NYS Markets Review

NYS Markets is a prop firm registered in Saint Lucia that sells simulated funded accounts in four product lines: CFDs, futures, stocks and crypto. This review covers the CFD line, which runs on MetaTrader 5 with forex, metals, indices, energies and crypto CFDs at up to 1:100 leverage. We track five of its CFD challenges: One Rule, One Trade, 2-Step Classic, Flash and Instant.

The prices swing widely by program. A $10,000 One Trade lists at $48, Flash starts at $38 plus a fee after you pass, and the One Rule program costs up to $1,996 in exchange for a single 4% loss limit and daily payouts. The catch sits in the payout terms: most funded accounts cap each withdrawal at 2% of the starting balance, every payout goes through Rise with a fee, and NYS's own pages disagree on the profit split. This review walks through each plan with dollar examples so you know what you're buying.

The short version

• Best for: disciplined forex day traders who size small, and traders who want the One Rule setup with no daily loss limit and daily withdrawals.
• Not for: news traders, anyone who averages down or hedges, and traders who want to withdraw a big month in one request.
• Biggest strength: choice. Five quite different CFD challenges, all with no time limit and no minimum trading days during the evaluation.
• Biggest risk: the funded-stage rules. A 2% cap per payout request, a 2% loss limit per "trade idea" and, on Flash and Instant, a 1% open-risk limit that ends the account if touched.
• Our score: 4.1 out of 5. It scores well on entry cost and on-demand payouts, and loses points for strict funded rules and an unpublished founding year.

Who runs NYS Markets

NYS's terms name the operator as NYS Markets Ltd, incorporated in Saint Lucia under registration number 2025-00862, with its registered office in Rodney Bay, Gros Islet. A second company, NYS Corp Limited in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, handles payment processing and payout administration; the terms say it operates under license no. 79368293. The terms are governed by Hong Kong law, and both sides agree to try to settle disputes directly in good faith before any formal proceedings. NYS doesn't publish a founding year on the pages we read.

Every CFD account is simulated. The terms say plainly that NYS is not a broker, holds no client money, and that balances and profits inside the program are hypothetical; payouts are paid by the firm under its rules. There is an invitation-only "NYS Live Scale" stage for traders with three completed payouts or $10,000 in cumulative payouts. It moves you to a live account with a partner liquidity provider, with a 3% daily loss limit, no maximum loss, daily payouts and a 50/50 split. An invitation isn't guaranteed.

The rulebook lives in a public help center at terms.nysmarkets.com, with a separate page for each challenge and worked examples. It loads in Spanish by default with an English toggle. When our data team checked, the footer's Terms & Conditions link pointed to a lovable.app address rather than NYS's own domain, so read the terms from the help center.

Programs and prices

Prices below are the full list prices from NYS's pricing page, checked on 28 October 2026. The page advertises 60% off at checkout, so the full price only appears as the struck-through figure. All five plans have no time limit and no minimum trading days during the evaluation, and the daily loss limit (where there is one) resets at 21:00 UTC.

One Rule (One Step)

One Rule strips the rulebook down to a single trading rule: the 4% maximum loss.

• Challenge: make 8%. The 4% loss limit is a trailing drawdown that follows your highest intraday equity, open trades included, and can end up above your starting balance.
• Funded: the floor locks at 96% of the starting balance and never moves again.
• No daily loss limit, no consistency rule, no profitable-day requirement and no risk-per-trade limit.
• Leverage differs from the other plans: 1:50 on forex (half the usual cap), 1:30 on metals and indices, and 1:5 on crypto.
• Split starts at 50% and rises 10 points for every 10% of cumulative funded profit, up to 90%.

The help center's One Rule page lists slightly different prices for five sizes: $238, $378, $738, $1,218 and $1,618 for the $5,000 to $75,000 accounts (the $100,000 matches at $1,996). Your checkout price is the one that counts.

Worked example, $25,000 One Rule. Your floor starts at $24,000 and always sits $1,000 below your highest equity. If an open trade pushes equity to $26,200, the floor jumps to $25,200, even if you never close that trade in profit. You pass when your closed balance reaches $27,000 with no open positions. Once funded, the floor is fixed at $24,000 and there's no daily limit, so on a good week you could make $1,500 and request it all the next day. At a 50% split that's $750, minus Rise's fee (2.5% of $750 is $18.75, which is more than the $15 minimum) for $731.25 in hand.

The same pricing page sells a One Rule Two Step (6% then 4% targets, same 4% trailing loss) from $176 for $5,000 to $1,956 for $100,000, and a One Rule Instant. We don't cover those in detail here.

One Trade

One phase, a 10% target and fixed limits.

• Evaluation: make 10% without losing 3% in a day or 6% in total. Only closed profit counts.
• Funded: same 3% and 6% limits, plus a 2% maximum loss per "trade idea", a 30% consistency target and 5 profitable days before a payout.
• Split is 80%, or 100% with a paid add-on at checkout.

Worked example, $50,000 One Trade. Your floor is $47,000 for the life of the account. If your equity at the 21:00 UTC rollover is $50,000, you can't touch $48,500 before the next rollover. You pass with a closed balance of $55,000. Once funded, any single trade idea can lose at most $1,000 at its worst point, a profitable day means at least $125 of closed profit, and each payout request is capped at $1,000 ($2,000 with the cap add-on).

2-Step Classic

The roomiest plan NYS sells.

• Phase 1: make 8%. Phase 2: make 5%. Both with a 5% daily limit and a 10% fixed maximum loss.
• Funded: same 5% and 10% limits, a 2% loss limit per trade idea, 5 profitable days before a payout, and no consistency target.
• Split is 80%, or 100% with the add-on.

Worked example, $100,000 2-Step Classic. The floor sits at $90,000 and never moves. Starting a day at $100,000 equity, your daily floor is $95,000. Phase 1 ends at $108,000 closed; phase 2 asks for another $5,000. Funded, a trade idea can lose up to $2,000, a profitable day is $250 or more, and each payout request tops out at $2,000.

A tighter sister plan, 2-Step Prime, uses 6% and 6% targets with a 3% daily and 6% maximum loss.

Flash

Flash is the cheapest way in, paid in two parts.

• Make 6% in one phase. There's no daily loss limit; instead a 4% maximum loss trails your highest end-of-day equity, recorded at 21:00 UTC (an end-of-day drawdown).
• An activation fee is due after you pass, before the funded account goes live.
• Funded: the 4% end-of-day trailing loss continues, plus a 1% maximum open risk, a 2% loss limit per trade idea, a 30% consistency target and 5 profitable days.

Worked example, $50,000 Flash. Your floor starts at $48,000. Close a server day at $51,000 equity and the floor rises to $51,000 minus 4% ($2,040), or $48,960. An intraday spike to $52,000 that fades before 21:00 UTC doesn't move it. You pass at $53,000. Funded, the combined floating loss on all your open positions can never reach $500, which is 1% of the starting balance. Touching it closes the account. NYS's help-center example for this plan contains an arithmetic slip (it shows "5% of $105,000" then uses $4,200), but the rule text is clear that the figure is 4%.

Instant

Instant skips the evaluation and starts you on a funded account.

• No profit target. 3% daily loss limit, a 5% trailing loss that follows your highest equity in real time, 1% maximum open risk and a 2% loss limit per trade idea.
• To request a payout you need 7 profitable days within a rolling 30 days, and your best day can't exceed 15% of total profit.
• Split is 80%, or 100% with the add-on. Payout requests are capped at 2% of the account (4% with the add-on).

Our data team noted that the trading objectives page lists Instant only up to $100,000, while the pricing page sells a $200,000 account.

Worked example, $20,000 Instant. The floor starts at $19,000. If equity peaks at $21,000, the floor becomes $21,000 minus 5% ($1,050), or $19,950. That's only $50 below your starting balance, and NYS doesn't say the trail ever stops. Each profitable day needs $50 of closed profit, and if your best day was $300, total profit has to reach $2,000 before you can request anything. Then each request is capped at $400.

Which NYS Markets plan should you pick?

For most traders the 2-Step Classic is the sensible starting point. It has the widest limits (5% daily, 10% total, both fixed), no consistency target, and the funded stage keeps those same limits. You pay for that room with two targets and a higher price per dollar of funding.

One Trade is the best value among the evaluations with fixed limits. The $150,000 account works out to $4.52 per $1,000 of funding and the $100,000 to $4.78. A 6% total limit against a 10% target is demanding, so it suits traders with a tested edge and tight stops.

Flash is the cheapest on paper. The $200,000 account costs $607 in total, about $3.04 per $1,000, the lowest in NYS's lineup. Just know that the funded account's 1% open-risk limit makes it a scalper's account: you can't sit through even a modest drawdown on a swing trade.

Instant suits traders who already know they can produce many small green days. The 15% consistency target and 7 profitable days mean it rewards steady trading and punishes one big win.

One Rule is the expensive outlier, and one of the few plans on our no daily loss limit list: $1,996 for $100,000 ($19.96 per $1,000). You're paying for freedom, with no daily limit, no consistency rule, hedging and third-party EAs allowed, and payouts with no per-request cap. The trailing loss during the challenge and the 50% starting split are the price.

Trading rules in practice

Drawdown and the daily reset

Each plan uses a different kind of maximum loss, which is the first thing to check:

Where there's a daily limit, NYS records your equity at 21:00 UTC and you can't fall more than 3% (One Trade, Instant) or 5% (2-Step Classic) below that figure until the next rollover. That's 5pm in New York during daylight saving time and 4pm in winter. Both limits use equity, so floating losses, commissions and swaps all count.

Leverage and costs

Leverage is set by instrument, and One Rule has its own caps:

NYS doesn't publish a spread or commission table. The help center says costs vary by instrument and are shown in MetaTrader 5, so check the symbol specification before you trade. NYS has no fixed maximum lot size, but its terms reserve the right to act on excessive exposure or full-margin trading.

The swap time is a small contradiction. The trading costs page says swaps are charged at 00:00 UTC, while section 25.1 of the terms says they're charged at 21:00 UTC. Either way, a position held across that cut-off pays one day's swap.

News trading

The news rules differ by plan, and on two plans a single mistake ends the account:

The 10-minute window covers more than opening trades. A stop-loss, take-profit or pending order that fills inside the window counts as a violation, even if you set it beforehand. High-impact events come from the Forex Factory calendar.

EAs, copy trading and hedging

On the four standard plans you can run an EA only if you own it and built it for your own use; bought, rented or shared EAs are banned. Copy trading is allowed only between accounts you own, including your own accounts at other prop firms or your own live accounts. Hedging, martingale and grid-style recovery strategies are prohibited on those plans.

One Rule is the exception. Its page allows hedging, martingale and grid strategies, third-party EAs, and copy trading and signals. The only bans are abuse-type practices such as HFT, latency arbitrage, toxic order flow, server spamming and price-feed exploits.

The 2% "trade idea" rule

This is the funded-stage rule most likely to surprise you on One Trade, 2-Step Classic, Flash and Instant. A trade idea is every trade on the same instrument in the same direction that overlaps, or opens within 10 minutes of the last one closing. NYS adds up the worst floating loss each trade reached, even trades that later closed in profit, and if the total passes 2% of the starting balance it's a hard breach. Your stop-loss level doesn't matter, only the loss that actually happened.

NYS's own example on a $10,000 account: a EURUSD buy dips to minus $120 then closes at plus $50 at 10:00. A second EURUSD buy opened at 10:06 dips to minus $90. Because it opened within 10 minutes, the two count as one idea at $210, over the $200 limit, and the account is closed.

Consistency and profitable days

NYS's consistency rule only applies on some plans, and it never breaches you on its own.

A profitable day needs closed net profit of at least 0.25% of the starting balance. Missing a consistency target doesn't breach you; you just keep trading until the ratio comes down. With a 30% target and a $1,500 best day, total profit has to reach $5,000.

Account limits and inactivity

You can hold up to $400,000 in funded CFD accounts at once, and One Rule accounts don't count toward it. Every account needs at least one trade in any 30-day period, or it can be closed. After you hit a target, NYS's review can take up to 72 hours before the next phase or funded account is activated.

How payouts work

Payouts are on demand once you meet your plan's conditions (our NYS Markets payouts page tracks the current terms); One Rule allows requests from day one of the funded account, more than once a day. All positions must be closed and no pending orders active when you request, and trading is disabled on the account while the payout is processed. The minimum is $50.

The cap per request is the rule to plan around. On One Trade, 2-Step Classic, Flash and Instant, each request is limited to 2% of the starting balance, or 4% with a paid add-on bought at checkout. On a $100,000 2-Step Classic account that makes $6,000, you'd need three requests at the standard cap. The pages don't say whether the profitable-day count resets after each payout, so ask support before you rely on rapid repeat requests. One Rule has no per-request cap.

Payout method. Rise only, to a Rise account in your own verified name. Each payout carries a fee of $15 or 2.5%, whichever is higher, deducted from what you receive. A $400 payout nets $385; a $1,000 payout nets $975.

What each document says about the split and timing:

Plan on 80% (50% on One Rule at the start) and on 48 hours. The 100% split is a paid add-on, not the default.

Fee refund. None. The terms say fees, resets, activation fees and add-ons are generally non-refundable once access is provided.

KYC. Required before your first payout on One Rule and Instant, and before the funded account is activated on One Trade, 2-Step Classic and Flash. Expect an ID, proof of address, a selfie check and, where your country requires it, tax information. NYS may also ask for a video interview, screen recordings or a trading journal, and refusing can cost you pending payouts.

Scaling. There's no automatic scaling plan. The terms say NYS may propose one at its discretion, and Live Scale is by invitation.

Who can sign up

NYS's terms exclude residents of, or people located in, the United States, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, plus jurisdictions under international sanctions and those designated by the FATF where NYS decides it can't serve customers. The FATF list isn't spelled out, so check yours with support. You must be 18 or the age of majority where you live.

One oddity: the payments FAQ lists ACH bank payments for the US, processed through Stripe, even though US residents are excluded. Don't read that as permission. Other payment options are card, crypto, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and every payment method must be in your own name.

Reputation

On Trustpilot, NYS Markets scores 3.4 out of 5 from 2,067 reviews, checked on 28 October 2026. Half the reviews (50%) are five stars and 31% are one star, with the rest split 8% four-star, 7% three-star and 4% two-star. NYS claimed the profile in January 2026, pays for a Trustpilot subscription, and is shown as replying to 99% of negative reviews, typically within a month. Trustpilot also displays a notice that the company "may be associated with high-risk investments." See the Trustpilot page.

The positive reviews mostly mention quick payouts, fast account delivery and helpful support. The negative ones cluster around rules people didn't understand before buying (the 2% idea rule and payout conditions come up repeatedly), rejected or delayed payouts, slow email support, and accounts restricted without a clear reason. Many recent one-star reviews are short and give little detail. That pattern lines up with the documents: the funded rules are strict and detailed, and traders who don't read them first are the ones who get caught.

We found no regulator actions or reports about NYS Markets in the outlets we check.

Mistakes to avoid at NYS Markets

1. Treating your stop-loss as your risk limit. The 2% trade-idea rule counts the worst floating loss each trade reached, and re-entries within 10 minutes stack together. Wait more than 10 minutes before re-entering the same direction.
2. Planning one big withdrawal. On every plan except One Rule, a request is capped at 2% of the starting balance. Factor that into how fast you expect to get paid.
3. Leaving orders on through news. On Flash and Instant funded accounts, one stop or limit filling inside the 20-minute window ends the account.
4. Using midnight as your day. The daily limit and profitable days roll at 21:00 UTC, which is late afternoon in New York.
5. Buying Flash for the price without reading the funded rules. A 1% open-risk limit means a $100,000 funded account breaches at $1,000 of combined floating loss.
6. Setting up Rise and KYC at the last minute. Payouts only go to a Rise account in the same name as your KYC. Sort both before you need the money.

Before you buy: checklist

• Confirm you don't live in the US, Russia, the UAE or a sanctioned or FATF-listed country.
• Read the help-center page for your exact plan, not just the pricing card.
• Check the price at checkout; the help center and pricing page disagree on some One Rule sizes.
• Decide whether you need the 100% split or the 4% payout-cap add-on, since add-ons can only be bought at checkout.
• Open a Rise account in your own name.
• Use code SCOUT at checkout. See our NYS Markets coupon page for how to apply it.

Our verdict

NYS Markets gives you a lot of choice at low list prices, and its help center is unusually detailed, with worked examples for nearly every rule. The 2-Step Classic and One Trade are fair evaluations with fixed limits, and One Rule is a genuinely different product for traders who hate daily limits.

The weak spots all sit after you pass: the 2% trade-idea rule, the per-request payout cap, Rise-only payouts with a fee, and documents that disagree on the split. If you size small, avoid news on funded accounts and plan your withdrawals around the cap, NYS can work. If you trade big or hold through events, pick another firm.