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Prop firms for swing trading 2026

A prop firm account works for swing trading only if two conditions hold: positions may be held overnight, and they may be carried through the weekend. Many programmes — futures ones in particular — force-close positions before the Friday close or apply overnight margin that makes carrying trades impractical. Without both permissions, a multi-day strategy simply cannot be executed.

Less visible criteria follow: whether evaluation phases carry a deadline, the swap cost on instruments held for days, how drawdown is calculated across the Sunday opening gap, and whether the firm treats a breach caused by a gap differently from one caused by an executed order. The ranking below sorts on those points first, then on the general terms of each programme.

Verified on 10 firms ranked
Open planner showing a blank monthly grid
  • Up to 5 M in capital
  • Up to 100 % profit share
  • Withdrawals from 7 days
  • 10 with no time limit

Our ranking

Detailed analysis

1 FTMO

FTMO

Forex / CFD · Crypto · Stocks

88

Coming in at number 1, FTMO has been operating since 2015 and scores 88/100 on our scale. Entry starts at €79 for a 1-phase evaluation. The risk envelope is a static drawdown capped at 10 %, with 3 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 90 % of profits, with a first withdrawal available after 14 days. Notable freedoms: no time limit, expert advisors allowed, news trading allowed. Available on mt4, mt5, ctrader, dxtrade, tradingview.

Founded in Prague in 2015, FTMO reports more than $450 million paid to traders and closed its acquisition of broker OANDA in December 2025. The 2-Step challenge, static drawdown and no deadline, remains its core product, with fees fully refunded on the first payout. Price is the weak spot, and it rose again in 2026.

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2 City Traders Imperium

City Traders Imperium

Forex / CFD

83

Coming in at number 2, City Traders Imperium has been operating since 2018 and scores 83/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $29 on an instantly funded account. The risk envelope is a trailing intraday drawdown capped at 6 %. Funded traders keep 100 % of profits, with a first withdrawal available after 7 days. Notable freedoms: no time limit, no consistency rule, expert advisors allowed, news trading allowed. Available on mt5, match-trader.

City Traders Imperium has funded forex traders since 2018 through four routes — 1-Step, 2-Step, Instant Funding and Direct Funding — with no time limit and entry from $29. The profit split starts at 80% and can reach 100%, but the 1-Step allows only 5% trailing drawdown and every trade must carry a stop loss.

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3 Alpha Capital Group

Alpha Capital Group

Forex / CFD

80

In third place, Alpha Capital Group has been operating since 2021 and scores 80/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $27 for a 1-phase evaluation. The risk envelope is a trailing (end of day) drawdown capped at 4 %, with 3 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 90 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit, news trading allowed. Available on mt5, ctrader, dxtrade, tradelocker.

Alpha Capital Group is a UK forex prop firm registered in 2021, running eight programs that span a $27 two-phase challenge through to accounts funded at purchase. The rulebook is permissive — news, weekend and overnight holding allowed, four platforms — but the tradable universe stops at forex, indices and metals, and Trustpilot has suspended the rating over fake reviews.

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4 Funded Trading Plus

Funded Trading Plus

Forex / CFD

80

Coming in at number 4, Funded Trading Plus has been operating since 2021 and scores 80/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $89 for a 1-phase evaluation. The risk envelope is a trailing intraday drawdown capped at 6 %, with 4 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 100 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit, expert advisors allowed. Available on mt5, ctrader, dxtrade, match-trader.

A London firm founded in late 2021 and bought by Instant Funding in May 2026, Funded Trading Plus pays every 7 days on its 1-Step Express and Instant programs, with the split rising from 80 to 100% and scaling up to $5 million. The catch: intraday trailing drawdown on both, and a Trustpilot score the platform has pulled.

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5 Goat Funded Trader

Goat Funded Trader

Forex / CFD · Futures · Crypto · Stocks

78

Coming in at number 5, Goat Funded Trader has been operating since 2023 and scores 78/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $36 for a 2-phase evaluation. The risk envelope is a static drawdown capped at 10 %, with 4 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 100 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit, expert advisors allowed, news trading allowed. Available on mt5, tradelocker, ctrader.

Goat Funded Trader launched in 2023 out of Hong Kong. It publishes a full price grid, runs static drawdown across its three evaluation models, and pays every 14 days with a profit split from 80 % up to 100 %. The counterweight: its Trustpilot score is suspended over fake reviews, rules tightened in summer 2026, and 29 countries are excluded.

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6 Elite Trader Funding

Elite Trader Funding

Futures

77

Coming in at number 6, Elite Trader Funding has been operating since 2022 and scores 77/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $99 for a 1-phase evaluation. Funded traders keep 100 % of profits, with a first withdrawal available after 8 days. Notable freedoms: no time limit. Available on ninjatrader, tradingview, rithmic, tradovate.

At Elite Trader Funding the funded account stays simulated: the headline split is 100%, but payouts are capped at $25,000 per trader, after which moving to the LIVE ELITE program on an 80/20 split becomes mandatory. Six futures evaluation models, $47 resets, but activation fees of $177 to $307 and $87 a month once funded.

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7 E8 Markets

E8 Markets

Forex / CFD · Crypto · Futures

76

Coming in at number 7, E8 Markets has been operating since 2021 and scores 76/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $110 for a 1-phase evaluation. Funded traders keep 100 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit, news trading allowed. Available on mt5, ctrader, tradelocker, match-trader.

Every E8 Markets product is now single-phase: a 6% target, withdrawals available from day three, and a split running from 80% to 100%. The trade-offs are a 35-40% consistency rule, no scaling plan, and a Trustpilot rating suspended in August 2026 for a breach of the platform's guidelines.

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8 Hola Prime

Hola Prime

Forex / CFD · Futures

75

Ranked 8 on this list, Hola Prime has been operating since 2024 and scores 75/100 on our scale. The risk envelope is a trailing (end of day) drawdown capped at 6 %, with 3 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 95 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit. Available on mt4, mt5, ctrader, match-trader, dxtrade.

Hola Prime, founded in mid-2024 in Hong Kong, sells speed: withdrawal requests processed within an hour, a payout cadence you choose yourself, and a profit split running from 65 % to 95 % depending on that choice. It is the only firm in this batch whose Trustpilot rating is still live (4.5/5 across 3,475 reviews), but it publishes no prices at all.

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9 ThinkCapital

ThinkCapital

Forex / CFD

75

Ranked 9 on this list, ThinkCapital has been operating since 2024 and scores 75/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $39 on an instantly funded account. Funded traders keep 90 % of profits, with a first withdrawal available after 14 days. Notable freedoms: no time limit, no consistency rule, expert advisors allowed. Available on tradingview, mt5.

Launched in 2024, ThinkCapital is the prop trading brand of broker ThinkMarkets, whose liquidity and technology it uses. That backing gives it five well-differentiated programs and a maximum allocation of one million dollars. Two reservations weigh on it: news trading is only available through a paid add-on, and Trustpilot removed its rating over fake reviews.

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10 Blue Guardian

Blue Guardian

Forex / CFD · Futures

73

Coming in at number 10, Blue Guardian has been operating since 2021 and scores 73/100 on our scale. Entry starts at $72 on an instantly funded account. The risk envelope is a trailing (end of day) drawdown capped at 6 %, with 3 % allowed per day. Funded traders keep 90 % of profits. Notable freedoms: no time limit, expert advisors allowed. Available on mt5, tradelocker, match-trader, tradingview, ninjatrader, tradovate.

Blue Guardian has operated from Dubai since 2021 and covers both CFDs and futures across six platforms, with refundable challenge fees and an 85% split. The catch sits in risk enforcement: Guardian Shield closes every position at 2% floating loss and cuts the split to 50% on a first breach, and the Trustpilot rating is currently suspended.

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Why this ranking

The two permissions that filter the field

Swing trading does not demand exceptional execution — it demands the right to leave a position open. That right splits into two separate rules, and firms handle them independently. The first permits overnight holding, sometimes at increased margin. The second permits carrying through the weekend, and it is the one most frequently withdrawn, particularly on futures programmes where a forced Friday close is standard. A firm can therefore be entirely usable Monday to Thursday and useless for a strategy whose signals appear late in the week.

A third, less-discussed factor is the evaluation deadline. Time-unlimited phases have become the norm, but programmes still exist where phase one must be completed within a fixed number of days. On a swing horizon, where several weeks can pass without a valid setup, a calendar constraint mechanically pushes traders into forced entries — precisely the behaviour the loss limit exists to punish.

Carry cost and gap exposure

Holding costs money. Swap, positive or negative depending on direction and instrument, accumulates across multi-day positions and is deducted directly from the evaluated result. On pairs with a wide rate differential, or on certain index CFDs, that cost turns a winning trade into a flat one. Some firms offer swap-free accounts; confirm the option exists on the programme you are buying, not only on the demo.

The Sunday opening gap is the risk unique to this category. The question to ask is blunt: what happens if a gap pushes the account past the maximum loss limit with no order executed? Some firms record the breach on equity regardless of cause. Others auto-close at the limit level. The answer determines whether a stop is enough to protect the account, or whether size must be cut before every weekend.

Where the model pays off

This category suits traders whose process tolerates low frequency: analysis on H4 or daily charts, a handful of positions per month, size calculated to absorb a wide stop. It is also the only genuinely workable approach for someone trading alongside a full-time job, since it does not require being at the screen for a specific session open.

The trade-off is slowness. Completing two phases at a few trades per month can take months, and a target reached slowly leaves the account exposed to drawdown for longer. Swing traders are therefore usually better served by one-phase programmes or reduced-target formats, where the firm offers them, than by the classic two-step evaluation.

Frequently asked questions

Can you hold positions over the weekend?
It depends entirely on the firm and the instrument class. Weekend holding is common on forex and CFD programmes, far rarer on futures accounts, where an automatic Friday close is still standard. It is a separate rule from overnight permission: a firm can grant one without the other, and confusing the two regularly costs traders their account.
Are swap fees deducted from evaluated profit?
Yes, in almost every programme. Financing charges are applied nightly and feed into equity, which means they affect both drawdown and the profit target. On a position held for weeks, the cost becomes material. Check whether a swap-free account is offered on the programme itself, not just on the demo environment.
What if a weekend gap breaches the loss limit?
Practice varies. Some firms record a breach the moment equity crosses the threshold, even with no order executed, and the account is lost. Others auto-close at the limit level, preserving the account. Confirm this explicitly before buying, because a stop-loss offers no protection against an opening gap.
Is there a deadline to pass the evaluation?
Most current programmes have removed time limits, which suits swing trading well. A minority still impose a maximum duration per phase. On a strategy producing a few trades a month, that constraint is disqualifying: it forces entries outside valid setups purely to meet the calendar, which contradicts the logic of the approach.

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