City Traders Imperium Review

City Traders Imperium (CTI) is one of the older names in forex prop trading. It started in London in 2018 and now sells four main programs: a 1-Step Challenge, a 2-Step Challenge, Instant Funding and Direct Funding. You trade forex, gold, oil, indices and a handful of crypto pairs on MT5 or Match-Trader, with leverage up to 1:30 on currencies. The split starts at 80% on the challenges and can reach 100% through CTI's VIP program.

The headline deals are good. A $100,000 1-Step costs $449, nothing has a time limit, and CTI refunds your full challenge fee once you make 10% on a funded 1-Step or 2-Step account. The catches are less obvious. The 1-Step drawdown trails your balance forever and counts open losses, standard funded traders are paid once a month, and CTI's "gambling" and EA rules are the main reason traders lose payouts. This review covers all of it with dollar examples.

The short version

• Best for: patient forex traders who size small, hold trades for days, and want a long-running firm that hands the fee back.
• Not for: hedgers, grid or martingale traders on most plans, anyone running a bought EA on the 2-Step or instant plans, and traders who want weekly cash from day one.
• Biggest strength: a static 10% drawdown on the 2-Step with no time limit, a refunded fee and a split that climbs to 100%.
• Biggest risk: the over-leverage rule. Push your margin level to 150% or lower on one trade idea and CTI can fail the account or block a payout.
• Our score: 4.2 out of 5. Top marks for track record and payout terms, held back by middling value for money.

Who runs City Traders Imperium

CTI's About page says the firm was founded in 2018 by Daniel Martin and Martin Najat and "grew from a London startup". Today the challenges are provided by City Traders Imperium Limited, incorporated in the Comoros Union (company number 15969), with a registered address in Mutsamudu, Anjouan, and an operating address in San José, Costa Rica. A second company, CTI FZCO in Dubai Silicon Oasis, runs the CTI Academy courses. Finance Magnates reported on 14 May 2025 that the Comoros setup let CTI run its own MT5 server instead of going through partner brokers.

The full terms sit in a 30-page PDF. The summary terms page doesn't state the governing law or where disputes are heard. It does say neither company is a broker, dealer or investment adviser, and neither takes client deposits.

CTI's documents disagree on whether the money is real. The website and terms say all trading happens "in a demo environment using virtual capital". The help center articles for Instant Funding and Direct Funding say "real funding from the start", and the gambling rules page talks about live execution and real liquidity. Treat every account as simulated, with payouts paid by CTI.

The rulebook lives in a public help center, organized by program, with separate articles for drawdown, profitable days, consistency and prohibited methods. It's detailed, but you need to read several articles to get the full picture for one plan.

Programs and prices

Prices below are one-time list prices from CTI's program pages, checked on 28 October 2026, before any coupon. CTI cut its challenge prices on 1 June 2026 and told Finance Magnates the cut is permanent.

A profitable day at CTI means closing at least 0.5% of your starting balance in net profit that day. That's $50 on a $10,000 account. Every challenge needs 3 of them per phase.

1-Step Challenge

The cheapest way in, and the only plan with a trailing drawdown.

• Make 8% with no daily loss limit and a 5% maximum trailing drawdown.
• At least 3 profitable days. No time limit.
• Any EA allowed, including third-party ones. Martingale allowed.
• Funded: 80% split (90% at VIP Bronze, 100% at Silver), same 5% trailing drawdown.
• Fee refunded in full at your first 10% profit on the funded account.

How the trailing drawdown works. The floor is your highest closed balance minus 5% of the starting balance. It moves up with every new high and, per the help center, it never stops trailing. It's set by your balance, but you're stopped out if your equity, including open losses, touches it.

Worked example, $10,000 1-Step. You start with a floor of $9,500. Close trades that take you to $10,400 and the floor rises to $9,900. Reach $10,500 and the floor is at your starting balance. You pass at $10,800, after at least 3 days with $50 or more in closed profit. On the funded account, if your high is $10,600 and you withdraw $400, CTI subtracts the withdrawal: the new floor is $10,600 − $400 − $500 = $9,700.

2-Step Challenge

The classic route, with a static drawdown that never moves.

• Phase 1: make 10%. Phase 2: make 5%.
• 5% daily loss limit and 10% maximum loss in both phases and when funded.
• At least 3 profitable days per phase. No time limit.
• Your own EAs only (you must own the source code). No martingale. Not available to residents of Vietnam.
• Funded: 80% split rising to 100% through VIP. Fee refunded at your first 10% funded profit.

Worked example, $50,000 2-Step. Your account can never go below $45,000. The daily loss limit is $2,500 measured from each day's starting balance, so if a day opens at $51,000, your equity can't touch $48,500 before the reset. Hit $55,000 to finish phase 1 and $52,500 in phase 2, each with 3 days of $250 or more. Once funded, your first 10% ($5,000) of profit also brings back the $329 fee.

Instant Funding

No evaluation, but you start with half the account and earn your way to the rest.

• You begin at Level 1 with 50% of the stated size. Make 10% and the balance doubles.
• 6% static drawdown from your starting balance. No daily loss limit, no time limit.
• Split: 50% on Level 1, 70% on Level 2, 80% from Level 3, then 90% and 100% through VIP.
• You can only collect the Level 1 profit share after you hit the 10% target on Level 2.
• To keep scaling, you need a 20% consistency score (explained below). Own EAs only.

Worked example, $20,000 Instant. You pay $449 and trade $10,000, with a floor of $9,400. Make $1,000 and you move to a $20,000 Level 2 account. Your 50% share of that first $1,000 is $500, but you can't withdraw it until you've made another 10% ($2,000) on Level 2. In other words, you need $3,000 of trading profit before you see your first $500.

Direct Funding

Direct skips Level 1 and starts you on the full balance.

• Full account size from day one, at Level 2.
• 6% static drawdown, no daily loss limit, no time limit.
• 70% split, 80% from Level 3, 90% and 100% through VIP.
• First payout after 5 profitable days. Scale by doubling at each 10% milestone with a 20% consistency score, up to $2 million per account.

Worked example, $10,000 Direct. Your floor is $9,400 for good. After 5 days with at least $50 in closed profit and $200 total, you can request a payout. Make $600 and you keep $420 at 70%. Reach $11,000 with a qualifying consistency score and the account doubles to $20,000.

CTI also sells a 3-Step Challenge from $1 (3%, 5% and 7% targets, 4% trailing drawdown, 2% daily limit) and an Instant Funding Pro plan that's mentioned in the help center. We haven't covered those in detail.

Which City Traders Imperium plan should you pick?

The 2-Step is the best all-round plan. A fixed 10% floor, a 5% daily limit, no deadline and a fee that comes back. If you trade forex with normal stops and don't mind two targets, start here.

The 1-Step is cheaper and suits traders who use third-party EAs or martingale, since it's the only one of these four plans that allows both. The trade-off is a 5% drawdown that follows every new balance high, counts open losses and never locks. With an 8% target against 5% of room, you need a high win rate.

Instant Funding is expensive for what you trade. A $20,000 Instant costs $449 for $10,000 of starting capital, and your first payout depends on making 10% twice. It only makes sense if you're confident in your edge and want the scaling path to $2 million.

Direct Funding costs about $40 to $50 per $1,000 of funding. That's roughly ten times the $100,000 1-Step, paid to skip the test and get a 70% split straight away.

Measured by cost per $1,000 of funding, the cheapest option is the $100,000 1-Step at $4.49 per $1K. The best value with real room is the $100,000 2-Step at $549 ($5.49 per $1K), with a static $10,000 floor and a refundable fee.

Trading rules in practice

Drawdown and the daily reset

On every program the limit is set from your balance, but CTI checks it against equity. A trade that's open and losing can breach the account before you close it.

The 2-Step daily limit resets at midnight platform time: GMT+2 on MT5 and GMT+0 on Match-Trader. Those are two different resets depending on your platform, so check which one you're on.

Leverage and fees

CTI sets leverage by asset class:

The leverage page doesn't list Direct Funding separately.

Commissions are $5 per lot on forex and metals, $0.05 per lot on oil, $0.50 per lot on indices, and nothing on crypto. Trading 2 lots of EUR/USD costs $10 in commission at the stated rate. The help center doesn't say whether that's charged once or on both the open and the close, so check the first trade on your statement. CTI quotes an average EUR/USD spread of 0.1 pips. Swaps apply at 00:00 server time and are tripled on Wednesday for forex and metals, and on Friday for indices and crypto.

The over-leverage rule

This is the rule behind most of CTI's payout disputes. CTI treats it as "gambling" when you:

• try to pass with one trade idea, or stack positions on the same symbol to hit the target fast,
• suddenly trade much larger than usual, especially in a drawdown,
• use so much margin on one idea that your margin level falls to 150% or below.

Margin level is equity divided by used margin. On a $10,000 account at 1:30, about $200,000 of exposure ties up $6,667 of margin and puts you right at 150%. A first offence can bring a warning, reduced leverage or a 1% risk-per-idea limit. Repeat it and CTI can fail the challenge, close a funded account or refuse payouts. In June 2026, Finance Magnates reported funded traders saying their accounts were breached after stops of roughly 2.5% to 5.6%, and CTI's CEO pointed to this over-leverage policy.

News, weekends and overnight

News trading is allowed with no restrictions on every program. Holding overnight and over the weekend is also allowed on every plan, at every stage. The only news limits apply to EAs: bots that scalp right before or during major news are banned.

EAs, copy trading and hedging

• 1-Step: any EA, including third-party ones. CTI warns that a popular EA can trigger a coordinated trading flag if other traders run it too.
• 2-Step, Instant and Direct: you must own the EA, and CTI can ask for the full source code.
• Banned on all plans: HFT, tick-scalping, micro-scalping, arbitrage, and EAs that scalp the 00:00 rollover.
• Copy trading: allowed only with a CTI account as the master. You can copy from CTI to your own broker or another prop firm, but not into CTI.
• Hedging: banned on every program, including across accounts and on correlated instruments such as EUR/USD against DXY or US30 against SPX500.
• Also banned: grid trading, bracketing (buy-stop and sell-stop either side of price), one-sided bets, and martingale except on the 1-Step.

Consistency score

The 1-Step and 2-Step have no consistency rule. Instant and Direct use a consistency score only to decide whether you can scale. The score is your biggest single day, win or loss, as a share of all your daily wins and losses added together. Lower is better, and you need 20% to scale. If your biggest day is $400, you need at least $2,000 of total daily results, counted as positive numbers, to get down to 20%.

Account limits and activity

On the challenges you can hold up to $200,000 of starting balance in total, such as 2 × $100,000 or 4 × $50,000. A second $100,000 2-Step needs a payout on the first. Instant and Direct cap you at 2 × $80,000 or the equivalent.

You must place at least one trade every 30 days on every account, or it's suspended and can't be reactivated. CTI emails reminders on day 28 and day 30, and can freeze an account for up to 2 months if you ask in advance.

How payouts work

Your first payout is on demand once you have at least 7 profitable days on a 1-Step or 2-Step (5 on Instant and Direct) and net profit of at least 2% or $100, whichever is higher. On a $50,000 account that's $1,000.

After that, how often you're paid depends on your level:

You can skip the wait whenever your eligible net profit reaches 10%. Bronze needs an active funded account, no failed accounts in 4 months, 4 payouts and 4% profit per payout. Silver needs 4 months at Bronze, 4 more payouts at 3% each and your maximum account allocation.

Getting the money out is a two-step process. You move profit from the trading account to your CTI wallet, which can take up to 2 business days while the risk team reviews it. Then you withdraw from the wallet by bank transfer or crypto, processed in 1 business day if you ask before 15:00 GMT. The minimum withdrawal is $100, and banks can take another 1 to 14 days.

Crypto has strings attached. Crypto payouts are USDT on the TRC20 network only, carry a 5% fee and are capped at $1,000 per client per month. They aren't available to traders in Vietnam. A $1,000 crypto payout loses $50 to the fee, and anything above the cap has to go by bank.

Fee refund. On the 1-Step and 2-Step, your full fee comes back when you first make 10% on the funded account. On a $100,000 2-Step that's $549 back after $10,000 of funded profit. CTI also says that if your payout total is less than or equal to the fees you've paid, it's processed as a refund to your card. Giveaway accounts get no refund.

Scaling. On the challenges, you qualify after making 10% over the last 4 months, with at least 2 profitable months and the account in profit at the time. Each step adds 50% of the original balance up to $100,000, then $100,000 grows in steps to $112,500, $125,000, $150,000, $175,000 and $200,000. Instant and Direct double at each 10% milestone, up to $2 million per account.

CTI's own pages don't all say the same thing:

Plan for the help center version of payout timing. The refundable fee at 10% is spelled out in a dedicated help center article, so we'd treat that as CTI's position, but keep a copy of it.

Who can sign up

You must be 18 or older and sign up as an individual, not a company. The help center blocks residents and nationals of Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, plus the Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. The website footer lists a shorter set (North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Russia, plus anyone under sanctions), so go by the longer list. If you register from a restricted country, CTI closes the account without a refund.

Traders in Vietnam can't buy the 2-Step or Instant Funding Pro and can't take crypto payouts.

US traders can sign up, but CTI's MT5 is for non-US traders only, so you'd trade on Match-Trader. Match-Trader has TradingView charts built in. KYC applies before payouts, and every payout must go to an account in your own name.

Reputation

On Trustpilot, City Traders Imperium scores 4.3 out of 5 from 1,635 reviews, checked on 28 October 2026. 82% of reviews give five stars, 9% four stars, 2% three stars, under 1% two stars and 6% one star. CTI claimed its profile in January 2020, pays for a Trustpilot subscription, invites customers to leave reviews, and had replied to 96% of negative reviews, typically within a week. See the Trustpilot page.

The positive reviews mostly praise quick, polite support, low spreads and payouts that arrive on time, and a few mention getting challenge fees refunded. The negative reviews cluster around three things: payouts rejected over risk or "gambling" rules, the request for full EA source code on Instant and 2-Step accounts, and the 1-Step trailing drawdown being harder than expected.

Finance Magnates covered CTI on 16 June 2026, reporting the 1 June price cut and complaints from funded traders about breached accounts, which CEO Martin Najat attributed to the over-leverage policy. We found no regulator actions. CTI's About page claims more than 100,000 traders, but it doesn't publish verified payout totals.

Mistakes to avoid at City Traders Imperium

1. Treating the 1-Step floor like a static one. It follows your highest balance forever and counts open losses. A $10,000 account that reaches $10,600 can be stopped out at $10,100 equity.
2. Stacking size on one idea. A margin level of 150% or lower counts as gambling. Spread risk and keep each idea small.
3. Running a bought EA on the wrong plan. Third-party EAs are only fine on the 1-Step. On the 2-Step, Instant and Direct, CTI can ask for your source code.
4. Hedging correlated markets. Long EUR/USD with long DXY, or opposite trades on US30 and SPX500, counts as hedging and can void profits.
5. Counting on crypto payouts. The 5% fee and $1,000 monthly cap make bank transfer the realistic route for bigger withdrawals.
6. Going quiet for a month. One trade every 30 days keeps the account alive. Miss it and the account is gone for good.

Before you buy: checklist

• Decide whether you can live with a trailing drawdown. If not, skip the 1-Step.
• Check your average margin use per trade idea against the 150% margin level line.
• Confirm your EA is allowed on the plan you're buying, and whether you'd share its code.
• Note your platform's daily reset: GMT+2 on MT5, GMT+0 on Match-Trader.
• Plan for monthly payouts as a standard funded trader until you reach VIP Bronze.
• Use code SCOUT at checkout. See our City Traders Imperium coupon page for how to apply it.

Our verdict

City Traders Imperium is a solid choice for forex traders who trade with modest size and want a firm that's been paying since 2018. The 2-Step, with a static 10% floor, no deadline and a fee that comes back at 10% funded profit, is the plan to buy, and the VIP ladder gives patient traders a real path to a 100% split.

Be clear-eyed about the rest. The 1-Step trails your balance with no lock, standard traders wait for a monthly payout window, and the over-leverage rule leaves room for CTI's judgment. Trade small, keep your EA paperwork in order, and read the prohibited methods article before your first trade.