GENERAL RULES

News Trading Rule

• Evaluation: Allowed
• Funded/Instant Funding: Prohibited to execute (pending orders including market orders, stop loss or take profit orders) or close any trade within 5 minutes before and after high impact news event. Violation results to profit deduction except the trade was open 5 hours prior to the news event and automatically closed within the 10 min window
• Instant Prime allows news trading with an add-on.

Expert Advisors (EAs)

• EAs are allowed only on the challenge phase of Assessment base accounts, not on funded accounts.
• Traders must customize EA settings to match their own style, cannot hide EA usage, and cannot use commercially available automated EAs.

External API Usage Rule:

• Prohibited on all Simulated Funded Accounts.
• All third-party tools, applications, or services requiring API access (including read-only) are disabled such as analytics platforms, journaling tools, automation software, and trade copiers.
• The policy applies universally with no exceptions to ensure fairness and long-term sustainability for the firm and traders.

Copy Trading

• Allowed: Copy trading is allowed only between your own challenge accounts (Nova, 1-step Flash and 2-step Plus) on TradeLocker.
• Prohibited:
  • No copy trading on funded or instant funded accounts.
  • No copying between different users.
  • If you have multiple funded accounts, identical trades must be at least 30 minutes apart to avoid being flagged.
  • Violation results to Account review, if confirmed, account may be reset or closed depending on the severity of the issue.
• See details: https://help.toponetrader.com/en/articles/8487707-is-copy-trading-allowed-at-top-one-trader

Weekend Trading/Holding:

• Allowed on 1-step Flash, 1 Step Nova and 2-step Plus accounts | For Instant Funding & Instant prime, Not Allowed except with the add-on
• Crypto trading is allowed over the weekend, but only if the trades are opened after Friday 8 PM EST.

Inactivity Rule

• There's a 30-day inactivity rule. You must place at least one trade every 30 days (counting from account purchase date, not from first trade date) to avoid an account breach due to inactivity.

Stop Loss Rule

• You must have an active Stop Loss in place at all times when entering a trade.
• Removed with add-on

Soft Breach

• There is no limit on the allowed soft breaches for 1-step Nova, 1-step flash accounts, with a limit of 4 soft breaches on the 2-step Plus accounts, 5 soft breach limit on Instant Prime. A limit of 10 soft breaches on the Instant Funding Models. Any Soft breach beyond these limits becomes a hard breach.

Soft Breach Violation

• Violating the 10 minutes news restriction window
• Weekend Holding for restricted accounts
• Opening a trade without a stop-loss unless an Add - on is purchased
• Allowing more than a 2% loss per symbol on open trades or a 2.5% loss on all open trades. Should this happen, EquityShield will protect your account by automatically closing trades in most cases
• Funded Accounts have a 20% open lot size limit based on the account size, therefore if the total lots placed exceed the max lots, all open trades will be closed. see lot size restrictions details: https://help.toponetrader.com/en/articles/8318242-are-there-any-lot-size-restrictions

Minimum Hold Time Rule for Trades

• All profitable trades must be held for at least 5 minutes before being closed. Closing a profitable trade in less than 5 minutes whether manually, by take profit, or by a stop loss (if set in profit), violates the rule.
• Consequences:
  • During Challenge Phases: Violations are reviewed by the Risk Team. Depending on severity, traders may be required to retake the challenge or receive a formal warning.
  • On Funded Accounts: Profits from non-compliant trades are deducted, and traders receive a warning. Repeated violations can result in account termination.

Prohibited Trading Practices

• High Frequency Trading (HFT), Tick Scalping, Latency Trading, Latency Arbitrage, Arbitrage Trading, Copy Trading (between accounts not owned by the same person), Group Trading, Hedging or Group Hedging Across Multiple Accounts, News Trading on Funded Accounts, Grid Trading, Martingale Strategy, 3rd Party Trading or ""Pass Your Challenge"" Programs, Masking of Expert Advisors (EAs), Gambling, Over-Leveraging, YOLO Trading, IP Address Sharing or Multiple IP Use Across Accounts, Rolling/Churning of Accounts.
• See Details: https://help.toponetrader.com/en/articles/9047696-what-are-the-restricted-prohibited-trading-strategies-at-top-one-trader

EquityShield

• Automatic Risk Management Tool: https://help.toponetrader.com/en/articles/9181278-what-is-the-equityshield

IP / VPN / VPS Policy

• Violations Include:
  • Using multiple IPs for one account.
  • Trading multiple accounts from the same/similar IPs.
  • Copying or hedging trades across different accounts or firms.
• VPS Usage: Allowed — must have a static IP and be used responsibly. Notify support if changing or traveling.
• VPN Usage: Strictly prohibited — using a VPN can trigger security flags and lead to account breaches or suspension.
• cTrader (No longer offered) Restriction: U.S. IP logins are automatically hard breached with no refunds.
• Penalties: Any violations may result in account breach, profit forfeiture, blacklisting, and potential legal action.
• See Details: https://help.toponetrader.com/en/articles/8733438-are-there-ip-address-restrictions

---

INSTANT FUNDING & INSTANT PRIME

Minimum Trading days:

• No minimum trading days.

---

NOVA

• The NOVA Account is a 1-step evaluation with a $7 entry fee and a pay-after-you-pass model. Once passed, traders pay a one-time activation fee to unlock their funded account, with a 30-day window to complete activation. Available at toponetrader.com/nova

Minimum Trading Days:

• None

---

1 STEP FLASH

Minimum Trading Days

• Evaluation & Funded: At least 3 profitable days with at least 0.5% net profit of the initial account balance each day.

Daily Profit Cap(Funded Only)

• The maximum daily profit is 3% of the funded starting balance -
• This is neither a soft breach nor a hard breach

---

2 STEP PLUS

Minimum Trading Days

• Evaluation & Funded: At least 5 profitable days with at least 0.5% net profit of the initial account balance each day.

Daily Profit Cap - Funded Accounts Only

• The daily profit limit is 5% of the funded starting balance, calculated on closed profits for each trading day (resetting at 5:00 PM EST).
• If the 5% limit is exceeded on any trading day, a soft breach occurs, automatically closing the violating trade(s).
• Any profit above the allowed 5% is considered invalid

---

Max Open Risk Rule (Equity Shield) On 2 Step Plus

• Max Risk per Symbol: If the floating loss on a single symbol reaches 2% (New accounts – from Mar. 27, 2026 | 1% for existing accounts - before Mar. 27, 2026) of starting balance, all open trades on that symbol will, in most cases, be automatically closed. Applies to one symbol, even if multiple positions are open.
• Max Combined Risk: If combined floating drawdown reaches 2.5% (New accounts – from Mar. 27, 2026 | 1.1% for existing accounts - before Mar. 27, 2026) of starting balance, all open trades across all symbols will, in most cases, be automatically closed. Applies to total floating loss across all symbols.

• These actions are classified as a soft breach on Evaluation accounts and a Daily Pause on the Funded accounts.