
The actual evaluation structure
- FTMO Challenge: 30 days, 10% profit target, 10% max drawdown, 5% max daily drawdown.
- Verification: 60 days, 5% profit target, same drawdown rules.
- Funded account: trade real capital, keep 80–90% (depending on tier).
EA-specific considerations
Make sure your EA respects the 5% daily and 10% total drawdown limits. The EA's own risk management must enforce this — FTMO won't pause your account at 4.9% daily drawdown to give you a soft warning; it will fail you when you cross.
Practical patterns:
- Hard stop on the EA at 4% daily P/L drawdown (leaves 1% buffer).
- Hard stop on the EA at 8% account drawdown (leaves 2% buffer).
- No new positions in the last hour before daily reset, to avoid spillover.
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