What Is the Daily Loss Limit on a Prop Firm Account?
The daily loss limit read off one UK-facing firm's own pages: Alpha Capital's 3-5% plan figures, balance vs equity, the 00:00 GMT+3 reset, worked examples.
A daily loss limit is the most a prop firm account may lose within one trading day, measured from that day’s starting balance or equity; if equity, open losses included, falls below the resulting floor, the account is breached. On Alpha Capital Group’s published plans it runs from 3% to 5%, resetting at 00:00 GMT+3 broker time.
That is the whole answer to what is the daily loss limit on a prop firm account, and it is also where the generic answer stops being useful. The percentage depends on the plan bought, the starting point depends on whether the plan measures from balance or from equity, and the clock that resets it is not a UK clock.
This is an evergreen explainer. The mechanism does not expire; the percentages below are as Alpha Capital Group published them, read at 200 on 23 September 2026, and a firm can change its own rulebook at any time.
What is the daily loss limit on a prop firm account?
It is a one-day ceiling on losses, set as a percentage of the account and recalculated every trading day. Firms call it the daily loss limit, the daily drawdown or the maximum daily loss; the terms describe the same rule. It sits beside a second, larger limit, the maximum drawdown, which caps the account’s total fall and does not reset.
The limit exists because a prop firm’s evaluation is a test of risk control as much as of profit. A trader who can reach a profit target only by accepting a 10% loss on a bad Tuesday has not shown the firm what it is paying to find. The daily limit is the rule that makes that Tuesday end the account.
The four ranking explainers this desk read for the question give the idea and a generic range; where two of them name firm figures, those are US futures firms, and a third describes only its own rules. The useful thing for a UK reader is one UK-facing CFD firm’s own numbers, plan by plan, with the calculation rules that decide where the floor actually sits.
Alpha Capital Group’s daily loss limits, plan by plan
Every figure in the first three columns is from Alpha Capital Group’s help-centre article on daily risk limits, dated July 24, 2026. The max drawdown column is from the firm’s 2026 rules-explained page. Both were read at 200 on 23 September 2026.
| Plan | Daily loss limit | Measured from | Max drawdown (rules page) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha Pro 6% | 3% | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | 6% static |
| Alpha Pro 8% | 4% | Balance | 8% static |
| Alpha Pro 10% | 5% | Balance | 10% static |
| Alpha One 6% | 3% in Evaluation, 4% on Qualified | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | See note |
| Alpha One 10% | 4% | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | See note |
| Alpha One 12% | 5% | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | See note |
| Alpha Swing | 5% | Balance | 10% static |
| Alpha Three (existing accounts) | 4% | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | 6% static |
| Alpha Direct | 3% | Balance or equity, whichever is greater | Not in the rules-page table |
Two notes, because the firm’s two pages do not say the same thing.
The rules-explained page lists a single Alpha One, with a 4% daily loss and a 6% trailing maximum drawdown measured from the high-water mark. The help centre lists three Alpha One variants with three different daily figures. This desk treats the help centre as the per-variant source and does not state any one Alpha One figure as the rule for every Alpha One account.
Alpha Three is on the list for people who already hold one. The rules page says it is not currently offered for new purchases at checkout, and names Alpha One, Alpha Pro, Alpha Swing and Alpha Direct as the current buyable paths.
What the table shows that a “2% to 5%” range hides is that the daily limit moves with the plan, and so does the base it is calculated from. Two traders at the same firm with the same account size can face different floors on the same morning.
Is the daily loss limit based on balance or equity?
It depends on the firm and, at Alpha Capital Group, on the plan. Its help centre lists Alpha Pro 8%, Alpha Pro 10% and Alpha Swing as balance-based, and Alpha Pro 6%, the three Alpha One variants, Alpha Three and Alpha Direct as based on balance or equity, whichever is greater. The breach itself is judged on current equity on every plan, open losses included.
That last sentence is the one that catches people. Balance is closed profit and loss only. Equity is balance plus whatever is floating on open trades. A plan that is “balance-based” uses balance to set the size of the day’s allowance, but the firm still watches equity against the floor all day.
How a balance-based plan works
The help centre’s example is written for Alpha Pro 10% and Alpha Swing, both 5%. On a $100,000 account that ends the day with a $100,000 balance, the next day’s maximum loss is $5,000 and equity must stay above $95,000.
If equity at the close was $101,000 because a winning trade was left open, the floor does not move: it stays at $95,000. The help centre notes that this allows a theoretical loss of up to $6,000 during the day once the floating profit is counted.
If equity at the close was $99,000 because a losing trade was carried over, the floor is still $95,000, so the carried $1,000 loss has already used part of the day. The firm’s own arithmetic leaves $4,000 of allowance for that day.
How a “whichever is greater” plan works
The help centre’s example for Alpha One 10% and Alpha Three, both 4%, uses the same two closes. With a $100,000 balance and $101,000 equity, the greater figure is equity, so the allowance is $4,040 and the floor is $96,960. With $99,000 equity, the greater figure is balance, so the allowance is $4,000 and the floor is $96,000.
Alpha Direct follows the same rule at 3%: a $101,000 equity close gives a $3,030 allowance and a $97,970 floor. The dollar allowance is larger after a good close, but the floor sits higher as well, and the floor is the number that closes the account.
The consequence is that on these plans a floating profit carried overnight raises the next day’s floor. The trade that looked like a cushion becomes part of the base the day is measured from.
What happens if you hit the daily loss limit?
At Alpha Capital Group it is a hard breach. The help centre says that if equity falls below the day’s minimum equity limit, all trades are closed automatically by the firm’s system and the account is then closed. There is no penalty-and-continue stage on that page. The evaluation fee already paid is what goes with it; the firm’s rules page says the account’s funds are simulated.
This site’s hard breach explainer sets out what a closure of that kind costs and how it differs from the penalties that leave an account open, which the soft breach explainer covers. The daily loss limit sits firmly on the hard side: on the help centre’s wording, its failure ends the account.
Note what the trigger is. The breach is measured against equity at any moment, not against the day’s closing figure. A position that dips through the floor and recovers an hour later has, on the wording of the help centre, already breached.
When does the daily loss limit reset?
Alpha Capital Group takes the starting balance and equity at the end of the trading day, which its help centre gives as 00:00 GMT+3 broker time. On UK clocks that is 22:00 while British Summer Time runs and 21:00 in winter. That conversion is this desk’s arithmetic, not a firm statement, so check the platform’s server clock rather than a wall clock.
The reset time matters for two reasons. It decides which day a late-evening loss counts against, and on the “whichever is greater” plans it is the moment at which any floating profit is written into the next day’s floor. A UK trader closing positions at 22:30 in summer is already trading the following day in the firm’s terms.
This desk read only Alpha Capital Group’s reset time for this post. Other firms set their own server day, and nothing here describes when theirs begins.
What is the difference between daily drawdown and max drawdown?
Daily drawdown caps what one trading day may lose and resets each day from a fresh starting point. Max drawdown caps the total fall from the account’s start, or from its high-water mark, and never resets. At Alpha Capital Group every plan carries both: Alpha Swing, for example, pairs a 5% daily limit with a 10% static maximum on the firm’s rules page.
Static and trailing maximums
A static maximum is a fixed floor below the starting balance. The rules page lists static maximums for Alpha Pro, Alpha Three and Alpha Swing.
The trailing version, which the rules page gives for Alpha One, moves up with the account. The page’s own example on $100,000: the floor starts at $94,000, trails the balance upward by the same $6,000, reaches $96,000 when the balance is $102,000, and locks at the initial $100,000 once the account is up 6%. After that it does not move again.
Why the daily limit usually bites first
On every rules-page row, the daily limit is at least half the maximum drawdown. A trader can therefore breach on one bad day without ever approaching the overall floor, while the maximum drawdown mostly catches a slower run of smaller losing days. The two rules test different habits, which is why firms publish both.
What this desk read, and what it did not
Read at 200 on 23 September 2026: Alpha Capital Group’s help-centre article, What are the Daily Risk Limits and how do they work?, dated July 24, 2026, and the firm’s 2026 rules-explained page. The rules page itself tells readers to confirm live rules on the help centre before trading, which is the order this post gives them in.
Not read for this post: the daily-loss basis or reset time of FTUK, Funded Trading Plus or any other firm. This site has read other parts of those firms’ rulebooks elsewhere, including their consistency clauses in its consistency rule explainer and Alpha Capital Group’s wider terms in its Alpha Capital Group review, but nothing here should be read as a statement about how any firm other than Alpha Capital Group sets its daily floor.
The risk line
Alpha Capital Group’s own page says its evaluations run on simulated accounts with simulated funds, and that Qualified Accounts earn performance fees on simulated profits. Nothing here says the firm is regulated, authorised or licensed anywhere, because no regulator’s page was read for this post. The money at stake in a daily-loss breach is the evaluation fee, and a limit that can close an account on a single intraday dip is a reason to read the rule before paying it, not a target to trade up to. None of this is advice on how to trade inside one.