E8 Futures Rules: E8 Zero and E8 Signature Explained

E8 futures rules depend on which of the two plans you are on. E8 Zero puts its consistency rule in the challenge and has no daily limit anywhere. E8 Signature Futures has no consistency rule until you are funded, then adds one alongside a soft daily limit. Both run the same EOD Dynamic drawdown, though not at the same percentage. Here is what each plan requires, rule by rule.

E8 Futures Evaluation: How It Works

E8 Futures is E8 Markets' futures program, sold and run separately from the firm's forex and crypto products. There are two plans:

E8 Zero comes in $50K, $100K, and $200K, sold in two versions: Starter and MAX carry identical rules and differ only in price and payout caps, with MAX allowing roughly three times as much per payout, and both let you choose 80% or 100% of profits at purchase.

E8 Signature Futures comes in $25K, $50K, $100K, and $150K, at a fixed 80% payout share.

Both plans are a one phase challenge. You buy a SimFi Challenge account, hit the profit target while staying inside the guardrails, and E8 moves you to a SimFi Performance account of the same size, which is where payouts happen. The drawdown is the only rule that breaches an account, though prohibited practices can get you terminated from the program separately. Everything is simulated at both stages, and there is no live account at the end of it. E8 states it does not operate as a broker or facilitate live market transactions. Neither plan carries an activation fee.

All trading happens on Tradovate, the only platform available for futures accounts, and on a netting system rather than the hedging system E8 runs on the forex side. Opposing orders in the same contract offset each other instead of sitting open as separate positions. Traders can access CME Group products across all four exchanges (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX), full size down to micros.

Here is how the two plans compare, rule by rule.

E8 Zero Rules: Starter and MAX

E8 Zero is a one phase challenge sold in three sizes and two versions. Starter and MAX run the same rule set and differ only in price and how much you can take per payout, so every rule below applies to both. There is no daily loss limit at either stage, and the contract limit runs backwards from what you would expect: the challenge gives you more size than the Performance account starts you with.

The profit target is the one number that changes shape across sizes. It works out to 6% on the $50K, 6.5% on the $100K, and 6.75% on the $200K, so the larger account asks for proportionally more. Only closed profit counts toward it, and there is no deadline.

Passing takes two things: hit the target, and satisfy the 40% best day rule. No single trading day can exceed 40% of the profit target, which works out to $1,200 on the $50K, $2,600 on the $100K, and $5,400 on the $200K. It is not a fail condition. Go over on one day and your target rises instead: the new figure is that day's profit divided by 0.40, and you keep trading until your total reaches it without beating that day again.

Splitting a big winner to get around this does not work. E8 says partial closes across days, or opening positions on one day and closing them across several, may be treated as a single trade idea and consolidated back into one day.

Two things end an account: the drawdown and inactivity.

The drawdown is a hard breach. Your loss level starts 3% below your balance and moves up with your highest end of day balance, so a green day lifts the floor and it never comes back down. Touch it and the account is closed permanently. E8 checks equity as well as balance, so an open position sitting at a loss can breach you before you ever close it. In the challenge the level trails the whole way and never locks, so when you hit the target it sits 3% under your highest close rather than at your starting balance.

Inactivity closes the account after 7 days without a trade placed and closed, at either stage. The clock runs on newly purchased accounts too, so it starts before your first trade.

E8's rules reward consistency more than any single good trade. Tanto syncs your Tradovate fills as they happen and keeps each E8 account separate. A P&L calendar shows every day's close, so you can see whether your profit is spread out or riding on one outsized day. Tagging trades by setup shows which ones are carrying the account and which are quietly giving it back. That is the difference between passing on a repeatable edge and passing on a lucky week the drawdown takes back later.

E8 Zero Performance Account Rules

The consistency rule is the only thing that drops away at this stage. The drawdown, the 7 day inactivity rule, and the prohibited practices all carry over unchanged. What changes is that payouts open up, requestable daily after market rollover at the 80% or 100% share you picked at purchase.

The loss level also stops chasing you. It locks at your initial balance, triggered by your first payout or by closed profit reaching the drawdown amount, whichever comes first. From that point your floor is breakeven and it never moves again.

E8 Zero Contract Scaling

E8 futures scaling applies to Zero only, and only after you pass. Passing cuts your contract limit before it grows it: the challenge runs flat at 4, 8, or 10 by size, and the Performance account starts you well below that, then gives the size back as closed profit accumulates.

On a $100K account that means starting at 3 contracts, reaching 5 once you have banked $1,500, and 8 at $3,000. The top tier restores what you had during the challenge, not more.

E8 Zero Payout Caps

The payout cap is the only rule that differs between Starter and MAX. Each limits how much you can take in a single request, and the cap is set by account size rather than by how many payouts you have taken, so it does not rise as you go.

The minimum request is $100 of net profit, on either version. Accounts are capped at 5 payouts, and after the fifth the account is deactivated and you move to a free challenge of the same size.

A payout cycle is the span between requests. Each payout draws only on profit earned in the current cycle, so anything left behind stops being eligible for withdrawal. On a $50K Starter with a $1,000 cap, earning $2,500 in a cycle means requesting $1,000 and losing access to the other $1,500, since your next payout can only draw on profit made after the request.

E8 Zero does not require you to leave a buffer the way Signature does, though whatever stays behind functions as one. That cuts both ways: nothing forces you to keep a cushion, so once your loss level has locked at your initial balance, withdrawing your full profit puts your balance on your floor and breaches the account.

E8 Signature Futures Rules

E8 Signature Futures is a one phase challenge sold in four sizes, and it loads its constraints the opposite way from E8 Zero. The challenge is just a target and a drawdown. The Performance account then adds a 35% consistency rule and a 2% daily limit on top. Contract limits are fixed at every stage and never scale.

The profit target is a flat 6% at every size. The drawdown is 4% on the $25K and $50K and 3% on the $100K and $150K, so the larger accounts give you proportionally less room: a $150K has to clear $9,000 on a $4,500 floor, while a $25K clears $1,500 on $1,000.

Passing is the simplest part of this plan. Hit the target without touching your loss level. There is no consistency rule, no daily limit, and no minimum number of days, so a single strong session can clear it.

Failing works the way it does on E8 Zero, with one difference. Your loss level sits 4% or 3% below your balance and rises with your highest end of day balance, and touching it breaches the account permanently. E8 checks equity as well as balance, so an open position at a loss can breach you before you close it. The difference is that the level stops trailing once your end of day balance has risen by the drawdown amount, locking at your initial balance. That happens in the challenge as well as the Performance account, so it is possible to reach your target with a breakeven floor already in place.

Inactivity ends an account here the same way it does on E8 Zero. Go 7 days without placing and closing a trade, at either stage, and the account is closed. The clock runs on newly purchased accounts too.

E8 Signature Performance Account Rules

Signature adds two rules at the Performance stage: a 35% best day rule and a 2% Daily Pause. The drawdown, the 7 day inactivity rule, and the prohibited practices all carry over unchanged, and contract limits stay fixed at the same numbers.

The 35% best day rule means no single trading day can account for 35% or more of your total profit when you request a payout. This rule does not fail you, it delays the payout until your total profit grows enough to bring your best day back under the threshold. If your best day is $1,000, you need $2,857 in total profit before you can request.

Requesting a payout resets your best day along with your profitable day count, and the next check runs only on profit made since. Anything left in the account from an earlier cycle is excluded from the calculation. As on E8 Zero, splitting a large winner across days through partial closes may be treated as a single trade idea and consolidated back into one day.

The Daily Pause is a soft daily limit. E8 takes 2% of your initial balance and fixes it as a dollar amount for the life of the account: $500, $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000 by size. Each morning the pause line is set at that amount below your starting balance for the day, so the line moves but the distance never does. Hit it and trading stops until midnight server time, then resumes. It counts open losses as well as closed ones, so a position running against you can trigger it without you closing anything. It does not breach the account either. E8's servers run UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer, which puts the reset at 5 PM Eastern year round.

One caveat E8 states plainly: positions do not close the instant you hit the limit, and if the delay takes you past 2%, E8 does not rebalance the account. It recommends trading with a stop loss set inside the line rather than at it.

Payouts are fixed at an 80% share, and Signature requires 5 profitable days between payouts rather than allowing daily requests.

E8 Signature Buffer and Payout Caps

The buffer is a permanent balance you have to leave in the account, equal to your EOD Dynamic Drawdown. It stays there no matter how many payouts you take, so that withdrawing your full profit cannot drop you onto your own loss level.

The cap is the most you can request in one payout, and unlike E8 Zero it rises as you take more:

The minimum request is $100 of net profit, and a profitable day means closed profit of 0.3% or more.

Requesting a payout starts a new cycle. Your profitable day count resets to zero, and only profit earned from that point counts toward your next request. Unused profit from an earlier cycle does not carry over, so anything above your cap is not banked for later. This applies to accounts purchased after 14 July 2026.

Accounts are capped at 5 payouts. After the fifth, the account is deactivated and you move to a free challenge of the same size, for accounts purchased after 14 July 2026.

E8 Futures Drawdown Explained

Both plans use the same drawdown mechanic, EOD Dynamic Drawdown.

Your loss level starts a fixed distance below your starting balance, 3% on E8 Zero and 3% or 4% on Signature depending on size. It moves once a day, at market close, rising with your closing balance if you closed at a new high and staying put if you did not. But it is checked in real time, against equity rather than balance, so an open position running against you can breach the account mid session on a trade you never closed. Once you touch the level the account is gone, even if the forced close leaves your balance back above it.

Losses count against you the moment they exist. Profit only counts once you close it. A position up $2,000 that you have not closed does nothing for your level, and if you carry it into the close, your balance has not changed and neither has your level.

Say you start a $100K account with a 3% drawdown. Your level begins at $97,000. Close a day up $1,000 and it moves to $98,000. Close the next day up another $1,000 and it moves to $99,000. Lose $1,000 the day after and it stays at $99,000, because it only ever moves up.

When the Level Stops Moving

Neither plan trails you forever, but they stop at different points.

On E8 Zero, the level trails through the entire challenge and never locks. You reach your target with a floor sitting 3% below your highest close. On the Performance account it locks at your initial balance, triggered by your first payout or by closed profit reaching the drawdown amount, whichever comes first.

On Signature, the rule is the same at both stages. The level locks at your initial balance as soon as your end of day balance has risen by the drawdown amount. On a $100K Signature that means the level stops at $100,000 once you close a day at $103,000.

Once locked, the level never moves again. Your floor is your starting balance, and the only thing at risk is profit you have made since.

What Payouts Do to Your Level

Taking a payout lowers your balance, and on both plans the loss level stays where it is. That is what the buffer requirement on Signature is protecting against: withdraw everything above your level and you are trading on top of your own floor.

E8 Zero has no buffer requirement. The payout cap limits what you can take in one request, but nothing forces you to leave a cushion behind. Once your level has locked at your initial balance, a withdrawal that drops your balance onto that level breaches the account exactly as a losing trade would, and it is closed permanently.

E8 Futures Payouts: Timing and Methods

Both plans pay out from the Performance account only, and the request goes through your dashboard rather than support.

When you can request depends on the plan. E8 Zero allows a request every day. Signature is on demand, meaning any time you satisfy the buffer, the 35% best day rule, the 5 profitable days, and the $100 minimum.

E8 processes an approved request within 1 business day, and funds land 1 to 3 business days after that, so the whole thing runs up to 4 business days. Weekends do not count.

Payments go through one of two providers: Plane for bank transfers, or Rise for crypto. Both have their own country and territory restrictions, and US traders should check Rise's state list before choosing it. E8 charges no commission on payouts, but the provider may take a fee. Once a payout is approved, E8 emails you an invitation link and confirms you can trade again.

Prohibited Trading Practices at E8 Futures

E8's framing is that it restricts only strategies that exploit the simulated environment and would not work on a real market. In practice that produces a specific list, and a few items on it catch people who are not trying to game anything.

No automation. Semi-automated and fully automated trading are prohibited, including bots and AI tools. Manual only.

Trade counts. HFT is defined as more than 300 trades per day.

Tick scalping. At least 50% of your profits must come from trades held 10 seconds or longer.

Front month only. Every instrument must be traded on the front month contract, meaning the one with the highest volume. Trading the wrong month can mean termination or having the profit from those trades deducted.

Lock limits. Holding a position within 2% of a product's lock limit is prohibited.

Hedging across accounts. Opening opposing positions on the same asset across multiple accounts is prohibited, including accounts that all belong to you.

Exploiting the simulation. Gapped or illiquid market trading, taking advantage of slow data feeds, and trading on price display errors or update delays.

All-or-nothing trading. Large volume trades without a coherent strategy, or trading that disregards risk management.

CME compliance. All activity has to follow CME Group rules.

Two more conditions sit around the list. Every account must be traded independently, with no cooperation between traders, though copy trading across your own accounts is fine. And E8 reviews your trading for compliance before issuing a Performance account, so a challenge you technically passed can still be denied.

The penalty for a prohibited practice is termination from the program and a refund of the fee paid on the account where the rule was broken. E8 also reserves the right to de-risk a strategy, require a longer period of consistent trading before approving a payout, or withhold payouts. A short interview with the risk team is possible at any stage, though E8 describes it as random rather than standard.

Other E8 Futures Rules to Know

Trading hours. The permitted session runs 17:00 to 15:10 CT. All open positions are force closed at 15:10 CT every day, on both plans, so there is no holding overnight or over the weekend.

News trading. Allowed without restriction at both stages on both plans. E8 does note that its simulated environment carries slippage the same way a real market does, and recommends avoiding high impact releases, but that is a recommendation rather than a rule.

Account limits. Challenge accounts are unlimited. You can buy as many as you want, in any mix of sizes. Performance accounts are capped: 3 on E8 Zero, 5 on Signature Futures. Passing more than the cap does not forfeit anything, since the extras sit in reserve and activate when your allocation drops back under the limit.

Those caps apply per household, so people trading from the same address or IP share the ceiling. E8 also allows one user profile per person, and creating a second under a different email can get your accounts suspended.

Resets after a failure. Fail an account at any stage and you are eligible for a 10% discount to restart from the challenge phase at the same size and settings. A retry button appears in your dashboard under closed accounts, and the offer is valid for 7 days after the failure. That is separate from the free challenge you get after your fifth payout, which costs nothing.

Bottom Line

E8 futures rules split cleanly between two plans that ask for the same thing in different order. E8 Zero puts its consistency rule in the challenge and takes it away once you are funded, leaving daily payouts and a hard cap on how much you can take each time. Signature runs a clean challenge and then adds a best day rule, a soft daily limit, and a buffer you can never withdraw. Both use the same EOD Dynamic Drawdown, both close an account after 7 days without a trade, and both end after five payouts and hand you a free challenge.

Rules are subject to change, so always check the E8 futures help center for the most up to date rules.

By Team Tanto · Last updated: August 22, 2026