Everything to Know About Withdrawals From Apex Trader Funding

Apex Trader Funding is one of the better prop firms available for futures traders. However, they have a… questionable style of explaining things in the documentation found on their site.

Due to what some may call word vomit, it makes their already complicated system even more complicated for the average trader. I imagine this turns a lot of potential customers off, because it is a bit of a headache to navigate all of the information without wanting to give up in the first 15 minutes.

I offered to re-write Apex Trader Funding’s documentation for them, and they refused, so I will explain everything about their profit withdrawal system here, instead. If there is still any confusion, please do reach out and I will do my best to write it in a way that is more understandable for everyone.

Why Even Use Apex Trader?

Before we begin, you may wonder why I would bother with a firm that’s complicated in the first place, when there are other firms out there. Believe me, I know. I’ve written up a comprehensive analysis of all the major futures trading funding companies out there, which you can start reading here.

Apex Trader offers something most firms don’t, which is the ability to manage up to 20 simultaneous accounts on one login, and the ability to copy trade across all of them. This provides a trader with the tools to earn way more profits than they normally would with their own capital, assuming they know what they are doing.

If you take advantage of Apex’s sales, the cost per account is quite competitive as well. I wouldn’t call them the best firm due to their complicated system, as you’ll soon read about, but I do think they are undoubtedly one of the best choices available today.

Why Do I Consider Apex Trader Funding’s System Complicated?

It’s all relative. I fully understand these firms now, and writing these posts has helped with that. But I know that newer traders would be perplexed navigating through some of these firms’ websites, especially Apex’s. Compared to other firms, Apex Trader places some major restrictions on funded traders.

When it comes to withdrawing profits, it’s not unlike some other prop firms. Most of these firms enforce rules to limit your initial withdrawal requests, like requiring you to trade a number of days before you can get any money out, or having to leave some money in your account as a buffer. In this regard, Apex doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary.

Compared to firms like OneUpTrader or TakeProfitTrader, however, Apex is undoubtedly more difficult. If you’re one of the more talented traders who can generate big profits in the first week or two (by “big”, I mean more than $3000 per week), you will still have to wait a full 3 months to get access to most of those profits.

For this reason, it’s important that you understand exactly what you will be signing up for, so you are not blindsided by these rules when you find yourself deep in the green in the first month or two.

Avoid WISE, Payoneer, and Revolut When Using Apex

Wise, Payoneer, and Revolut are payment services that need to get their stuff together. According to Apex, payments done through these companies often get rejected, and they ask the account holder to provide extra documentation in order to release the payment.

Some people have had success using them, but many others have not.  Thus, it is recommended to avoid Wise, Payoneer or Revolut as payment processors, to save yourself a headache or two.

Requirements for Withdrawal Requests

First and foremost, there are restrictions on how much you are allowed to withdraw in the first place.

Before you consider making a withdrawal request, there is a minimum balance your account must show at the time of the request. When you do meet the minimum balance requirement, you are permitted to withdraw between $500 and the maximum withdrawal amount, based on which account you have. See the table below.

Apex Trader Accounts	Minimum Balance Required	Maximum Withdrawal Amount (twice monthly, first 3 months)
$25,000	$26,600	$1,500
$50,000	$52,600	$2,000
$75,000	$77,850	$2,250
$100,000	$103,100	$2,500
$150,000	$155,100	$2,750
$250,000	$256,600	$3,000
$300,000	$307,600	$3,500
$100,000 (Static)	$102,600	$1,000

This is the system in place for the first 3 months. No exceptions are made, no matter how much extra money you make.

The system is designed to allow you to withdraw a majority of your early profits, while leaving a small buffer in the account after the payout is processed. As long as you keep profiting, you can keep withdrawing. However, making payout requests is not as easy as you might think.

Payout Cycles

Apex Trader Funding follows a system of specific payout request and processing dates. This system is bi-monthly payout cycles for withdrawal requests, and bi-monthly payout dates for when the requested money is sent out.

This means that you have to request a payout for each cycle at a certain time, in order to receive your profits at the next payout date. If you do not make your request in time, there will be no payout for that payout cycle.

So what are these dates?

Requests for the first payout cycle must be made between the 1st-5th of the month. For the second payout cycle, requests must be made between the 15th-20th of the month.

Payments are made on two payout dates per month – the 15th and 30th. So it may take as long as 14 days just to approve your request, but you can expect it on the next payout date.

What if you blow up the account after a Payout Request?

If you make a payout request, and the site says that the request is pending, be very careful not to blow your account up. If you do, you will not receive the money that was requested.

However, if the request says “Approved”, and you then blow the account, you will still receive your money on the next payment date.

What Happens When Requesting a Payout?

Assuming you follow all of the steps correctly, your payout will be processed according to the dates mentioned earlier, and you are free to continue trading that same day. This is not always allowed at some firms, who may require you to halt trading until the payout is processed.

However, be sure that you won’t be taking any losses that will pull your total balance below the required amount to request a payout. If you do this, your payout request will be denied.

Once it’s processed, you will receive your money, and will be free to make another request during the next payout cycle, if you have accumulated another 10 trading days. This process will repeat each month, with the maximum withdrawal being removed after 3 months of successful withdrawals.

If your payout is denied, you will simply not get your money for that payout cycle. You won’t face any consequences for an incorrect or incomplete request, besides having to wait a few more weeks.

Also, keep in mind that if you get a payout denied, and you still have time to request another one for the current cycle, you still have to wait until the next payout cycle.

What Happens After A Successful Payout Request?

You are allowed to trade after making a request that day, but you should trade responsibly to ensure that your withdrawn funds are not in risk from those trades.

If you submitted a request, and then had your account balance fall below the minimum required balance to make that request, it will be denied. So for the $50k account, the minimum balance is $52,600 for a payout. As long as your trades that day keep it above $2,600, you will be fine.

When you make a withdraw, that month counts as a withdrawal month. You must have 3 separate withdrawal months before you are exempt from withdrawal maximums. So even if you are profitable for January, if you only request a withdrawal in February and March, you will be subject to a limit on your withdrawals in April.

You can withdraw as much as you want, otherwise, as long as the account balance stays at the initial balance +$100. But during the first 3 months, you won’t be able to withdraw enough to take your account below $50,100 anyway, because it will require $52,600 to make a request, and only allow $2,000 per withdrawal.

Additional Rules

30% Rule: No Days with Irregular Gains

I’ve covered the 30% and 20% rules in Part 3 of my series, but I will reiterate here. The 30% rule refers to your profits – no single trading day should be above 30% of your total account’s profits at the time of a payout request. If you do violate this rule, your withdrawal request is denied.

This is a horrible rule for traders, even though it is employed by Apex mostly to deter gambling. It means that you must either ease up on your funded account’s profits from time to time, or, even worse, get more aggressive if you had a great day during one of your 10 day trading periods.

Let me repeat: if you’re able to make a ton of money in one day relative to your 10-day gains, you will not be able to withdraw ANY of your money. Play this situation correctly, especially when you first start.

So what are you supposed to do if your goal is to reach $2600 to be eligible to withdraw $2,000 from your $50k Funded Account?

The best solution, in my opinion, is to cut your days short once you cross about $700 profit. Letting a runner hit $1,000 (which can be very easy on an early morning trend in NQ) will force you to have to earn over $3,000 just to withdraw any of your profits, instead of $2,600. When you’re trying to get your first successful withdraw, both for monetary and psychological motivation, it’s best to get across that finish line as efficiently as you can. Plus, if (or when) you are a master trader, you will know when to get aggressive responsibly, and you can plan around this rule less at that point.

20% Rule: No Cheating the Minimum Trading Days Requirement

The 20% rule says that no more than 20% of your active days should include purely “flipping” positions, which means buying and selling really fast to log a single trade or two. This is a lot easier to manage – just take a single proper trade on those days where you’re not feeling it. If you do this once in every 10 days, it shouldn’t cause a problem.

Step by Step Guide to a Successful Payout Request

Much of this is processed automatically, from what I can tell. To hopefully make this process less painful, I will outline it step by step.

1) Meet the minimum account balance and minimum trading days requirements.

This should be obvious by now, but just in case, double check that you have enough profit to make a request. Then, double check that you have traded for at least 10 days (since the last payout request, if you made one before). This information is available on the Account Summary page in the top menu.

2) Fill out the necessary Payout Method information.

It’s important to update your profile with the pertinent information in advance. When your account is eligible, you will login on apextradingfunding.com and go to this section of the menu shown below.

After you click on Payout Method, it will take you to a section of their documentation about payouts. Scroll to the bottom, where there is some large text that says “CHANGE PAYOUT METHOD HERE.” This link will take you to this screen, where you fill in all the necessary information.

I know, it’s an extra step just getting to the form, but that’s just how it is. Maybe they’ll read this and fix it.

After you’ve filled out you information and saved it, you can proceed with step 2.

3) Fill out the Request Payout Form.

Hopefully the information above is correct, or you are at risk of having your request denied or worse, your money being sent somewhere else.

Then, go to this section of the menu.

Select the appropriate account from the dropdown and input how much money you’re withdrawing. If you cannot find your account, it must not be eligible for withdrawal.

4) Wait for your money (and continue trading!) Do NOT make additional withdrawal requests or reach out to the help desk about the submitted request.

Once a Payout Request is submitted, it cannot be changed, edited, or cancelled. This will not change if you submit a ticket to the help desk because you changed your mind. As I mentioned earlier, this process seems mostly or fully automated, so no one can interfere with it once it is in the system.

If you made a request, and then your account balance dipped too far, it will be automatically denied. No one needs to be informed (except maybe your wife/husband), and you will be free to make a request during the next payout cycle if you meet the requirements then.

5) Repeat for each account.

If you have multiple accounts, you will have to fill them out separately here and press the Request button. The good thing is that the maximum withdrawal amount applies to each account individually, so you can actually withdraw a lot per month if you’re copy trading across several accounts.

Also, if it makes any difference, the money you request from multiple accounts during the same payout request will be sent to you in one transaction. This is what I was told from Apex support, so I will update this if it’s not true. Let me know if you experience something different.

How this System can Be Problematic

Apex Trader Funding is a great company for what they offer, but withdrawing profits here is far from ideal. Here’s an example of how a good trader suffers under this payout system.

Let’s say you’ve got $1,600 of profit on a $50,000 account. During the next trading day, you make $1,100, and your account now qualifies for a withdrawal for crossing $2,600. You might want your money immediately, or at least on Monday the following week.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to get it anytime soon. The next time you can make a request in December will be between the 15th and 20th. After the request is approved, you will have to continue waiting until December 31st to actually get the money. If you miss that payout cycle, you will have to wait until January 15th.

For some traders, this is inexcusable, as they may need the money earlier. To those of you who fall in this category, I recommend you figure out a system that will allow you to manage with infrequent withdrawals. If you can’t, your best option might be trying a different firm.

Conclusion

This should be everything needed to cover withdrawal requests. I

I don’t know about any issues specific to non-U.S. traders and the extra steps involved, but it’s worth looking into. If you are reading this in another country, and care to share your experience withdrawing your profits, please reach out and I will add it to this post.