Margin Requirement Calculator

Find out exactly how much margin a leveraged position locks up before you open it. Enter position size (units), entry price, leverage, and your account currency: the tool returns the required margin, the margin percentage of the notional value, and, if you enter your account balance, the free margin and margin level that decide whether your broker issues a margin call. That last pair is the point of this page. Plenty of tools stop at the required margin figure; this one also tells you how much room the position leaves you.

Quick Answer

Worked example, checked against this exact tool

One standard lot of EUR/USD: 100,000 units at 1.0850, leverage 1:100, account balance $10,000. Enter 100000, 1.0850, 100, USD, 10000: notional value = 100,000 x 1.0850 = $108,500.00; required margin = 108,500 / 100 = $1,085.00; margin = 1.00% of notional; free margin = 10,000 – 1,085 = $8,915.00; margin level = (10,000 / 1,085) x 100 = 921.66%, in the safe zone. These exact figures are what the calculator above produces. Change only the leverage to 1:30 and the same position needs $3,616.67 of margin, leaving $6,383.33 free and a margin level of 276.50%: still safe, but a much larger share of the account is now locked up.

Margin vs leverage, in one paragraph

Leverage is the ratio (1:100 means you control $100 of position with $1 of your own money). Margin is the dollar amount your broker actually locks up as collateral: $1,085 for a $108,500 position at 1:100. Higher leverage means a lower margin requirement for the same position, but it does not reduce risk: the same price move loses the same dollars, and the smaller margin buffer means less room before a margin call. That distinction is the whole reason this page shows free margin and margin level next to the required margin, instead of leaving you to guess how much room is left.

Leverage tiers at a glance

Margin % = (1 / leverage) x 100. For the $108,500 position in the worked example, each tier locks up:

Retail traders in the EU and UK are capped at 1:30 for major pairs under ESMA and FCA rules; higher tiers are typically available only to professional clients or through brokers in other jurisdictions. That cap is why the 1:30 row matters more than the 1:500 row for most readers, even though the 1:500 figure looks cheaper.

Margin level: the number that triggers the call

Margin level = (account balance / used margin) x 100. It is the health gauge of your account: most brokers issue a margin call when it drops below 100%, and experienced traders keep it above 200% as a buffer against volatility. The 200% line is a widely used comfort buffer, not a regulatory rule, and the 100% line is the common broker tripwire, not a universal constant: your broker’s client agreement states its exact margin-call and stop-out levels, and some set them differently. What the tool adds is the translation from those lines into your numbers: at 921.66% you are far from either line, at 138.25% (the same position on a $1,500 balance) you are in the caution band, and at 92.17% (a $1,000 balance) you are already below the 100% line before the market has even moved, with a free margin of -$85.00, meaning the balance does not even cover the required margin.

One distinction the tool’s labels hide, and you should know: the calculator divides by the balance you enter, while a live broker divides by equity, which is balance plus or minus the profit or loss on open positions. That is why a position that starts at a comfortable level can drift toward a margin call as it loses money, even though the required margin itself never changed. The dollar walkthrough below uses equity for exactly that reason.

What a margin call looks like in dollars

The margin level is abstract until a trade goes against you. Take the worked example with a $2,000 account instead of $10,000: required margin is still $1,085.00, free margin starts at $915.00, and the margin level starts at 184.33%. Now the pair moves 1% against the position, a $1,085.00 loss on the $108,500 notional. Equity falls to $915.00, and the margin level drops to 84.33%: below the 100% line, so the broker issues a margin call. One percent, and you are already being asked for more money.

You can state that fragility as a single number before you trade. The adverse move that reaches the 100% line is (balance – required margin) / notional value. On the $10,000 account that is (10,000 – 1,085) / 108,500 = 8.22%: the position can absorb an 8.22% adverse move before equity equals the margin. On the $2,000 account it is (2,000 – 1,085) / 108,500 = 0.84%, which is why the 1% move in the walkthrough crosses the line. This threshold is prose arithmetic from the tool’s own outputs, not a separate tool output: it keeps this page’s question distinct from a liquidation-price tool, which answers a different question about a specific position’s close-out price. If your threshold is under 1%, the position is fragile whatever the margin figure looked like on its own.

Margin call vs stop out: two different tripwires

A margin call is a warning, usually at 100% margin level: the broker tells you to add funds or close positions. A stop out is the next tripwire, often around 50% margin level, where the broker starts closing your positions automatically, beginning with the most unprofitable. Margin calls ask you to act; stop outs act for you, and usually lock in the worst of the loss. The levels vary by broker and jurisdiction: some set stop out at 20%, others at 50%, and a few use a tiered schedule. Check your broker’s client agreement for the exact figures, then use this calculator before opening a trade to see how far your planned position leaves you from each line.

Margin is collateral, not a fee

A common misunderstanding: margin is not money you spend. It is a security deposit the broker locks up while the position is open and releases when you close it. Your actual trading costs are the spread, any commission, and overnight swap charges. The margin itself comes back, provided the position did not lose it. Thinking of margin as a fee leads traders to pick the lowest-margin broker instead of asking the important question: with this position size and this account balance, how far can the market move before I get the call?

Position sizing is the other half of this math. Our risk per trade calculator sizes positions by the share of your account each trade actually risks. Our max loss per share calculator works out exactly how much a losing position can cost at your stop level. And once you have a track record, our profit factor calculator measures gross profit against gross loss, so you can check whether your edge survives real trading costs. For the other side of the margin question, the isolated margin calculator covers liquidation price and adverse move for an isolated position, while this page answers the account-level question: free margin and margin level from your balance.

What competing calculators miss

Most forex margin tools stop at the required margin figure, or show free margin without explaining what moves it. Some add live prices, which this tool deliberately does not: a live price helps you copy today’s number, but it hides the formula and goes stale the moment you read it. A few add reverse modes or pip values, useful features for other questions, but they still leave the margin-call mechanism unexplained. This page gives all three numbers that matter (required margin, free margin, margin level) in one pass, states the ESMA 1:30 retail cap the tier table implies, explains the balance-versus-equity distinction that decides whether a level holds, and walks the margin call through in dollars with the adverse-move threshold. The one thing it does not do is pretend to be your broker: tiered margin schedules, spreads, commissions, and swap charges all shift the exact figure, and the tool says so under the calculator rather than burying it.

Frequently asked questions

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