Prop Firm News Trading Rules: Which Firms Allow It (2026)

Prop firm news trading rules decide whether you may open, close or profit from trades around high-impact economic releases, and they range from no restriction at all (FTMO Swing, E8 Pro, several FXIFY programs) to a short no-trading window on funded accounts (FTMO Standard), a cap on how much news profit counts (Goat Funded Trader, FundedNext, Maven Omo) and an outright hard breach (Funding Pips Zero).

The same firm often runs different rules on different programs and stages: at FTMO the answer depends on whether you hold a Standard or a Swing account and whether you are still in the challenge. This page lists the rules firm by firm and program by program and works through the profit-cap arithmetic. All firm figures were checked against each firm's official rules on 26 September 2026. Rules change, so confirm the current wording on the firm's own page before you trade a release.

Can you trade news with a prop firm?

Yes, at many firms and on many programs, but rarely without conditions. Across the 12 firms in the Fips prop firm rules comparison, news rules fall into five types:

1. Allowed. No news restriction in the challenge or on the funded account. Examples: FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Swing), E8 Pro, E8 Signature, FXIFY One Phase and FXIFY Two Phase, The5ers Hyper Growth, Pro Growth and Bootcamp.
2. Restricted only on the funded account. You may trade news freely during the evaluation, and the restriction starts once you are funded. Examples: FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard), FTMO Challenge 1-Step, FundedNext Stellar 2-Step, 1-Step and Lite, Funding Pips 2 Step Standard, Pro and Flex, Maven Omo 2-Step, E8 One, Blue Guardian 1 Step and 2 Step.
3. Restricted at every stage. The rule applies from the first day of the challenge. Examples: Maven Standard programs, Goat Funded Trader 1-Step and 2-Step, The5ers High Stakes, FundedNext Stellar Instant, Blue Guardian Instant, the Topstep Trading Combine.
4. Not allowed. News trading is prohibited on the program. Examples: Funding Pips Zero (where it is a hard breach), FXIFY Instant Funding and FXIFY Lightning Challenge.
5. Not published or not verified. Goat Funded Trader Instant HERO publishes no news rule in its model table, and the Apex Trader Funding news rule could not be verified.

"Restricted" itself comes in two very different forms. A time window stops you from executing trades for a few minutes around a release. A profit cap lets you trade but limits how much of the profit from news-window trades counts. The second kind cannot end your account by itself, but it can quietly remove most of a good day.

Which prop firms allow news trading? Rules by firm and program

Where the last column sends you to the firm, the verified data records the rule type but not its mechanics, so treat the program as restricted until you have read the firm's wording. The prop firm rules comparison shows the same news column next to daily loss, max loss and weekend rules.

What counts as high-impact news?

High-impact news is a scheduled economic release or central bank decision that an economic calendar rates at its top impact level. Many calendars mark that level with a red icon, which is where the phrase "red-folder news" comes from. Goat Funded Trader and Maven Trading both use that phrase in their rules, and The5ers High Stakes refers to "high-impact news". FTMO uses its own term, "restricted news", and decides which releases fall under it.

The releases that typically carry the top rating for forex and index traders include:

• US Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) and the rest of the monthly US employment report
• US CPI and other headline inflation figures
• FOMC rate decisions, the statement and the press conference that follows
• Rate decisions from other major central banks, such as the ECB, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan
• GDP releases for the major economies

Two cautions apply. Impact ratings are set by the calendar provider, and a firm can define its own list; when a firm publishes a list or names a source, that list wins. And a release matters most for instruments tied to its currency: US CPI hits EUR/USD, USD/JPY, XAU/USD, NAS100 and US30 directly, while a Bank of Japan decision matters most for yen pairs. Firms differ on whether the rule covers only affected instruments, so check yours.

How do you plan around news releases with an economic calendar?

Planning is mostly done the evening before or at the start of the week. A practical routine:

1. List the week's top-impact events for every currency you trade. The Fips economic calendar filters by impact level (high, medium, low) and by currency, shows previous and forecast values, and displays times in your own time zone, so you do not have to convert from the publisher's time zone.
2. Mark the restricted window around each event using your program's rule: 2 minutes either side for FTMO Standard funded or Maven Standard 1-Step, 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after for The5ers High Stakes, 5 minutes for the Goat Funded Trader profit cap.
3. Decide in advance what you will do with open trades: close before the window, hold through it if your program allows holding, or reduce size.
4. Check pending orders and stops. A buy stop placed above the range can trigger on the release spike. Whether a pending order or a stop loss that fills inside the window counts as a trade in the window is a point firms word differently, so read your firm's rule on it before leaving orders in the market.
5. Size the trade for the release, not for a normal hour. That is the subject of the next section.

Why are spreads and slippage a risk at news releases?

Around a major release, liquidity providers widen their quotes and many withdraw for a few seconds. Spreads on EUR/USD, XAU/USD and the indices can widen sharply, price can jump past levels without trading at them, and market and stop orders can fill well away from the price you saw. Prop rules make this more dangerous, because the daily drawdown limit is checked against live equity.

A worked example of what slippage does to a planned risk:

• Account: FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard), $100,000 initial balance.
• Planned risk: 0.5% = $500.
• Trade: EUR/USD with a 25-pip stop. At $10 per pip per 1.00 lot, the size is $500 ÷ (25 × $10) = 2.00 lots.
• On the release, price gaps through the stop and the order fills 15 pips worse: 40 pips × $10 × 2.00 = $800 loss, 60% more than planned.

FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard) sets the daily floor at the 00:00 CE(S)T balance minus 5% of initial capital, here $5,000 on a $100,000 account. One slipped trade will not reach it, but three or four sized for calm conditions on a busy news day can. The daily drawdown guide shows how much room you have left at any point in the day.

The lot size calculators for FTMO, FundedNext, Maven Trading and The5ers size a trade from your account, risk and stop, and work without an account. For a release, use a wider stop or a smaller risk percentage, and accept that the fill can still be worse.

What is the difference between holding through news and trading the news window?

Most window rules restrict execution, meaning opening or closing a trade, rather than exposure. The difference matters.

• The5ers High Stakes says it plainly: orders may not be executed from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after high-impact news, but holding a position through the news is allowed. A trade opened an hour earlier can stay open through the release, as long as nothing opens or closes inside the window.
• Maven Standard 1-Step words its rule as no trades opened or closed 2 minutes either side of red-folder news. If you plan to hold through a release, confirm how Maven treats a stop loss or take profit that triggers inside the window.
• FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard) restricts trading in the 2 minutes around restricted news on the funded account. FTMO's news FAQ explains what counts as trading in that window.
• Profit-cap rules (Goat Funded Trader, FundedNext, Maven Omo) do not stop you from trading or holding. They change how much of the news-window profit counts.

Holding through a release is not safe just because it is permitted: your stop can be the order that fills inside the window, far from where you placed it. Size the position so a slipped fill still stays inside your daily limit.

How do news profit caps work? Two worked examples

Goat Funded Trader: 1% cap within 5 minutes of red-folder news

Goat Funded Trader 1-Step, 2-Step Standard and 2-Step GOAT cap the profit from trades within 5 minutes of red-folder news at 1% of the initial balance.

• Account: Goat Funded Trader 2-Step Standard, $100,000 initial balance.
• Cap: 1% × $100,000 = $1,000.
• Trade: you buy XAU/USD at 1.00 lot 3 minutes after US CPI, and gold rises $18.00. A $1.00 move is $100 per lot, so the profit is 18 × $100 = $1,800.
• Counted profit: $1,000. The other $800 does not count.

Had the trade lost $1,800, the loss would count in full: the cap limits the upside, and nothing in the recorded rule reduces the downside. Goat Funded Trader's help article on news trading explains whether the excess is removed from the balance or only excluded from the target, and whether the cap applies per trade or per event. Check both before relying on the figure.

FundedNext: 40% of news-window profit counted

On FundedNext Stellar 2-Step and Stellar 1-Step funded accounts, and on Stellar Instant, 40% of news-window profit is counted.

• Account: FundedNext Stellar 2-Step funded, $100,000.
• Trade: NAS100 opened inside the news window around an FOMC decision, closed for $2,000 profit.
• Counted: 40% × $2,000 = $800.
• Not counted: $2,000 − $800 = $1,200.

FundedNext defines the window around each release in its own rules. The rule as recorded covers profit only. Unless FundedNext says otherwise, plan as if a news-window loss counts in full against your daily drawdown of 5% of the initial balance below the day's starting balance on Stellar 2-Step.

Maven Omo: 0.5% per event

Maven Trading Omo 2-Step caps funded news profit at 0.5% per event. On a $100,000 funded account that is 0.5% × $100,000 = $500 per release, however many trades you take around it.

How do you track news trades in a trading journal?

News rules are easy to break by accident and hard to audit afterwards, because the breach shows up as a timestamp, not a loss. A journal that records exact open and close times lets you check every trade against the calendar. Two habits help:

• Tag every trade opened or closed within 15 minutes of a high-impact release. Fifteen minutes is wider than any window in the table above, so the tag catches everything.
• Compare the tagged trades with the rest. Look at average slippage, average loss and how often news trades hit their stop. A losing streak that clusters around releases tells you more than any rule list.

The Fips trading journal syncs MT4 and MT5 accounts through the read-only investor password, so trade times come from the platform rather than from memory. Fips is in private beta with access by waitlist. Prop firm rule tracking inside the journal is coming soon. Until then, the rules comparison and the calendar are the reference points.

Frequently asked questions

Does FTMO allow news trading?

During the FTMO Challenge and Verification, yes. On an FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard) funded account, you may not trade in the 2 minutes around restricted news. The FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Swing) has no news restriction, including on the funded account. FTMO Challenge 1-Step is restricted on the funded stage. Checked against FTMO's official rules on 26 September 2026; confirm on FTMO's news FAQ.

Can you trade news with FundedNext?

On Stellar 2-Step and Stellar 1-Step you can trade news in the evaluation. On the funded account, 40% of the profit from news-window trades is counted. Stellar Instant applies the same 40% rule from the start, and Stellar Lite is restricted on the funded stage. Confirm the window length on FundedNext's rules page.

Which prop firms allow news trading without restrictions?

Among the firms checked on 26 September 2026: FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Swing), E8 Pro and E8 Signature, FXIFY One Phase and FXIFY Two Phase (Standard, Classic, Pro), and The5ers Hyper Growth, Pro Growth and Bootcamp. The rule is set per program, not per firm, so other programs at the same firms may restrict news.

Is holding a trade through news allowed?

It depends on the wording. The5ers High Stakes explicitly allows holding through high-impact news while prohibiting order execution from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after. Other window rules are worded around opening and closing trades, so a stop or target filling inside the window may still count. Ask the firm if its rule is not explicit.

What happens if you trade during a news window by mistake?

On Funding Pips Zero, news trading is a hard breach. On profit-cap programs such as Goat Funded Trader or FundedNext, the profit above the cap or the excluded share does not count. For window rules, the firm sets the consequence, so read its rule page first.

How long is the news restriction window?

There is no industry standard. FTMO Challenge 2-Step (Standard) funded accounts use 2 minutes around restricted news, Maven Standard 1-Step uses 2 minutes either side of red-folder news, The5ers High Stakes uses 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after, and Goat Funded Trader's profit cap covers trades within 5 minutes of red-folder news.