Account Reset Conditions, Explained: What Resets and What Does Not (2026)
Account reset conditions are the written terms that say when an account can be restarted, what that costs, and what carries across. They matter more than most traders expect, because three separate mechanics all get called a reset and they clear three completely different things.
The daily reset happens on its own every session and clears your loss limit. An evaluation reset is something you buy, and it restores the balance. And then there is the category nobody advertises: the things a reset does not touch at all, which is where the money usually goes.
This guide covers what each type of reset actually does, what the daily reset time means in practice, what an evaluation reset restores and what it does not, how drawdown behaves across all of it, and how to decide whether resetting is the right call or an expensive way to repeat yourself.
- Separate the three resets. Daily, evaluation, and post-breach are different rules with different conditions and different prices.
- Learn your daily reset time. It is set by the program and is rarely your local midnight, which is how traders put two sessions of losses in one calendar day.
- Do not expect drawdown to reset daily. Maximum drawdown is measured across the account, not the session, and a trailing version tightens as you profit.
- Attach a change to every reset. A reset restores the balance and nothing about the trading that emptied it.
- Read the current terms, not remembered ones. Reset availability and fees are set per program and can change.
Table of contents
- The three things called a reset
- The daily reset and what it clears
- Evaluation reset conditions
- What a reset does not touch
- Deciding whether to reset
The three things called a reset
A reset in a funded trading program is any event that returns some measurement to its starting value. There are three, they operate on different clocks, and confusing them is the single most common source of account reset confusion.
The three, in one line each
The daily reset is automatic, free, and clears the daily loss limit at a time the program defines. The evaluation reset is optional, carries a fee, and restores a failed or stalled evaluation account to its starting state. The post-breach question at the funded stage is not really a reset at all, and it is governed by what your funded terms say about a breach.
Why the naming matters
Because traders make decisions on the wrong one. Someone who believes drawdown resets overnight will trade the last hour of a session as if tomorrow gives them room back. It does not. Someone who believes an evaluation reset clears their trading day count will plan a timeline that the rules do not support. The CFTC's guidance on understanding your contractual obligations makes the general point plainly: the written agreement governs, not the summary you carry in your head.
Reset conditions at a glance
Three things are called a reset. They clear three different things.
Most reset confusion comes from treating these as one rule. Read down the column that applies to the decision in front of you.
The daily reset
- Daily loss limit counter returns to zero
- A soft daily lockout on the previous session lifts
- Your trade count for the day starts again
- Costs nothing and requires no action
The evaluation reset
- Balance returns to the starting figure
- Profit target progress clears
- Drawdown level returns to the start
- Minimum trading days generally start over
What never resets
- A trailing drawdown high water mark, within an account
- The habit that produced the breach
- The fee already paid
- Time spent on an account that failed the same way twice
The window a daily loss limit is measured over. It is the only limit that clears on its own.
The window maximum drawdown is measured over. No session boundary touches it.
Before you pay for a reset
Name the breach in one sentence. If you cannot, you are buying the same outcome again at a discount.
Check whether the cause was size or process. Size is a setting you change today. Process takes longer than a reset fee.
Read the current reset terms, not the ones you remember. Fees and conditions are set per program and can change.
Write the single rule you are changing. A reset with no change attached is a purchase, not a plan.
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Illustrative example. Reset terms, fees and drawdown treatment are set by each program and can change. Confirm your own account terms.
The daily reset and what it clears
The daily reset returns your daily loss limit counter to zero at a program defined time. That is the whole of it. Nothing else about the account is restored, and the reset time is almost never your local midnight.
The reset time is a rule, not a convenience
Programs tie the daily boundary to the trading session, which for futures generally means an evening open in US Central time rather than a calendar day. That has a consequence traders discover the hard way: a losing afternoon and a losing evening can sit on opposite sides of the boundary, or on the same side of it, depending on the clock. Our post on when the daily loss limit resets works through the timing in detail.
What a soft daily loss limit does at the boundary
This is worth being precise about, because it is widely misdescribed. Where a program runs a soft daily loss limit, crossing it ends the trading day only. The account continues into the next session. There is no warning tally and no maximum number of crossings.
What ends a soft daily account is maximum drawdown, because every soft day still spends the drawdown allowance. On a simulated 50K futures account with a $1,000 daily loss limit and $3,000 of maximum drawdown, three full crossings exhaust it. The daily reset gave you a new session each time. It never gave back the drawdown.
Where a program runs a hard daily loss limit instead, the first cross ends the account rather than the day. Some paths use hard daily loss rules and others use soft ones, so this is a per program fact, not a category fact. Confirm which one your account carries.
The consistency profile survives the day too
Consistency requirements measure the share of your total profit that any single day represents, and they are calculated across the account rather than within a session. A daily reset does not touch that calculation. This catches traders out in a specific way: a very large winning day feels like progress toward the target and is simultaneously progress away from the consistency requirement, and no reset boundary softens it. Confirm your program consistency percentage, because the figure at the evaluation stage and the funded stage are usually different numbers.
What the daily reset does not clear
It does not clear drawdown, it does not clear progress toward a profit target, it does not clear the consistency profile you are building, and it does not restore a position limit that scaled down. The daily reset has one job.
Evaluation reset conditions
An evaluation reset returns the evaluation account to its starting balance, clears the profit target progress and returns the drawdown level to the start. It is available on request, for a published fee, and it is the only reset you choose to buy.
What it typically restores
Balance, profit target progress, drawdown level, and the daily loss counter. In effect you are back at day one on the same account rather than opening a different one. Any minimum trading day requirement generally starts over as well, which is the detail most likely to break a timeline, because a trader who was two days from qualifying is now back to the full count.
What it costs at TradeFundrr
TradeFundrr publishes a reset fee per program, set well below the price of a new evaluation. On the simulated futures evaluations the published figures are $49 on the 50K account and $79 on the 100K. Reset pricing is set per program and can change, so treat those as the published figures at the time of writing and confirm the current number in your own account terms before you act on it.
The comparison that actually decides it
| Reset type | Trigger | Cost | Restores balance | Restores drawdown level | Trading day count |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily reset | Automatic, at the program reset time | None | No | No | Unaffected |
| Evaluation reset | You request it | Published reset fee | Yes | Yes, to the start | Generally starts over |
| New evaluation | You buy a new account | Full evaluation price | Yes, new account | Yes, new account | Starts over |
| Funded stage breach | A rule in your funded terms | Governed by your terms | Per your terms | Per your terms | Per your terms |
Illustrative comparison of how the different reset paths behave. Availability, pricing and treatment are set by each program and can change. Confirm the written terms of your own account.
What a reset does not touch
A reset restores numbers. It does not restore anything that produced the numbers, and it does not reach outside the account it is applied to. This is the honest part of the conversation and it is the part worth reading twice.
Trailing drawdown does not go backward
Within a live account, a trailing drawdown level moves up as your equity makes new highs and does not move back down when you give profit back. That is the mechanism, and it means a good week permanently tightens your floor. An evaluation reset returns the level to the start because it returns the whole account to the start. Nothing short of that reverses it. Our post on trailing drawdown explained covers the arithmetic.
A reset does not diagnose anything
Here is the damaging admission. Most accounts that get reset fail again for the same reason, because the reset addressed the balance and the balance was a symptom. If you can name the breach in one sentence, a reset is a reasonable purchase. If the honest sentence is that you are not sure what happened, the reset is buying you another look at the same outcome.
The funded stage is a different question
Resetting an evaluation and continuing after a funded stage breach are not the same decision and are not governed by the same terms. Funded accounts are held to the rules written for the funded stage. Read what your own terms say about a breach at that stage rather than reasoning from how the evaluation behaved. Our post on failing an evaluation and what happens next covers the earlier stage.
Payouts are decided by rules, not by resets
One thing worth stating clearly because the industry has muddied it. At an honest firm, a payout is decided by the written rules, and the only thing that stops one is a rule the trader broke. A reset is a product decision about an account balance. It is not a lever anyone pulls against a payout.
Deciding whether to reset
Reset when you can name a specific, fixable cause and you have already changed the setting that produced it. Do not reset while the honest answer to "what will be different" is "I will try harder."
The three questions
First, what exactly ended the account: a single oversized position, a sequence of small losses inside a plan, or a session where you stopped following the plan entirely? Second, is the cause a setting or a process? Size, stop placement and trade count are settings you change before the next session. Emotional decision making under pressure is a process, and it takes longer than a reset fee to change.
Third, what is the one rule you are changing? Write it down. If nothing goes on that line, the reset is a purchase rather than a plan.
When waiting beats resetting
An account that failed on a day you knew was going badly before it went badly does not need a reset. It needs the next session, traded at a smaller size, with a written rule about stopping. The reset will still be available. The clarity might not be.
Read the terms, every time
Reset availability, pricing, drawdown treatment and trading day handling are set per program and can change. A proprietary trading group, as the CFTC glossary defines it, trades its own capital under its own written rules, which is precisely why those written rules are the thing to read. Our post on the evaluation reset explained goes deeper on the restart decision itself.
Two resets on the same account is a signal, not a setback
There is no rule against resetting twice, and nobody at a firm is judging the count. But the second reset on the same account is worth treating as information. It says the first one did not come with a change, or that the change it came with was not the one that mattered. That is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to make the next decision smaller: reduce size, cut the instrument list, shorten the session, and let the account prove something modest before it is asked to prove a profit target.
Traders who last tend to reset less often than they expect to, not because they are better at trading immediately, but because they stopped treating a restored balance as a fresh start and started treating it as a second look at the same problem.
Frequently asked questions
What are account reset conditions?
Account reset conditions are the written terms that say when an account can be restarted, what it costs, and what carries across. They cover three separate things: the daily reset that clears your loss limit each session, an evaluation reset that restarts a failed or stalled evaluation, and the rules that govern a funded account after a breach.
Does the daily loss limit reset every day?
Yes. The daily loss limit is measured within a single trading day and starts again at the program defined daily reset time, which is usually tied to the session open rather than to your local midnight. Confirm the exact reset time in your own account terms, because trading in the wrong hour can put two sessions worth of losses in one calendar day.
Does maximum drawdown reset each day?
No. Maximum drawdown is measured across the life of the account, not the day. On a trailing drawdown the level moves up with new equity highs and does not move back down, so a profitable day permanently tightens the floor rather than restoring room.
What does an evaluation reset actually restore?
An evaluation reset returns the account to its starting balance and clears the profit target progress, the drawdown level and the daily loss counter. It does not restore anything outside the account, and any minimum trading day count generally starts over as well. Confirm the specifics in your program terms.
How much does an evaluation reset cost at TradeFundrr?
TradeFundrr publishes a reset fee per program, and it is set well below the price of a new evaluation. On the simulated futures evaluations the published reset fees are $49 on the 50K and $79 on the 100K. Reset pricing is set per program and can change, so confirm the current figure in your own account terms.
Can I reset a funded account after a breach?
That is governed by your program terms rather than by a general rule, and it is not the same question as resetting an evaluation. Funded accounts are held to the rules written for the funded stage, so read what your terms say about a breach at that stage before assuming a reset is available.
Is resetting better than buying a new evaluation?
Usually it is cheaper, which is not the same as better. Reset when the account failed to a fixable mistake you can name. Buy time instead of an account when the failure came from a process you have not changed yet, because a reset restores the balance and nothing else.
Reset conditions you can read before you need them
TradeFundrr publishes the daily loss limit, maximum drawdown, reset terms, consistency requirement and 80/20 split for every simulated program up front, so the decision to reset is arithmetic rather than guesswork.
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