Does Topstep Have a Consistency Rule? Trailing Drawdown & Eval Rules Explained
Topstep's Trading Combine has a trailing drawdown, a daily loss limit, and a winning-days requirement that interact with an automated strategy in ways that trip up even experienced traders. Here's every rule, in detail.
Does Topstep use trailing drawdown? Yes, eod trailing only — the floor moves on closed equity at day's end, not unrealized intraday peaks.
Is there a daily loss limit? Yes — $1,000 on a 50k account, and breaching it ends the Combine immediately.
Topstep Trading Combine rules at a glance
| Account size | Profit target | Max daily loss | Max trailing drawdown | Min trading days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50k | $3,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 | 10 days |
| 100k | $6,000 | $2,000 | $3,000 | 10 days |
| 150k | $9,000 | $3,000 | $4,500 | 10 days |
Why EOD trailing drawdown changes strategy design
Because the floor only moves on closed equity at end of day, unrealized intraday swings don't touch it. In practice:
- A position can run up meaningfully without permanently raising the floor, as long as it isn't closed at that peak
- A trade that runs to +$500 and reverses to a $200 loss doesn't cost the drawdown cushion the way it would on an intraday-trailing account
- There's real flexibility to let a winner run intraday
The trade-off: a string of profitable closed days raises the floor just as surely, and a losing day after that run trades closer to the edge than it looks. EOD trailing still follows profit — just at a day-end cadence rather than tick by tick.
The 10-day minimum trading rule
Topstep requires at least 10 trading days before the Combine can complete. For an automated strategy, that means firing at least once per session across 10 separate days. A session filter that's too narrow — only taking one very specific setup in the first 30 minutes, say — risks running through more than 10 calendar days without logging enough actual trading days.
How to handle it: widen entry criteria slightly during the Combine to guarantee at least one or two trades a session. The evaluation rewards demonstrated activity and consistency across days more than squeezing the maximum out of each individual setup — tighten back to the optimal filter once funded.
Daily loss limit: $1,000 on a 50k account
The daily loss limit is a hard stop — cross it in a single session on a 50k account and the Combine ends. A Pine Script strategy needs a kill switch that halts new entries well before that threshold.
Recommended configuration:
- Set the kill switch at roughly 80% of the limit — enough buffer for an open trade to hit its own stop after the switch trips
- Once triggered, let existing positions reach their stops naturally rather than force-closing them, which can add its own slippage right at the limit
- Reset the counter at the next session's open
Contract sizing for a Topstep Combine
| Contract | Contracts | Stop size | Approx. loss per trade |
|---|---|---|---|
| MES | 3 | 8 points | $120 |
| MES | 5 | 6 points | $150 |
| MNQ | 3 | 25 ticks | $37.50 |
| MNQ | 5 | 20 ticks | $50 |
Starting conservative — one to three contracts — and scaling only after three or four profitable sessions is the steadier approach. On an EOD trailing account, an oversized early day raises the floor and makes every subsequent day more precarious.
Session filter for MES/MNQ on Topstep
Topstep doesn't restrict what hours count during RTH, but the market's own liquidity does. A reasonable structure:
- Primary window: 9:30–11:30 AM ET
- Secondary window: 1:30–3:00 PM ET
- Avoid: 11:30 AM–1:00 PM ET (thin, choppy) unless the strategy is specifically built for that lull
Reaching the profit target without maxing out risk
The 50k Combine needs $3,000. Spread across 10 minimum days, that's an average of $300 a day. On 3 MES contracts with an 8-point target and a 6-point stop:
- Win: 3 × 8 points × $5 = $120
- Loss: 3 × 6 points × $5 = $90
- At a 55% win rate: (0.55 × $120) − (0.45 × $90) ≈ $25.50 expected value per trade
- At 3 trades a day: roughly $76.50 expected per day, or about 39 days to clear the target at these averages
That's why sizing matters more than speed here. Doubling to 6 MES contracts roughly halves the time needed — and doubles the daily-loss exposure in the same move. The Combine rewards steady pacing over a rush to the finish.
Topstep vs. Apex for automated traders
- Topstep's EOD trailing drawdown is more forgiving for a strategy with wide per-trade variance
- Apex Trader Funding's intraday trailing drawdown is stricter, but Apex's larger account tiers and frequent promotions can make repeat attempts cheaper
- A strategy that's already consistent day to day performs similarly on either; a high-variance strategy is meaningfully better suited to Topstep's EOD structure
Automation on the Combine and beyond
Full automation permitted on the Combine (evaluation). Funded-account automation policy has changed multiple times; semi-automation (script alerts, manual confirmation) is the stated safer default rather than an outright ban. The standard TradingView → TradersPost → Tradovate stack works cleanly on the Combine. Once funded, treat semi-automated execution — alerts with a human confirming fills — as the safer default rather than assuming a fully hands-off bot carries over automatically; Topstep's funded-account stance on this has shifted more than once.
Questions traders actually search
Do you even need to pass an eval first?
Yes — there's no instant-funded shortcut at Topstep. See our dedicated breakdown of whether you need to pass a Topstep eval for the full timeline and cost picture.
What Combine rules get violated most often?
- Daily loss limit breach — the single most common Combine killer. A bad session where a trader stays in the chair and revenge trades erases the buffer entirely. A hard-coded kill switch removes this failure mode outright.
- Trailing drawdown breach — less common, but happens when an early run-up raises the floor and it isn't respected on the way back down.
- Missing the 5 winning-days requirement — traders who hit the profit target in two or three big sessions don't realize the Combine still needs five separate $200+ days, and the extra time trading is often where it unravels.
- Too few actual trading days — a strategy that fires rarely can run through more calendar days than the 10-day minimum without logging enough of them.