Effective January 9, 2026, the maximum risk per trade rule at Dolvero has been updated. The new rule is simple: traders may not risk more than 2% of their account balance on any single trade. This applies by default across all evaluation phases and funded accounts. The restriction can be removed with the Risk addon at checkout.
The full change is recorded on the public changelog. This post explains the reasoning behind the change and what it means for your trading.
What Changed
Previously, the maximum risk per trade rule at Dolvero involved tiered parameters that varied by account size and phase. While the intent was to be precise about risk exposure at different capital levels, in practice the tiered structure created confusion. Traders were asking support to clarify which tier applied to them, and in a few cases, traders were genuinely uncertain whether a specific trade size was compliant.
That confusion is a design failure, not a trader failure. A risk rule should be immediately clear to anyone who reads it.
The new rule is: do not risk more than 2% of your account balance on any single trade.
That is the entire rule. No tiers. No exceptions based on account size. No special treatment for specific instruments. 2%.
How to Calculate 2% Risk
Risk per trade is defined as the maximum loss the trade can incur if stopped out at your stop-loss level. It is not defined by position size alone — position size without a stop-loss does not produce a defined risk amount.
The calculation:
Maximum risk per trade = Account balance × 0.02
Example: $25,000 account
Maximum risk per trade = $25,000 × 0.02 = $500
If you are trading EUR/USD with a 20-pip stop-loss on a standard lot (where 1 pip = $10):
Position value at risk = 20 pips × $10 = $200 per standard lot
Maximum position size = $500 / $200 per lot = 2.5 standard lotsThe account balance used for this calculation is your current equity balance, not the initial account size. If your $25,000 account has grown to $27,500, your 2% risk limit is $550 per trade. If it has declined to $23,000, your limit is $460.
What Counts as One Trade
This is where traders sometimes try to find workarounds, so we will be direct about how we define it.
One trade means one position entry, regardless of how many tickets it involves. If you open a 1-lot EUR/USD position in three separate 0.33-lot tickets within a 5-minute window on the same instrument in the same direction, that is one trade for the purpose of this rule. The 2% limit applies to the combined exposure.
This interpretation is not punitive — it reflects the economic reality that splitting a position across tickets does not change your actual risk exposure. It only changes the ticket count.
Conversely, genuinely separate trades on different instruments, opened at different times with independent setups and independent stop-losses, are counted separately. If you are long EUR/USD with a $300 risk and short GBP/USD with a $400 risk, each is measured independently against the 2% limit. The $400 GBP/USD trade would be the limit on a $20,000 account.
The Risk Addon
Traders who have a defined trading style that requires position sizing beyond 2% can remove this restriction with the Risk addon, available at checkout when purchasing an evaluation. The Risk addon does not change any other rule — it specifically removes the maximum risk per trade cap.
If you purchase the Risk addon, you are still subject to:
- The daily loss limit (5% of account balance in Phase 1)
- The maximum drawdown limit (10% static drawdown from initial balance)
- All prohibited strategy rules (no hedging, no martingale, no latency arbitrage)
- The ±30-minute news trading restriction
- The no-weekend-holding rule (unless the Weekend addon is also purchased)
Removing the per-trade risk cap does not remove any of these structural limits. It simply means you can size individual positions at your discretion, with the daily and total drawdown limits serving as the effective risk boundaries.
We recommend the Risk addon specifically for traders who use scaling strategies — where positions are built incrementally — or for short-duration high-conviction trades where a wider per-trade risk allocation is part of the strategy. It is not recommended for traders who are still developing their risk management discipline, as the drawdown limits will apply regardless and can be reached faster without the per-trade cap.
Why 2%?
Two percent is not arbitrary. It is the figure that appears most consistently in professional risk management literature as the upper boundary for sustainable position sizing at the individual trade level. The logic behind it is straightforward:
At 2% maximum risk per trade, a trader would need to incur 50 consecutive maximum-loss trades to wipe their account. In practice, a sequence of even 10 consecutive maximum-loss trades — a 20% drawdown — is statistically rare enough with a properly developed strategy that it functions as a strong signal that something is systemically wrong with the approach.
Compare this to a 5% maximum risk per trade: 20 consecutive losses to wipe the account, and a 10-loss streak represents a 50% drawdown that is already within the recovery-improbable zone for most account structures.
At 10% maximum risk per trade — which some traders request — the mathematics become brutal quickly. Five losses in a row is a 50% drawdown. Professional capital allocators do not accept these risk profiles, and neither do we.
The 2% default is calibrated to protect both the trader and the firm's ability to sustainably fund trading activity. It is not punitive. It is the number that the math supports.
What This Does Not Affect
To be clear about what has not changed:
- Phase 1 profit target: still 10% of account balance
- Phase 2 profit target: still 5% of account balance
- Daily loss limit: still 5% of account balance
- Maximum static drawdown: still 10% from initial balance
- Minimum trading days in Phase 1: still 5
- Profit split: still 80% (90% with the Split addon)
- Evaluation fee refund: still refunded on the second payout
- Account sizes: still $5K through $200K
- News trading restriction: still ±30 minutes
- Weekend holding: still prohibited by default (removable with addon)
The only thing that changed is the maximum risk per trade rule — specifically, the replacement of the previous tiered structure with a single, universal 2% figure.
For Traders Currently in Evaluation
If you are currently in Phase 1 or Phase 2 of a Dolvero evaluation, this rule update applies to you immediately. You do not need to restart your evaluation. You simply need to ensure that from today forward, no single trade risks more than 2% of your current account balance.
If your evaluation was purchased with the previous rule structure, and the previous maximum risk per trade limit was higher than 2% for your specific account tier, the new 2% limit is now in effect. If the previous limit was already 2% or lower for your account tier, nothing changes for you in practice.
If you have questions about whether a specific position size is compliant with the 2% rule, use the calculation method described above or contact support through your dashboard.
Changelog and Transparency
This rule update is entry #3 in the Dolvero public changelog. Every rule change we make is documented there with the exact wording before and after, the effective date, and the rationale. The changelog is at /changelog and is updated whenever a rule changes — including minor wording clarifications.
We publish changelogs because rule changes in prop trading are one of the most common sources of trader frustration. A firm that changes rules without notice, or that is vague about what changed and when, creates a compliance environment that traders cannot reliably navigate. Our approach is the opposite: every change is public, timestamped, and explained.
If you want to stay current with Dolvero rule changes, bookmark the changelog. It is the authoritative source.
Start or Continue Your Evaluation
Full current rules are at /rules. Pricing — including addon options — is at /pricing. The evaluation process is explained at /how-it-works. You can start a new evaluation at app.dolvero.com/start.
Use discount code 2026 for 26% off any evaluation purchase.
