Topstep payout rules: five winning days, the 40% option, and where the money goes
Checked against the firm’s published rules on September 14, 2026. Your firm’s dashboard is the record; if it disagrees with this page, it wins.
Passing the Combine is the part everyone talks about. Getting money out of the Express Funded Account is the part that actually matters, and it has its own rules. Here they are, with the numbers.
Two ways to qualify
Standard. Five winning days per payout cycle, where a winning day is $150 or more of net P&L. Not consecutive. Days lock at 4:00 PM Central.
Consistency. Three trading days with at least one trade each, and your largest winning day no more than 40% of the total net profit in the window. The prize for consistency is a higher cap on the payout.
What you get
- Split: 90/10, you keep 90%. Topstep also runs a first-profits promotion on the newer dashboard that pays 100% of the first $10,000 of lifetime profit; check your own dashboard for whether it applies to you.
- Minimum payout: $125.
- Maximum per request: 50% of the account balance, capped by size.
| Account | Cap, standard path | Cap, consistency path |
|---|---|---|
| 50K | $2,000 | $3,000 |
| 100K | $3,000 | $4,000 |
| 150K | $5,000 | $6,000 |
Live Funded Account payouts are not capped, but that is a different account and a different day.
The 40% rule, worked
Consistency is the largest single winning day divided by the total net profit in the window. Say your window has days of +$400, +$300 and +$300. Largest is $400, total is $1,000, ratio 40%. Fine. Now add a losing day of −$200. Largest is still $400, but the total is $800, and the ratio is 50%. A losing day made you less consistent by the firm’s definition, because it shrank the denominator. That surprises people.
The other surprise runs the other way. If one big day put you over, the cure is more profit spread across days, not fewer big days. Largest day $700 on a $1,000 total is 70%. You need the total to reach $1,750 before $700 is 40% of it, so $750 more, ideally in chunks under $700.
What a payout does to the account
The payout amount comes out of the balance, obviously. Less obviously, the Maximum Loss Limit resets to $0 permanently, and your five-day count starts over. That $0 floor is worth having. It is the same lock you would otherwise earn by banking a full MLL of profit, and you get it on the first payout no matter how small.
The arithmetic nobody does
If you are on the consistency path, there is a number you should know before every trade: how much more you can make today before today becomes the largest day and tips the ratio past 40%. It is a small algebra problem and it changes as the day goes. Tapeworm’s payout card shows that room as a dollar figure, and when you are already over it shows how much net profit brings you back under. We built it because we got tired of doing it on a calculator at 2:55.
Questions people search for
How many winning days do I need for a Topstep payout?
Five winning days of $150 or more net P&L per payout cycle on the standard path. They do not have to be consecutive.
What is the Topstep consistency rule?
On the consistency payout path, your largest single winning day must be no more than 40% of the total net profit in the payout window. It resets after each payout.
What happens to my Maximum Loss Limit after a payout?
It resets to $0 permanently and your five-day count restarts.