Margin Call Calculator

Three numbers, and only one of them is yours

Every margin call comes out of an argument between three figures. Two of them come from the broker, one comes from you, and mixing them up is how people end up called on a day nothing went wrong.

The margin level is yours, and it is a ratio: equity divided by used margin, written as a percentage. Used margin is the deposit your open positions are holding, which on a forex account is the notional exposure divided by the leverage you are offered. 7,200.00 of equity against 6,666.67 of used margin is 108.00%.

The call level is the broker's, and it is also a percentage of used margin. It is the point at which the platform decides your equity no longer covers what the positions are holding. Every broker sets its own, every account type can differ, and some firms warn before it and some simply start closing tickets — which is why this page asks you to type it rather than assuming one.

The maintenance floor is lower, and it is not a percentage at all. It is the notional exposure multiplied by the broker's maintenance margin rate: 200,000.00 of notional at a 0.5% maintenance rate is 1,000.00. Equity at or under that figure is where positions are closed for you, in whatever order the platform picks. The call is a warning about an account; the floor is the account being wound down.

Two percentages and one currency amount, in that order. The reason a call can arrive on a quiet day is that the ratio moves when either side moves: equity drifting down on a widening position raises the risk of a call, and so does the used margin climbing because you added size.

The arithmetic, written out

Worked once with the numbers the page opens with, so you can check it by hand:

1. Used margin: 200,000.00 / 30 = 6,666.67.
2. Margin level: 7,200.00 / 6,666.67 x 100 = 108.00%.
3. Equity at a 100% call line: 6,666.67 x 1.00 = 6,666.67, so the loss that reaches it is 7,200.00 − 6,666.67 = 533.33, which is 7.41% of the account.
4. Maintenance floor: 200,000.00 x 0.005 = 1,000.00.
5. Deposit to reach 130%: 6,666.67 x 1.30 = 8,666.67, minus 7,200.00 = 1,466.67.
6. Cut instead: used margin has to fall to 7,200.00 / 1.30 = 5,538.46, which frees 6,666.67 − 5,538.46 = 1,128.21 of margin, or 1,128.21 x 30 = 33,846.15 of notional. At 110,000.00 per lot that is 0.3077, rounded down to 0.30 lot.

Precision is stated rather than hidden: money to two decimals, levels and percentages to two, lots rounded down to two decimals. Rounding down matters here, because a cut that is one tick too small leaves you a fraction under the target and still on the wrong side of the line.

Two exits, and they are not the same size

Once the level is close to the line there are only two things that change the ratio: raise the numerator or lower the denominator. Both are arithmetic, and the page prints both, because they are rarely the same amount of pain.

Putting money in moves equity. The deposit that restores a target level is used margin times the target, minus what you already have — 1,466.67 on the defaults. It is the fastest fix, it costs cash you may not have, and it changes nothing about the exposure you are carrying. The position that caused the problem is still there at the same size, and if it keeps going the same way you will be back at the line with a larger balance behind you.

Taking size off moves used margin. Closing part of the book releases the deposit those positions were holding, and every unit of released margin is multiplied by the leverage when you translate it back into notional: freeing 1,128.21 of margin at 30:1 means giving up 33,846.15 of exposure, or 0.30 lot. It costs nothing, it reduces the position that got you here, and it locks in whatever loss those tickets are already carrying.

Which one is cheaper is not a preference, it is a comparison of two numbers the tool prints side by side. What is worth noting is the asymmetry: the deposit buys time at full exposure, the cut buys safety by giving up exposure. Traders who never have the cash available only ever get the second option, which is a good argument for keeping the level far enough above the line that the choice is still yours when it matters.

What one lot actually releases

The cut figure is in notional, and notional only becomes an order when you divide it by what one lot of that instrument carries. That is the last column of the contract file, and it is not the same number on every symbol — which is why "cut half a lot" means something different depending on what you are holding. Below is every instrument in this site's contract data whose pip size is 0.0001: 61 symbols, with the contract size that decides what a single lot releases when you take it off.

Sixty of those rows carry 100,000 units to the lot and one — the custom instrument row — carries a single unit, which is what most CFD index and crypto products look like in this file. That is the whole reason the cut has to be converted through the contract size: releasing 33,846.15 of notional is 0.30 lot of a 100,000-unit forex pair and 33,846 contracts of a one-unit product, and only one of those is an order anybody would recognise.

The quote currency column matters for a second reason. Cutting a ticket whose quote currency is not your account currency releases margin that was being held in your own currency but was calculated from exposure in another one, so the notional you remove and the equity effect you see are two different conversions. Everything on this page is stated in your account currency for that reason.

These rows are published as an open dataset under CC0, along with the drawdown and losing-streak tables behind the other guides: see reference data.

What the line does not tell you

The level is a measurement of an account at one instant, and it is a worse guide than it looks. Left out on purpose:

• How far price has to travel. This page measures the gap in money. Turning it into pips needs the pip value of your exact size, which is the forex margin calculator's output — that page counts the pips, this one counts the equity.
• Which ticket gets closed. At the maintenance floor the platform chooses, usually starting with the largest or the worst. Nothing here models the order.
• Overnight financing and swap. Charged to equity while you hold, so a position that never moves can still walk the level down.
• Gaps. A margin level is computed between ticks. A weekend gap or a news spike can put equity below both the call line and the floor before anything is calculated.
• Positions held elsewhere. Two brokers, one risk profile. Nothing here can see the other account.

Every one of those makes the real figure arrive sooner, never later. Treat the level as where you are, not as a schedule.

Questions traders ask

Whichever figure your broker publishes for your account type — this page cannot know it and does not guess one. Type it into the call level field; the default of 100% is a placeholder, not a recommendation. The same goes for the maintenance rate: 0.5% is filled in so the page has something to compute with, and your own number belongs there instead.

Equity minus the call level applied to used margin. On the defaults here, used margin is 6,666.67, a 100% line puts the call at 6,666.67, and equity is 7,200.00 — so 533.33 of loss reaches it, 7.41% of the account. Add size and the same loss arrives faster, because used margin rises and the line moves up with it.

No. The call is the warning level, a percentage of used margin — 6,666.67 on this page. The stop out is the maintenance floor, the notional times the maintenance rate, which is 1,000.00 here. Between the two the broker is asking you to act; below the second one it acts for you.

Compare the two numbers rather than deciding on principle. Reaching 130% takes 1,466.67 of new cash on the defaults, or 33,846.15 of notional removed — 0.30 lot at 110,000.00 a lot. The deposit keeps your exposure intact and leaves the cause of the problem in place; the cut reduces the exposure and books the loss those tickets are already carrying.

Because the level is equity over used margin, and used margin had grown. Adding a position raises the denominator, so the ratio falls without price doing anything — on this page, taking notional from 200,000.00 to 240,000.00 lifts used margin to 8,000.00 and drops the level from 108.00% to 90.00%, which is under a 100% line at the same equity. The fix is size, not a better entry.

It helps less than closing the largest one. What a close releases is the margin that position was holding, and that is proportional to its notional — so the ticket carrying the most exposure frees the most, whether it is in profit or not. The cut figure above is in notional for exactly this reason: sort by size, not by open P&L.

Related guides

• Forex margin calculator — the pips between your equity and the call, and the margin an order ties up.
• Leverage calculator — the leverage you are actually running and the ceiling that keeps you off the line.
• Forex risk calculator — what is on the table across every open ticket, before margin enters it.
• Forex position size calculator — the size that keeps the level high in the first place.
• Leverage, margin and position size — why margin is an output of size, not an input to it.
• Reference data — the contract specifications behind the table above.

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