Most evaluations will not let you pass on a single good trade. A minimum trading days rule requires you to be active on a set number of separate days — commonly three, five or ten — before the firm approves your account or releases a payout. You can hit the profit target on day one and still have to keep trading.
What it is
A count of distinct days on which you placed at least one trade. Not calendar days, not consecutive days — trading days. Five minimum days means five days with activity, spread however you like across the evaluation window. Some firms give you unlimited time to reach the count; others cap the window at 30 days.
What counts as a trading day varies by firm:
- A day you opened a position.
- On some firms, a day you closed one.
- On stricter firms, a day where you traded a minimum lot or held for a minimum time.
Why it exists
The rule filters out luck. A trader who risks everything on one non-farm payrolls release and doubles the target has shown nothing about how they trade over time. Forcing a handful of active days gives the firm a sample of behaviour rather than one coin flip, spreads the outcome across more decisions, and discourages all-or-nothing gambling. On the funded side, the same rule stops hit-and-run payouts on a single fluke week.
A worked example
A £100,000 challenge has an 8% target — £8,000 — and a 5 minimum trading days rule. You catch a clean trend and bank £8,400 across Monday and Tuesday. You are over target, but you have traded two days. You must place trades on three more days before the account passes.
That is the trap. You are now sitting on £8,400 of profit you do not want to give back, forced to keep clicking. Every extra trade is pure downside once the target is already met.
Hitting the profit target does not end the challenge if you are short on days. Trade the remaining days at the smallest size the rule allows — the aim is to satisfy the count, not to risk the profit you have banked.
The throwaway-trade trap
Because a five-day count can be gamed with a 0.01-lot click, firms have tightened the wording. Some now require a minimum lot size, a minimum hold time, or count only days where you put a set amount at risk. A day that falls short of the threshold does not count, and traders who assumed it did fail on a technicality with the target long since met. Read your firm's exact definition of a trading day before you rely on it.
The Karnek note
Karnek logs every trade with its date straight from your terminal, so your count of active days is the real one rather than an estimate. It reads the account read-only and can never open or close a position — it will not tick a box for you, it just shows you the days you have actually traded.
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Written and reviewed by the Karnek Research team. Last updated August 2026.
Educational content only - not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Trading carries significant risk.