Which Prop Firms Actually Allow an EA (Checked August 2026)
Almost every major prop firm allows Expert Advisors. That is not the useful question. The useful question is which specific behaviours get an account closed after it has already passed, because those are the rules people actually breach: copy trading between accounts, holding times measured in seconds, trading through news, and running the same strategy across more capital than the firm permits.
This page separates the two. First the per-firm position on EAs, then the five restrictions that sit underneath a "yes, EAs are allowed" and cause the majority of terminated accounts.
- EA permission is close to universal. Restriction detail is where firms differ.
- The rule that catches most automated traders is copy trading, not the EA itself.
- Holding-time floors and news windows are enforced retroactively, after you pass.
- Firms cap total capital per strategy across all your accounts with them.
- Rules change. Every row below carries the date we last checked it.
Which prop firms allow an EA
Checked 4 August 2026. Verify against the firm's own rules page before you buy an evaluation, because these are revised without notice and a stale table is worse than no table.
| Firm | EAs | The restriction that actually bites |
|---|---|---|
| FTMO | Allowed, no approval needed, no source code submitted | Copying from someone else's account or a signal service is prohibited. HFT and latency arbitrage prohibited. No trade opened or closed within 2 minutes of major news. Total capital per strategy capped across all your accounts. |
| FundedNext | Allowed on MT4 and MT5, no blanket ban on strategy type | Maintains a list of specifically banned commercial EAs. An automated-trading usage fee applies and varies by account size and challenge type, so price the evaluation with that included. |
| FXIFY | Allowed | Among the more permissive on automation. Standard prohibitions on latency and arbitrage exploitation still apply. |
| The5ers | Allowed | Prohibits HFT, tick scalping, rollover exploitation, and shared third-party EA strategies. That last one matters: an EA many of their traders run can be treated as a shared strategy. |
| E8 Funding | Allowed, stated in the terms | Standard exploitative-practice clause. Read the current drawdown calculation before sizing, since trailing and static behave very differently. |
| Futures firms | Varies by firm and platform | Automation rules on futures evaluations are generally tighter than on forex, and platform support differs. Check the specific product, not the brand. |
The pattern is consistent: the EA is fine, the surrounding behaviour is what is policed.
The five restrictions that close accounts
1. Copy trading, including between your own accounts
This is the most common breach among automated traders, and the wording differs in a way that matters. Copying from a third party or a signal service is prohibited essentially everywhere. Copying between accounts you own is treated differently by different firms: some permit it, some treat identical fills across accounts as a shared strategy. If you run more than one evaluation, read this clause first, because breaching it usually voids the payout rather than just the trade.
2. Holding time
Trades held for a few seconds get classified as tick scalping or HFT. There is rarely a published number, which is the problem: the assessment happens at payout review, on trades you took weeks earlier. If your EA's average holding time is under a minute, assume you are exposed regardless of what the rules page does or does not say.
3. News windows
A firm may void trades opened or closed within a window around high-impact releases. FTMO's is two minutes either side of major news. An EA without a news calendar cannot comply with this, and it will breach it eventually, because NFP and CPI arrive every month whether or not the strategy knows about them.
4. Capital per strategy
Firms cap how much total capital one strategy may run across all of your accounts with them. Scaling by opening more evaluations and running the same setfile on each is the obvious move and the one the cap exists to stop.
5. Consistency
A cap on how much of your total profit may come from a single day. A system that makes its whole target in one session passes every loss rule and still fails the payout review. This is a sizing and pacing problem, and it has to be handled inside the EA rather than by watching it.
How to check a firm yourself in five minutes
- Open the firm's own rules or FAQ page, not a review site. Review sites lag rule changes by months.
- Search the page for:
expert advisor,EA,copy,HFT,latency,news,consistency. - Note whether copying between your own accounts is addressed explicitly. Silence is not permission.
- Find the drawdown definition. Static from starting balance and trailing from high water mark need different position sizing.
- Check whether an automated-trading fee applies, and add it to the evaluation price before comparing firms.
If the answer to any of these is unclear, ask support in writing and keep the reply. A support message is the only thing that helps at payout review.
What this means for choosing an EA
An EA sold on strategy performance alone is only half a product for prop firm use. The half that determines whether you keep the account is rule compliance: does it know the daily reset time in the firm's timezone, does it refuse a position that could cross the daily limit, does it have a news calendar, does it pace daily profit against a consistency target.
Those are the questions to ask a vendor. Most cannot answer them, because the software was built for retail accounts and marketed to prop firm buyers afterwards.
The JPTC EA Hub was built the other way round, starting from the rulebook: a daily drawdown guard that will not open a position that could breach the cap, a hard maximum drawdown stop, consistency-aware profit pacing, and a news pause on high-impact releases by default. It runs on MT4 and MT5 and is a one-time purchase at €797, or €1,497 for Pro.
If you would rather not run the evaluation at all, our challenge passing service runs it on your account with our own software and setfiles, and you keep the funded account with no profit share on your payouts.
Do prop firms allow Expert Advisors?
Can I run the same EA on several prop firm accounts?
Will a scalping EA get my account closed?
Do prop firms charge extra for using an EA?
What happens if my EA breaches a rule?
The EA built for prop firm rules
Daily drawdown guard, hard max-loss stop, consistency-aware pacing and a news pause, on MT4 and MT5. One-time €797, no monthly fee. If you would rather not run the evaluation yourself, we run it for you.
See the EA Hub