News Trading Restrictions Across Prop Firms 2026: Who Actually Lets You Trade NFP and FOMC?
Every first Friday of the month at 8:30 AM Eastern Time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Non-Farm Payrolls report. Within seconds, the EUR/USD can move fifty pips. Gold can spike twenty dollars. The S&P 500 futures can gap ten handles. For traders who specialize in volatility, these moments represent the highest-probability setups of the month. For prop firms, they represent the highest-risk moments for capital exposure, slippage, and payout liability.
The result is a patchwork of rules that varies dramatically across the industry. Some firms ban news trading entirely on funded accounts. Others allow it but deduct profits. A few permit unrestricted news trading at every stage. And many traders discover these rules only after a stop-loss triggers during NFP and their account is flagged for violation. This article provides a fully researched, education-first breakdown of news trading policies at The5ers, FTMO, FundedNext, Funding Pips, and FTM as of 2026, with detailed coverage of what each firm allows, what they prohibit, and how traders can navigate the rules without breaching their accounts.
Why Prop Firms Restrict News Trading Around NFP and FOMC
What Makes NFP and FOMC Releases Riskier for Prop Firms Than Normal Volatility?
News events like NFP, FOMC rate decisions, and CPI releases create market conditions that differ fundamentally from normal trading sessions. During these events, liquidity thins as market makers pull quotes, spreads widen by multiples of their normal width, and price can gap through stop-loss orders by distances that would never occur in calm markets. A ten-tick stop on the NQ futures can fill at thirty or forty ticks during the initial NFP spike. A one-percent risk position on EUR/USD can become a three-percent loss before the trader can react.
For prop firms, this volatility creates three specific risks. First, slippage risk: the difference between the trader's intended exit price and the actual fill price can exceed daily loss limits in a single trade. Second, hedging risk: firms that operate simulated accounts with profit-sharing overlays may struggle to hedge their exposure during fast markets, creating a mismatch between trader profits and firm liabilities. Third, behavioral risk: news events attract gamblers who place oversized bets on binary outcomes, producing accounts that pass evaluations through luck rather than skill and then blow up once funded.
These risks explain why the industry default is restriction. Most prop firms either ban news trading on funded accounts, limit it to evaluation phases, or impose profit deductions on trades executed inside a restricted window. The firms that allow unrestricted news trading are the exceptions, not the norm, and they typically manage the risk through other mechanisms such as lower leverage, tighter drawdowns, or higher evaluation fees.
How Do Blackout Windows and Profit-Exclusion Rules Typically Work?
The most common news trading restriction is the blackout window. A firm defines a time period, typically two to five minutes before and after a scheduled high-impact release, during which traders cannot open or close positions on affected instruments. The window is calculated from the official release time, not from when volatility actually begins. If NFP is scheduled for 8:30 AM EST, a two-minute window means no execution from 8:28:00 to 8:32:00. If the data leaks early or the market moves before the official time, the firm still measures the window from the scheduled release.
Profit-exclusion rules work differently. Instead of banning execution during the window, the firm allows the trade but reduces the profit that counts toward payouts. FundedNext, for example, applies a 40 percent news profit split rule on funded accounts, meaning only 40 percent of profit from trades executed within five minutes of a listed high-impact event counts toward the trader's balance. Losses count in full. This creates an asymmetric payoff where winners are haircut and losers are not, making deliberate news strategies mathematically unfavorable over time.
A third model is the soft breach. FTMO uses this approach on its Standard funded accounts. If a stop-loss or take-profit triggers inside the two-minute window, the profit is deducted from the account metrics but the account itself is not terminated. This is less punitive than a hard breach but still removes the financial benefit of the trade. The critical detail that many traders miss is that automatic order triggers count as execution. A take-profit set three hours before NFP that fires at 8:31 AM is treated the same as a market order clicked at 8:31 AM.
The industry pattern is clear: evaluation accounts are almost always unrestricted, while funded accounts face tighter controls. Firms are comfortable letting traders gamble on demo capital during evaluations. They are considerably less comfortable paying out profits from news spikes on funded accounts where real money is at stake. Traders who build evaluation strategies around news events must verify the funded account rules specifically, not just the evaluation rules, before committing to a firm.
The5ers' News Trading Policy: Built Around NFP and FOMC Trading
Does The5ers Restrict Trading During NFP, FOMC, or Other High-Impact News Events?
The5ers' news trading policy varies by program, which is one reason the firm receives mixed signals in industry comparisons. On Bootcamp, Hyper Growth, and Pro Growth, news trading is permitted without a restricted blackout window. Traders can open, close, and hold positions through NFP, FOMC, CPI, and any other economic release. The only explicit prohibition is on bracket strategies around high-impact news events, which The5ers defines as placing simultaneous buy-stop and sell-stop orders near price ahead of a release to exploit post-news slippage. This bracketing ban is written into the Terms and Conditions and applies across all programs.
The High Stakes program operates under different rules. On High Stakes, executing any order, including market orders, pending orders, stop-losses, and take-profits, within two minutes before or after a high-impact news event is prohibited. Holding an open position through the release is permitted, provided the position was opened before the window begins. The critical trap is the exit: if a stop-loss or take-profit triggers automatically inside the two-minute window, the trade violates the rule. The5ers does not publish a definitive list of which events count as high impact, which means traders must treat all red-folder Forex Factory events as restricted or contact support for clarification on specific releases.
The5ers Futures program, which uses an end-of-day trailing drawdown model, permits news trading without the two-minute restriction that applies to High Stakes. This creates a meaningful distinction between CFD and futures traders at The5ers. A trader who wants unrestricted news access can choose the futures program, while a trader who prefers the High Stakes CFD structure must accept the two-minute blackout window.
The bracketing prohibition deserves special attention because it is more specific than most firms' news rules. The5ers explicitly defines bracket strategies as a prohibited practice, separate from the general news window restriction. Even on programs where news trading is allowed, placing buy-stop and sell-stop orders on both sides of price ahead of a release constitutes a violation. This rule targets a specific exploitative strategy while leaving legitimate news trading, such as directional bias trades or post-release momentum entries, fully permitted on Bootcamp, Hyper Growth, and Pro Growth.
How Does The5ers' No-Restriction Approach Fit Its Broader Evaluation and Scaling Philosophy?
The5ers' program-specific news policy reflects its broader philosophy of matching rule structures to trader profiles rather than imposing one-size-fits-all restrictions. Bootcamp, Hyper Growth, and Pro Growth are designed for traders who hold positions overnight, through weekends, and through news events. These programs use static drawdowns, allow weekend holds, and permit news trading because they are built for swing and position traders who need flexibility across market conditions. The 3 percent daily pause on Bootcamp and Hyper Growth, rather than immediate termination, provides a safety net that accommodates the volatility of news-driven strategies.
High Stakes, by contrast, is designed for intraday traders who execute within single sessions and close flat. The two-minute news restriction aligns with this profile: a day trader who closes all positions by 4:00 PM is unlikely to be affected by an 8:30 AM NFP release unless they deliberately trade it. The restriction protects the firm from gap risk on highly leveraged accounts while leaving the core day-trading strategy intact.
The scaling plan reinforces this alignment. Traders on Bootcamp and Hyper Growth can compound accounts to $4 million while maintaining news trading flexibility. Traders on High Stakes can scale to $500,000 with a monthly salary feature. The news policy is not an arbitrary restriction but a component of each program's risk architecture. Traders who value news access can select Bootcamp or Hyper Growth. Traders who do not trade news can select High Stakes for its higher leverage and faster scaling splits. This program-level customization is a structural feature that distinguishes The5ers from firms with uniform policies across all account types.
FTMO's News Trading Rules: Evaluation vs. Funded Account Differences
Can You Trade NFP and FOMC During an FTMO Challenge or Verification Phase?
Yes. FTMO imposes no news trading restrictions during its evaluation phases. Whether you are in the one-step evaluation or the two-step Challenge and Verification, you can open, close, and hold positions through any news event without restriction. This applies to all account types during the evaluation stage. Traders who specialize in NFP or FOMC strategies can use the evaluation phase to demonstrate their approach without rule-based interference.
The unrestricted evaluation policy creates a psychological trap that catches many traders. Because news trading is permitted during the challenge, traders develop habits and expectations that do not transfer to the funded stage. A trader who passes the evaluation primarily through news-event profits may find that their strategy is no longer viable once the funded account restrictions activate. FTMO's structure rewards traders who can perform across both volatile and calm conditions, not just those who capture a few large moves.
What Changes Once an FTMO Account Becomes Funded, and Does It Affect Every Account Type?
On funded Standard accounts, FTMO prohibits executing any trade, including market orders, pending orders, stop-losses, and take-profits, within two minutes before or after listed high-impact events on affected instruments. The restriction is currency-specific and asset-specific. During an NFP release, which affects USD-denominated pairs, you cannot trade EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, or any instrument with USD exposure. You can, however, trade EUR/GBP because neither currency is directly affected by the U.S. employment report. FTMO publishes a clear list of restricted events and affected instruments, which is a transparency advantage over firms that do not publish such lists.
If a stop-loss or take-profit triggers automatically inside the two-minute window, FTMO enforces a soft breach. The profit from that trade is deducted from your Account MetriX, but the account itself is not terminated. This is less punitive than a hard breach but still removes the financial benefit of the trade. The soft breach system allows traders to survive accidental triggers while discouraging deliberate news trading.
The FTMO Swing account is the exception. Swing accounts have no news restrictions at any stage, including after funding. You can open, close, and hold positions through NFP, FOMC, CPI, and any other release without restriction. The trade-off is leverage: Swing accounts are capped at 1:30 compared to 1:100 on Standard accounts. Swing is only available on the two-step challenge, must be selected at checkout, and cannot be switched to after purchase. For traders whose strategy requires news access, the Swing account is the only viable path at FTMO, and the leverage reduction must be factored into position sizing.
FundedNext and Funding Pips: Comparing Mixed News Trading Restrictions
Does FundedNext Restrict News Trading on Funded Accounts, or Is It Unrestricted Firm-Wide?
FundedNext's news trading policy depends on the account type and asset class, creating a more nuanced structure than a simple allowed-or-banned binary. On evaluation accounts, including Stellar one-step, two-step, and Lite models, news trading is fully unrestricted. Traders can execute orders around any release without penalty.
On funded CFD accounts, FundedNext applies a five-minute window around listed high-impact events. Trades executed within five minutes before or after the release on a correlated pair fall under the News Reward Share Rule. Under this rule, only 40 percent of the profit from those trades counts toward the trader's balance. Losses count in full. This means a trader who makes $1,000 on a news trade receives only $400 in credit, while a $1,000 loss deducts the full amount. For a strategy with a 50 percent win rate, the mathematics become punitive quickly: winners are haircut by 60 percent while losers remain intact.
FundedNext Futures accounts operate under different rules. According to publicly available information as of 2026, FundedNext Futures does not impose news trading restrictions. Traders can engage in news trading during both the challenge and funded phases without penalty. This creates a meaningful distinction between CFD and futures traders at FundedNext, similar to the distinction at The5ers.
In May 2026, FundedNext introduced News Trading Clarity Cards, which display in real time exactly which trades fall within the news window and are subject to the 40 percent split. This transparency upgrade allows traders to see the impact of news trades before submitting a withdrawal request, rather than discovering the deduction at payout review. The Clarity Card represents one of the most significant transparency improvements in the prop firm industry and addresses a common source of trader frustration.
Fully Unrestricted News Trading: FTM and Other 2026 Prop Firms Built for News Traders
How Does Funded Trader Markets Handle NFP and FOMC Across Evaluation and Funded Accounts?
Funded Trader Markets, or FTM, is an active prop firm founded in 2024. Based on publicly available information as of 2026, FTM does not appear to impose explicit news trading restrictions on its standard challenge accounts. The firm's published FAQ and help documentation focus on prohibited strategies such as reverse trading, group hedging, and copy trading, but do not detail specific blackout windows or profit deductions around NFP, FOMC, or other high-impact releases.
Traders considering FTM for news trading should verify the current policy directly with FTM support before purchasing a challenge, as prop firm rules evolve frequently and the absence of published restrictions does not guarantee unrestricted access. With approximately two years of operation, FTM has not yet established the same volume of publicly documented trader experiences around news enforcement as older firms like FTMO and The5ers. Traders who rely on news strategies should request written confirmation of the current policy and document the response for their records.
FTM's drawdown architecture, which uses a 5 percent daily loss limit and 10 percent overall maximum drawdown, provides the same risk boundaries that apply during normal volatility. Traders who trade news at FTM would still need to size positions within these limits, which may be more restrictive than the no-daily-limit futures models at The5ers or FundedNext. The combination of unrestricted news access and standard drawdown limits could suit traders who trade news directionally with controlled risk, rather than those who exploit volatility through bracket or straddle strategies.
Which Other Prop Firms Publish a No-Restriction News Trading Policy in 2026?
Several firms beyond FTM allow unrestricted news trading on both evaluation and funded accounts. Fintokei permits news trading at every stage with no restricted window, no profit clawback, and no special account type required. The only limitation is a general irresponsible trading clause that prohibits gambling-style behavior. E8 Markets allows unrestricted news trading on its E8 Zero and E8 Pro accounts, including at the funded SimFi Performance stage. FXIFY permits news trading on all phased evaluations and phased funded accounts with no restricted window, though its FAQ carries a warning that significant news risk-taking may be classified as improper risk management.
These unrestricted firms represent a minority of the market. The industry default remains restriction, and traders who prioritize news trading should treat unrestricted access as a primary selection criterion rather than an afterthought. The5ers, while not fully unrestricted across all programs, offers more news flexibility than FTMO or FundedNext on its Bootcamp, Hyper Growth, and Pro Growth tracks, plus unrestricted futures trading. For traders who want a single firm with both news-friendly CFD programs and a long-term scaling path, The5ers provides a middle ground between the fully unrestricted boutiques and the heavily restricted mainstream firms.
Risk Management Considerations When Trading News Events at a Prop Firm
How Does Slippage and Spread Widening During NFP or FOMC Interact With Daily Drawdown Limits?
News trading at prop firms is not just a policy question. It is a risk management question. Even at firms that allow unrestricted news trading, the mechanical realities of fast markets can breach accounts that would survive under normal conditions. During NFP, spreads on EUR/USD can widen from 0.1 pips to 5 pips or more. On a standard lot, that is a $50 difference per trade before price even moves. On a highly leveraged prop firm account, the impact multiplies.
Slippage compounds the problem. A trader who places a stop-loss at 1.0850 may find the exit filled at 1.0840 during the initial NFP spike. On a $100,000 account with a 3 percent daily loss limit, that ten-pip slippage on a five-lot position equals $500 of unplanned loss. If the position was sized at the edge of the daily limit, the slippage alone can trigger a breach. This is why even unrestricted news traders must reduce position size by 50 to 70 percent during high-impact releases relative to normal conditions.
The interaction between news volatility and drawdown rules is particularly dangerous for traders on programs with immediate daily termination. The5ers High Stakes and Pro Growth both terminate the account on daily loss breach. A trader who enters a news trade with 2 percent risk, experiences 1 percent slippage, and then sees the position move another 2 percent against them has breached the 5 percent High Stakes daily limit. The account is gone. The trade may have been directionally correct after the initial whipsaw, but the account did not survive long enough to find out.
Static drawdown programs offer more protection than EOD trailing programs during news events because the drawdown floor does not tighten intraday. A trader on The5ers Bootcamp who is up 2 percent before NFP still has the original drawdown floor below them. A trader on an EOD trailing program who is up 2 percent has a higher floor, leaving less room for intraday reversal. For news traders, static drawdowns provide a structural advantage that should factor into program selection.
What Steps Can Traders Take to Confirm a Firm's Current News Trading Rule Before a Major Release?
Prop firm rules change. A policy that was unrestricted in January may carry restrictions by September. Traders should verify news trading rules through multiple channels before relying on them. First, read the firm's current Terms and Conditions, not just the marketing page. The T&Cs contain the enforceable language, while marketing pages often summarize rules in ways that omit critical details. Second, check the firm's help center or knowledge base for program-specific guidance. FundedNext's News Trading Clarity Card, for example, is documented in the help center and provides more detail than the main website.
Third, contact support directly and request written confirmation of the current policy for your specific program. Save the response. If a dispute arises later, having written documentation from the firm's own support team strengthens your position. Fourth, consult independent prop firm directories and review aggregators that track rule changes over time. Propify Compare, BestPropFirms, and similar sites maintain dated logs of policy updates that can alert you to recent changes your firm has not prominently announced.
Fifth, test the policy on a small evaluation account before deploying significant capital. Place a small trade inside the suspected news window and observe whether the firm flags it, deducts profit, or terminates the account. The cost of a small evaluation is minimal compared to the cost of breaching a funded account. This empirical verification is especially important for firms that do not publish clear event lists, such as The5ers High Stakes, where the definition of high impact is left to trader interpretation.
Finally, monitor the economic calendar and mark your own blackout windows even if the firm does not require them. The safest approach to news trading is not to avoid news but to avoid the chaos. Go flat five to ten minutes before a major release. Wait fifteen to thirty minutes after for volatility to settle. Trade the reaction, not the spike. This discipline protects against slippage, spread widening, and accidental rule violations regardless of which firm you trade with.
Summary and Key Takeaways for News Traders Evaluating Prop Firms in 2026
News trading policies are one of the most overlooked factors in prop firm selection, yet they can determine whether a viable strategy becomes unprofitable or impossible once funding begins. The industry operates on a clear pattern: evaluations are unrestricted, funded accounts are restricted, and the severity of restriction varies by firm, program, and asset class.
The5ers offers the most nuanced news trading architecture in the industry. Bootcamp, Hyper Growth, and Pro Growth permit unrestricted news trading with only a bracketing prohibition. High Stakes imposes a two-minute blackout window. Futures allows unrestricted news access. This program-level flexibility means traders can select a track that matches their strategy rather than adapting their strategy to a firm's uniform policy. The5ers' ten-year operational history, scaling plan to $4 million, and static drawdown model create additional structural advantages for news traders who plan to compound capital over time.
FTMO restricts news trading on Standard funded accounts with a two-minute window and currency-specific scoping, but offers a fully unrestricted Swing account at reduced leverage. FundedNext allows news trading on funded CFD accounts but applies a 40 percent profit haircut within a five-minute window, making deliberate news strategies mathematically challenging. FundedNext Futures appears unrestricted.
The practical framework for news traders is straightforward. First, verify the funded account rules, not just the evaluation rules. Second, confirm whether automatic order triggers count as violations. Third, check if the firm publishes a restricted events list or leaves the definition of high impact open to interpretation. Fourth, reduce position size by 50 to 70 percent during releases even at unrestricted firms, because slippage and spread widening can breach accounts regardless of policy. Fifth, remove or widen stop-losses and take-profits before major releases to avoid accidental window violations.
News trading is not about predicting direction. It is about managing execution quality inside environments where normal risk assumptions no longer apply. The firm you choose should provide clear rules, transparent enforcement, and a risk structure that accommodates the volatility you intend to trade. The5ers' combination of program-specific flexibility, long-term scaling, and documented operational history makes it a strong candidate for traders who view news events as core opportunities rather than obstacles to avoid.
For more prop firm comparisons, scaling guides, and trader education, explore Prop Firm Insider.